Tope Alao

Someone asked: 'How can someone rate the progress made in business, I mean how can someone know if business is progressing or not? '

My answer: there are different metrics you use to measure if your business is actually growing or not so we call them KPIs that is key performance indicator. The way I do it in my business is that every month there are some important things I track.
1. how much is the total sales I make in terms of volume so is it 500,000 naira or a million per month so I have a note on my phone that I save everything
2. how many customers did I have last month compared to this month. so is the number of customers increasing or decreasing those that came last month did they actually come back this month? so the way you can do that is to have a record book or you can use some software to know the number of customers you had last month compared to this month and every other month. This way you will see if it's growing or reducing. if it is growing, your business is in a good state if it is reducing your business is probably in a bad shape or it's probably seasonal so that's why you have to have the record in a place let's say from January to December or we're in July now from January to July. Also, you need to check of those who patronized you last month, how many of them patronize you this month i.e repeat customers
3. the last thing I check is the cash flow. That's a big English but the way I usually check cash flow basically in my own simple way is to check the amount of money I have in my business. So how much worth of goods and physical assets or cash do I have in my business last month compared to what I have this month. The way I do that is to check, the number of goods I have begining of last month so let's say it's 500,000 naira so beginning of this month probably I'm expecting maybe 550,000 or 600,000 based on the growth of the business. so if it is increasing that means you are in good terms. You also take into consideration probably your supplier give you credit and every other thing you owe people. Just try to get an estimate of what your business is worth on a monthly basis so that you are able to determine if you are moving up

When I saw this news that another Nigerian company was raising $259million to start a refinery, at first I laughed. Not because $259 million is a small money (in fact it's huge) But if you consider the fact that Dangote raised more than $12Billion (that's Billion with a 'B') a few years ago to open a refinery and this company will be competing with the Dangote refinery. You will understand that Dangote has an advantage in every aspect.

But considering the history of capitalism, it's always good to have competition so as to drive prices down for the end consumers. Which is why a refinery like this and many more like it is a good thing for the Nigerian consumers.

Though this might mean that it will take more time for Dangote to recoup his initial investment than expected (that's if the competition gets its refinery ready fast enough).

It's an interesting play I'm watching