 Thank you for staying with us. You're still watching The Breakfast on Plus TV Africa and right now it's time for our next hot topic So we're talking about navigating the dollar inflation with the right software for your business and joining us I'm to have a conversation and this is Kendi Ogundari. He's the country manager Zoho Nigeria. Good morning, Kendi Lovely to have you again. Thank you very much for having me. Why do I even always think about Zoho when I hear Zoho? She should be bringing us some drinks to drink. Well, maybe we'll consider that. Yeah, that would be nice. Alright, so we're talking about navigating the whole dollar inflation. I'm sure dollar inflation is crazy for a lot of businesses out there because you try to buy one thing today and tomorrow you're going to replace that same product and because of the dollar inflation the price hike is ridiculous So now let's talk about navigating this and using the right software for your business. So how does technology help in all of this? And then what kind of software should you be looking at that could just help you a little bit? Fine, it might not be, it's not going to reduce the price but it would just still help in a certain way. So just walk us through that. Alright, thank you very much for having me again. Okay, so when you talk about technology as a means to reduce or mitigate the effect of the dollar inflation in Nigeria what I normally tell people is you have to look at for three things when you are trying to select the right software. The first one is the security and privacy they provide that have in place so that when you're putting your data on that particular software you are very sure that your business is secure nobody is going to breach that contract or anything. The second one is the affordability because when you're using software it tends to get expensive at some point. So how do you now manage that? You don't look at the cost Number one, secondly, with the current inflation rate in Nigeria and the dollar exchange rate I will advise businesses to probably look for vendors that actually sell in local currency because you know, $20, $5 is going to remain $5 from January to December. However, our own experience in Nigeria is that your $5 in January is not the same thing when you convert it to Naira in February or March. Two months ago we didn't even know what, I mean maybe it was less than $1,000 now it's about $1,000 today or $1,400. Now imagine you have a budget in January you will not be able to sustain your business true for the entire year with that budget if you're building, you're being built in dollars and if you make your money in Naira, why are you paying in dollars? Is that a question? Exactly and the third one is public scalability because every business owner's dream is to grow your business and at some point you will get to a point where by your business is grow and large enough is the current software you're trying to adopt does it have the capability to scale with you? So you won't be faced with the issue of maybe moving out of that software then embracing another one and so it's going to be too stressful. So three things security and privacy, the price factor and the third one is scalability of that software it will help businesses shape the way they do their business and also mitigate the effect of these exchange rates inflation in Nigeria when you plan ahead properly. You're sounding like a money doubler. Because when the name and just here is that you have, you use the software it will help you go through these you know you may not understand what is he talking about that's why I said that. So what do these softwares actually do that will help you in this regard? Okay fantastic. I'm going to take about 30 departments from any business. I believe for every business owner there are three core departments in your organization for you to scale. The first one is your marketing. You want people to know what you're selling. The second one is your sales. After shouting about your brand there must be somebody that will say okay you know the price is too narrow and the third one is finance. When the price is too narrow how do you account for the money coming in? You know so these are three major departments in any business and look to any shop today any small shop big shop they must have this thing in place. Maybe word of mouth marketing. Now how does software help you? Now you can actually inculcate or try to bring software into your marketing department or we can probably go for social media marketing department digital marketing right or you can even do e-marketing e-mail marketing. I believe in newsletters. I believe in sending emails regular emails to your clients updating them about what you're doing what is up next what is going on with your business. So when you think of buying a particular product the one that would drop in their mind is your brand. So digital marketing is very very essential and you need to have tools to manage them. Currently there are about seven to eight platforms for social media right now. Can you imagine you're moving from one to the other one to the other one but then can you imagine what it's going to do for you when you have a platform that brings all of them together and you can actually see the report on the same dashboard. So that is the way you can manage that number one. Secondly for your sales right I believe that for sales you need a CRM and the CRM means customer relationship management software right. So you want to have the database of your existing clients at the same time you want to be able to nurture new leads and turn them to sales. So when you have a CRM that can automate this process for you it will reduce a whole lot of your stress. Sending emails scheduling meetings are signing these to other clients you know scheduling meetings to meet up showing them demos you know or even sending them samples. So you will be able to manage your entire sales process with a CRM tool and finally you need the finance application. So when you're getting money how much do you have outside who are you owing who is owing you you know so you get to see your profit and loss you get to see your trial balance you know you just want to be able to receive money and make payments easily and also have a track record of your finances and also honestly because as a small business or medium business you will not be able to even access some grants from the government unless you have a complete bookkeeping of your business. The worst for that record. Maybe not for your tax you know your tax file. Clearance and so many yes. So you won't be able to keep track of that unless you have a software that you are using to do that. Imagine you go for your audit and you are going with a pile of books okay this one has not paid but you have a story that will remind you that we're going to send a reminder to your client that you've not paid Kenny you have to pay him two million or three million you know. So you don't have to keep that in your head you have your head clear and you can think of how you can actually develop your business. So very important for you to have marketing sales and finance software to run your business and all you know you can also now incorporate maybe productivity tool right so then you can allow your staff to work from home. Hybrid right to remote job. I really be two days at work three days at home or completely remote job. These days you will be able to manage their productivity with every software they are using. Okay so because that brings me to my next question I think that kind of just segues into it because you talked about you've talked about your finance you've talked about marketing you've talked about sales. I wanted to talk about human resources as well you know are there softwares that actually help you know to to start for you to even know what your what your staff is doing to actually measure their performances and productivity so are there softwares that could actually help with that because we can focus on you know sales and marketing I mean that's the that's the lifeline of the business that's the blood of the business you need money coming in or else you are not in business but you need human capital for you to ensure that the money is coming in. So what softwares do you have to look out for when you need to measure their productivity. Fantastic and even in my own organization we have the same. There are people who say customers are always right but I bet to differ I believe that when your employee is happy they will make your customer happy and then your customer will spend more happily and your business will grow. True. You understand. So yes these days we have software for example in my organization we have Zoho people which is an human resource management software so with that application you can mark their attendance they can apply for leave they can do their appraisal cycle they can do the performance index they can do their KPS through the software they can even do peer-to-peer review so you know for example manager is just the manager you know you cannot probably see or have personality with everybody but within the team itself they know who is the go-to guy that okay for any problem I should go to this guy he was going to help me but the manager might not see that maybe that guy is very quiet but he's the backbone of the entire team so when you allow your team members to rate them so peer-to-peer reviews in more things you can do also remote access you want to see what they are doing I mean right now if you're working remotely you can check in from there then also we have software that will give you the live web live cam so if I'm sitting in front of my desk they can actually see what is around me but I think we can't accept that word right and it's easier for people you know you are more productive I can sleep on my baby debt to five minutes to my meeting just wear my jacket hi good morning everyone you know you can sleep rest properly and be more productive with your time okay I like homegrown solutions do we have homegrown solutions to all these ones or it has to be imported technology oh we have homegrown solutions we have a couple of them in Nigeria but also to imported technology is not bad because if they are building local currency that is where we come in right because if the company is mindful of the economy they will try to relate with the local people in my organization we call something transnationalism that is when we try to be present in the market we are currently engaging so that is why our pricing is in local currency we have um indigenous people working for us we employ a lot of people empower them and you do a lot of things so homegrown is really really good because in the long run it's going to help us build the economy at the same time we cannot dismiss the fact that we still need in process technology to enhance whatever we have in ours oh wait sorry when you talk about the fact that it can be expensive sometimes yeah a lot of people cannot relate because when you're talking about apps you just think about going to Google Play Store so what's the difference between these are the ordinary apps that we have okay so the mobile app is just the social media platform I mean for example just download on your mobile app and do well when it comes to business application this is where it gets serious because when you're doing business it's a serious business right you have to be tailored to you to your business um not necessarily so if I'm going to use my company for example we have um a comprehensive suite of applications okay and then when you approach us what we do is we understand your need and then we now customize the software to fit that purpose so that's the kind of tailored to your needs so you can customize it so it's not like one size fits all because everybody can be the same line of business but their processes might be different you know so you can customize the system flexibility exactly that's good and then the cost is not so much because most of the people think technology you will never say is much compared to what you're going to lose if you don't have it yes yeah but the truth is even the cost is not expensive trust me if I'm talking about for my own company because that is one thing about my general market that is enticing to us we try to actually relate with the people so the cost is nominal compared to what you will pay you probably paid about 50 to 40 percent less than what you would pay our counterparts interesting all right thank you so much this is where we have to wrap it up sadly but you know we'll just come back in and just take a deep dive on all of this whole technology thing but yes thank you so much for joining us thank you for having me we really appreciate you all right we've been speaking with um our guy from Zoro we're just talking about navigating the dull inflation with the right software for your business he always says pay Kenny you know he said it last time he said it out here but I'm sure everybody else will also want to be paid you know that's where we're talking about this no matter how small your business is yeah it's a possibility you can grow all right we've been picking to our guy Kenny Ogundari the country manager from Zoro Nigeria so I want to say thank you once again thank you for having me and this is where we wrap it up on the show today we have to go but we'll see you again tomorrow my name is Romare Paulson and I am Nyam Gul Agadji let's return tomorrow for another edition bye for now all right