I think there is a huge potential to make money in Zimbabwe by doing business and finance consultancy. The reason I say this is because there is a serious need for such services amongst Zimbabwean entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses in general. In this article, I will be looking at consulting services Zimbabwe needs more of. You can then see that this article will come off dually in that it will benefit two broad clusters. One, it will make business players realize the areas they must get professional help for. Two, it will also make aspiring business and finance consultants see the areas they can niche in when it comes to Zimbabwe.
Business Planning And Documents
The starting point is of course business planning. I am talking about basic things such as conducting market research, refining a business idea, and exploring several areas that all culminate into a business plan. Most people do not carry out the necessary processes to come up with a business plan. It does of course not always mean you necessarily have to come up with a 50 or more page business plan. At times it can just be a small document but you need to do this for the sake of increasing your chances of business success. This area is pertinent and I have personally come across so many requests from people needing business plans or business documents (such as business plans, business proposals, and so on) drafted for them. This is a wise thing to do i.e. seeking professional guidance.
Strategic Planning
You cannot escape from strategic planning if you are to succeed in anything. I have noticed there is a huge appreciation of strategic planning in big businesses or companies. Yet small and medium enterprises, who are the vast majority, do not value this or ever even think about it. Having a business plan is good but you need a detailed plan, a road map, with goals, responsibilities, key performance indicators, and so on, that will define what to do and how to do it daily. Like for instance, a strategic plan can spell out the trajectory for 3, 5, or 10 years. Not only does this help a business in laying out the path but it also makes monitoring and evaluation much easier. Strategic plans are not a quick fix process; I personally have chaired strategic planning or strategic planning review meetings before. It can take several people and long hour days (3 days or more) to do such so you need professional guidance for your business in this regard.
Digital Marketing
This is a serious issue of concern here in Zimbabwe. Ironically most people do not even realize that they need to pull their socks in this area. Granted, most businesses now understand that they need to market their products on digital platforms. However, the overwhelming majority do not have an appreciation of the strategic approaches they have to take in doing digital marketing. Most entrepreneurs and businesses need professionals to guide and inform them on the tried and tested approaches to rolling out digital marketing.
Financial Management
Again many businesses struggle with properly managing their financials. This is a recipe for disaster because financial issues are the second biggest cause of business failure. By the way, it comes second after the marketing element i.e. the number one cause of digital failure is lack of a market or failure to effectively reach markets. Anyways, most businesses do not even know how to structurally put together a traceable system of how they get money in and out, amongst other related issues. It spans from general cash flow management dynamics to somewhat technical areas such as accounting. Most of you need professional guidance in these financial issues. For most of you, it even starts from personal financial management.
Social Media Management
Given the vast business and finance research I do daily I have noticed so many disturbing things. Many businesses in Zimbabwe are not active on social media; some are not even there at all. You can literally look up agribusinesses in Zimbabwe and you will either not find them online or they will be there but their accounts will be scantily dressed. For most of them, you will struggle to find key contact details on their social media platforms. Then the most annoying one for most is their poor response rate. Some do not even respond to comments on their posts at all – it is actually strange because some comments will be people asking about prices and how they can buy. Overall, most businesses need assistance or guidance in how to properly manage their social media accounts. Most businesses might even have to hire professional virtual assistants to do social media management for them.
Branding
I can never underscore enough the importance of branding in business. Branding is an art and a science and is not something that you can just randomly do. I can spend a whole year just putting content on branding issues in business. There are so many angles to branding and most Zimbabwean businesses are not abreast with them. Branding for most is simply coming up with a business name and a logo and that is it; branding is way more than that.
Some of the areas that businesses need to seek consulting services for are customer relationship management, risk management, sustainability issues, project management, and plenty others. I have just highlighted some of them in this article but they are quite many. I personally am into business consultancy and I have seen the need that exists in Zimbabwe. Thus we need more and more businesses to seek help from professional business consultants. On the flip side, we also need to see more and more consulting service providers coming onto the scene.
