How Kenyan SMEs can manage the Coronavirus Crisis

The coronavirus pandemic seemed a distance to most Kenyans up to the last couple of days commencing with the health cabinet secretary announcing the first person infected followed by the president’s announcement of school closure and a raft of measures to contain the spread of the virus sentiments that we fully support.

The pandemic though not the making of any particular person couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Kenyan SME who have received the short end of the stick the last 3 years from business slow down due to political activities in 2017-2018, strained access to finance underpinned on interest cap and heavy government local borrowing, delayed payment to SMEs by national and county government and taxation among a plethora of challenges.

2020 was projected to be the year SMEs would recover at least before the next disruption period of 2021 and 2022 which presents as disruption due to political activities synonymous with most African countries.

Now that the Coronavirus challenge is here and isn’t going anywhere at least in the short term, SMEs must develop a coherent strategy of coping with the challenge presented given they may not have too many options.

There are two powerful low-cost strategies at the disposal of SMEs; communication and community engagement.

Cognizant that the coronavirus is new to most of us and information is scanty, SMEs must strive to be transparent ensuring it acknowledges that there are still things regarding coronavirus that they don’t know and reference credible sources such as ministry of health as well as world health organization (WHO) when communicating to its various stakeholders.

Communication in this instance is multi-faceted; communication with employees, suppliers and customers.

SMEs must reassure its employees being the engine of the business through constant communication of what the next steps are for the business through appropriate medium such as physical meeting, email, SMS, whatsApp depending with what is acceptable for the business. Communication must have an explanation how decisions of whatever nature came about such as working from home and how the future looks like even if its uncertain.

For example, recognizing the fact that the coronavirus pandemic may take a while to ease and may affect sales, an entrepreneur may decide to cut salaries, send employees on leave, reduce benefits, require employees to pull double shifts. Whilst these strategies may be a good judgement call on their part, they must communicate the same logic to employees to put them at ease and seek their views before making the final decision.

Honest communication with suppliers such as reaching out and co-developing a crisis management agreement that includes but not limited to; discounts, staggered payment, extended credit periods among other measures will prove critical to riding the coronavirus wave.

Communicating with customers must be approached a bit differently; First focus must remain on what is very important to the customer at the moment which is disinfection at contact points to curb spread of coronavirus. SMEs must audit all plausible contact points in their enterprise and communicate through appropriate channels measures put in place to ensure maximum cleanliness.

SMEs must strive to provide relief to their customers and not take advantage through hoarding as a gesture of empathy. Relief could be offering discounts, extending credit terms,

Finally, regardless of size of the business, SMEs must stand in solidarity with the community that supports it by purchasing its products and services. Community support doesn’t necessarily have to be costly; donating cleaning supplies and foodstuff for those in quarantine, donating to local boarding schools among many other options.