Note: Lavington Security accuses its clients among them the Judiciary of failing to pay for services rendered.
Lavington Security is accused of failing to remit Sh98 million in workers’ deductions to Lavington United Sacco Society Limited, forcing the sacco to file a complaint with the commissioner.
In the court papers, the security firm admits to owing the sacco but accuses its clients among them the Judiciary of failing to pay for services rendered.
“The continued freezing of the applicant’s bank accounts has completely paralysed its operations as the applicant cannot access funds to meet its day-to-day operations such as buying fuel for its response teams, airtime for its supervisors and paying guards,” says Jonah Kiprotich Telo, a director of the company, in a court affidavit.
There is this thing new business owners normally get trapped into. To start a new business, you will need atleast 5 clients and in a hurry to have an invoice you give them 90 days credit (for the companies in Top 100 audit, the average credit days are 138 days). Since you are not receiving any cash, you borrow left, right, centre. Even worse you are borrowing such little money from so many people that instead of having one financier, you have 15 loan sharks!
Biashara if I could I would rather be employed. Employees are some of the luckiest bastards.
I am in business with more private companies than GoK (10% of sales). Private companies are suffering even worse from cash flow. GoK afadhali you can bribe the MD & Finance for your company to be paid first.
For instance Nakumatt, Deacons, Karuturi, etc where do you get your vash from when such companies have your debt?
Unless you are very rich, starting a business in Kenya is very hard. Lets assume that you do all the market research correctly, and get a good business location. If you launch a business say at a budget of say below 2 million, and the business picks immediately, you won’t enjoy those profits for long. Two months later, your greedy landlord will hike the rent. If you have a solid lease agreement, you still have other risks. People will notice that you are making a kill, and since they need below 2 million, you will have a few competitors in less than 3 months doing EXACTLY what you do in that little area. Even those that have struggling businesses in that area will just repurpose their existing businesses to sell whatever you are selling. Your research goes to waste very fast. Capital intensive businesses are normally better because they lock out many people. That’s how the rich get richer.
I was working somewhere,enyewe market walikuwa wameshika vifiti lakini the problem ni payment from supermarket and merchandise kuvanish from the supermarket and you cant ask,its a risk you need to undertake
Two global tech companies say they are yet to receive Sh303 million pay from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for services rendered during the August 8 General Elections.
IBM East Africa is demanding Sh110 million for maintenance of IEBC’s servers while Oracle Technology Systems (K) is claiming Sh193 million pay for offering security services to protect the poll agency’s database.
IEBC never has money, but they get funds allocated to them by the Treasury. All you need to do is kama kawaida, tell Head of Finance and Head of Company watapata pesa if you pay for our supplies. That’s why Chebukati are fighting! Mtoto hakurudisha mkono Kwa Chairman. Unfortunately, international companies are under pressure not to engage in any kickbacks.
Supermarkets normally exploit suppliers. They never pay them in cash. Huwa wanapewa stock, wakiuza ndio watalipa supplier which is very unfair because they do business at no risk and shift all the risk to the supplier including their own. Kuna LPOs nilikuwa nafikiria nikaona ni ujinga. Nakumatt went bankrupt with billions owed to suppliers. Landlords will get paid first if they haven’t already. Suppliers can forget their money.
At this point I am starting to think this is the only feasible option.
My one rule is;Try as much as possible NOT to work with Government.ESPECIALLY County Government.Usidanganywe wako na pesa!!
Then when it comes to private companies better work with multinationals.There is a reason why akina Carrefour have a wider selection of goods than local supermarkets.
There are things I get from Carrefour that I only used to get online or abroad.
I have identified a business I might go into. If competitors open shop near me I wil engage in the worst price cutting in history. I will maintain that for 3 months and most of them will have closed shops. The problem with most original business idea owners when they spot new competitors they dont adapt but just hope their customers stay loyal to them. The way to go is under cut your prices severely even if you’ll be making a loss,you have the advantage of having got into the business earlier so you can take the hit a little bit better than competitors who mostly will close shop soon after. In 3 months you will have created some sort of monopoly .This is why personal savings are important .
You are assuming that you will have deeper pockets than competitors. You are also assuming that customers won’t associate your lower prices for low quality. Take a butchery for example. I wouldn’t trust one that sells meat at a steep discount.
I was speaking in reference to the business I am planning to move into. In my project low prices won’t mean low quality at all.Thats why I said once you have your business running and making good profit your first priority should be saving up for such measures. If you can maintain the price cutting for about 3 month’s most competitors will ship out.Nobody likes operating in losses iregardless of how deep their pockets are.
Keeping prices below competition three months means also that you would need to survive those three months. For this reasons you will need to have some extra money aside. But still how can you be sure that your competitors will go out of business as three months is not such a long period of time