 Why 254, imagine? So, how did you get to network? Ok, across the world there are logistics groups that people pay annual fees. Ok. So, you can join a few of them and their WhatsApp group. So, if I have a shipment here and I have a shipment, if I am from Kenya and I have a shipment to be picked in China, мне wii tumatu wiki omanya m As I told you, initially I was employed in a logistics company. So during that time, the interpersonal skills that somebody is born with, you were able to build relationships as you move by. So I built my relationships away from the time I was employed with my previous employer. And again over time since we have been in business now for 4 years, we've been building our networks and again with the trust we have been having with the customers, we have had several referrals. Okay. How important is it for the sake of someone who is watching this conversation and would like to get into any sort of business? How important is it to be intentional in everything that you do, even if you are being employed and improving in future looking to get into studying something of your own? How important is it to just do things well and being intentional? Actually I believe that every person in this world has something that they normally feel is what they were born to do. And when you feel that you are born to do business, you have to understand that business has a language and the language of business is financial, marketing, accounting. You have to be ready to learn the integrity of business. It's just like when you play a game of football, you have to learn where the striker stands, the midfielder stands, where the goalkeeper stands. If you want to be a businessman, you have to be ready to do what other global leaders in business do. Actually for me, every single time, in as much as we are not a very big company, we are only four years, I tend to look at what other market leaders are doing and I try to follow their path. If Safaricom is doing a projection of five years, ten years, ten years, ten years, ten years, ten years, ten years, ten years. Because I believe that every company must have a goal. Every CEO or manager must look at the customer as the number one priority in their company. If there are no customers there's no business. And if there is no business there's no profit. If no profit we all go home. Alright so speak about customers. So let's look at the system. Let's look at other particular system or processes kufutnana Kikawiyama posudeku, na kufutnana kwa mwai, kwa ii k devotion wa kia fafikin. ─ Maikiwa kiweyele mwezu. Des Excitha kwa pashunana kwa kibisha wadition golozikumيا kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa, kwa maikiwa kwa wata miikiwa kwa maikiwa nakaikisha. Fungiwa kwa kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa, kwa mwai kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa kwa maikiwa, you are a certificate of incorporation that is if you are a limited company but if you are individual, we need your ID copy, and all that. So we have systems to ensure that all our processes, our documentations are right, the statutory documenters for the government and even the documents for the clients. Alright, so for someone who is watching this again and wants to get into the transport and logistics business So, you advise when it comes to the basic elements in logistics, just starting us off. Okay, you see, as I always say, logistics began in the olden days when we had messengers. Those were the first people who did logistics in as much as they didn't really have systems and sophistication in technology, but that's how they started logistics. For any youth who want to start a business in logistics and doesn't have capital, I believe capital is not going to be a big issue if you're really interested. You can begin by being an errand person for people in town and you will have already began a logistics company because people will be sending you to pick things for them from one point to another. You will already be a player and you never know, within time, once you have your heart, your referrals, you go and register a company, from there you will move. And then what would you say is, what does it take to run a successful logistics company? Number one is honesty with the customers that is very integral because customers from, if you look the logistics that is big, even Uber is in logistics, customers want the highest level of honesty from the service provider. So honesty will be number one and also efficiency because people are looking at timing, somebody will give you a shipment and it tells you, I need this shipment from here to Dubai within one day. If you deliver it in 30 days, that customer is never going to come back. No way. Efficiency, honesty and also as a business person you need to look at your finances. You cannot be getting profit and squandering around. You need to invest in advanced technology because technology is improving and it's helping our business grow. Okay, perfect. So what's your policy in the company when it comes to a situation where my inventory is damaged or lost? What's the policy looking like? Every shipment we normally charge, there's a fee. It's a hidden fee. You never realize it when we quote, we just quote as freight but we have insurance. So you will realize that whenever you are shipping any product we'll ask you for the commercial invoice. The reason we ask for this commercial invoice is that in any case of a damage or a loss you will be compensated based on the value that you declared on the commercial invoice. Okay, fair enough. That's fair enough. So what happens if the delivery commitment is not met? As you understand that everything we plan, we may plan as human beings but sometimes what we call the unavoidable circumstances like I'll give you a sad scenario like you remember when we had the air crash in Ethiopia there are shipments that were in that aircraft and so definitely they never got to the point of where they were going to or we may have delays. Whenever there's a delay we apologize to the client and we let the client know why there was a delay and we try to give assurance that we are going to do it at the earliest time possible. Apart from those unpredictable situations where such situation happens what are a couple of measures that the company can take if someone wants to get into this business or they can learn from you that can ensure that there is security for cargo? Our items we have something called the tracking number. The tracking number is basically what you use to log into our system to check where your item is. This gives the client the ample time not to worry where the shipment is you are able to track as the shipment leaves from origin to destination. So security for the shipments is always guaranteed for any customer even right now if you have a shipment you are exporting or importing your security is guaranteed your shipments will arrive at an affordable price. Okay and speaking about tracking when it comes to business apart from just financial aspect of it take us through how you track your performance the performance of your business. We have goals that we set we look at what we need to achieve we have weekly goals monthly goals and even yearly goals we set them and we always try that every person in the company you strive to live in that company as if it was your last day in the company a couple of financial lessons that you have learnt along the way Management of money is not easy that is one thing I have always understood and capital is very integral for you to grow you need capital but for ways of raising capital in Kenya most of the people think about debt I realize that debt is very hard when you are starting because if you walk into a bank and you have not been having a very healthy transaction record banks will not give you a loan so for us we chose avenues of raising capital that's why we have things like partnerships when we have partnerships and people are able to give us credit if one partner gives us a credit of a million shillings and we have 10 so remember now we have a capital base of 10 million without even having to borrow debt from people so what we do is honesty as I said if we take a credit from one company and the moment a customer pays we ensure that we first begin with paying our debts first before we can take the profits would you say the logistic business is profitable yes it is that is why we have multinationals here in Kenya and how are the returns since operation the returns are okay business as I told you is about if you are giving a solution to the problems that people have in the society and then you are going to have customers but now getting a customer is different from retaining a customer so as a business person you always have to try to retain the customer because acquisition is not hard but retaining is the problem I think I would like you to share insight on the effect of the standard gauge railway and how technology is shaping the transport and the logistic industry the SGR project I feel this is one of the best projects that came to Kenya in the last 10 years definitely human beings do not love when they exchange when we had Uber coming in the old taxi people complained when we had SGR coming we had the truck owners who really complained and people said that the SGR is going to kill Mombasa as a cost but according to me I look at it at the bigger angle in this way but once the SGR is complete the logistics industries are all coming from we have the East Africa region and even the side of Congo and South Sudan and Ethiopia this SGR is going to enable us bring the containers easily from Mombasa to Kisumu then from there the truck owners can still move to Sudan so it's going to widen the scope of doing business and looking at I want to give you a particular time for me what is the vision looking like for your company we are looking at right now we started I started this company with less than 50,000 Kenyan shillings and I think so far we have taken bigger milestones in the next 10 years we are looking at an annual revenue of at least 1 million dollars that is 100 million in the next 10 years as the founder and CEO I look at by the time the company gets to 20 years I want to get out of the company and leave it for a board and maybe in the next 20 or 30 years we will be looking at going public that is our end goal we want to go public because if you go public you are going to raise enough capital now the company can be able to compete big multinationals like DHL, FedEx, UPS because I believe that Africa needs to produce companies that are going to create bigger jobs you are a low student how are you balancing business and being in the class balancing business and class is not hard because I wake up in the morning I go to work I first look at my emails then from there I go to meetings from 4 pm I go to school what would be your advice for someone who wants to get in this sort of business as you wind up start from where you are begin with what you feel you have because if you look at always looking will I get 10 million to start this business you are never going to get it and nobody is ever going to bring it to you begin with from where you are because there is something that is currently cropping up and it's a change in our logistics being done there are people who currently are hiring small spaces in town per month so these people they are interrupting how warehousing has been done somebody gets a small space in town for 2500 so for the online sellers somebody can be living in Kisumu and sells in Nairobi so he or she keeps her products in the shelf for 2500 can sell online without necessarily looking for a warehouse you see how this is now interrupting the logistics so these people have invented something new start from where you are with what you have think about something that can go within your budget so how can people find you on social media how can they reach out to you in any platform on Facebook we are at Cyan Logistics Twitter Cyan Logistics and then our email address is info at CyanLogistics.com our website is www.CyanLogistics.com Cyan is C-I-E-N ok, thank you for pointing that out so thank you very much Roy Opumba for creating time to be with us so that is Roy Opumba founder of Cyan Logistics we are looking at transport and logistics industry I hope you've learned one or two things when it comes to this particular business so we have much more coming your way right here on why in the morning if it's Tuesday it's entrepreneurship Tuesday at Y254 channel you can find us across all our social media handles at michelleashira you can find me across all my socials so make sure you stay tuned we have so much coming your way we'll be right back