allAfrica.com: Nigeria: How to Operate Call Centre Profitably (Page 1 of 1)

This should be the best of times for Nigeria , economy-wise. Oil receipts have been at a consistent upswing in the past few years. The banks are bigger and thriving. But the reality is that poverty is still staring millions of people in the face. A government official in June announced that 70 percent of Nigerians live below poverty line. That did not come as a shock to many Nigerians who daily come face to face with very parlous standards of living among thousands of their compatriots in the urban and rural centres.

The streets are swarming with able-bodied beggars. The jobs are nowhere to be found, even as more graduates pour into the streets every year. Some 1.5 students sit for JAMB every year. The universities have joint capacity of some 150,000. Consequently, over a million youths sit idly at home or roam the streets each year while waiting to get admission into higher institutions.

Faced with this grim reality, and a failure of government to make a positive difference in the lives of the citizens, Nigerians need to take their fate in their own hands. Citizens need to begin to seek legal means of eradicating poverty from their lives by taking a number of proactive steps. One sector that has provided an avenue for many to break the hold of poverty is telecom. Since the sector was deregulated, many Nigerians have been lifted out of poverty. The coming of the GSM operators particularly in 2001 has prospered millions of Nigerians.

Apart from the big investors who reap returns in millions of naira, there are millions of other small players who are earning decent living off the sector. They include call centre operators, recharge card vendors, GSM phone repairers, sellers of call centre accessories such as umbrellas, plastic tables and chairs, among others.

At a forum convened by the MTN Foundation in Lagos last week, to launch a handbook "Call Centre: How to set up your own" published by the foundation in partnership with the Fate Foundation, experts opine that call centre operation remains a viable way of making the leap from poverty into prosperity.

"Many look at a phone simply as a means of communication. The truth is that there is so much more you can do with a phone" declared Mrs Amina Oyagbola, Executive Director MTN Foundation at the forum attended by the Director General, National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar among many other government officials.

The book which is one of the many initiatives of the economic empowerment portfolio of the MTN Foundation, is aimed at encouraging many job seekers to become business owners by running call centre business.

"With a start-up capital of as little as N25,000, you can run a call centre operation instead of lying idle in between schools or just wasting away at home" declared Lanre Olusola, Director, Fate Foundation one of the speakers at the forum. "It is commendable that MTN Foundation is making start-up loans available to a number of would-be entrepreneurs. But even if you cannot immediately access a loan, the point we must stress is that the capital you need to start is nothing big and can sometimes be put together by family members".

According to him, that capital is enough to guarantee the business owner enough profit to earn a decent living just by offering call services to people. He notes that by the time airtime sales are added, the business is capable of guaranteeing the owner some little luxuries of life. And if the business is well managed, it can grow really big.

For those who are interested in taking action immediately, the speakers prescribe tips that will enable them to successfully operate a call service and grow it into a big business.

"Focus is very important," says Mrs Osayi Oruene, Executive Director Fate Foundation. "As for call operation and any other business, know what you want to do. Learn what you want to do. A lot of people go into a business without learning about it. Learning means getting as much knowledge as you possibly can about the business you want to do."

She also counsels prospective business owners to start in the smallest way possible to mitigate risks. "If you start small, the risks you take are small risks as well. When you make mistake, you can recover, retrace your steps and bounce back. You start small, but think big. You must have the mindset that the business is going to grow very big. Re-invest your profit. Don't fritter it on frivolities".

As soon as the business begins to get too busy to be handled by one person, she counsels that more hands should be recruited before customers notice. Even then, you need to be careful. "Get people who share your passion. Passion is important. When you find entrepreneurs who are extremely good in what they do, there is passion there. When people who are doing well in fish farming talk about cat-fish farming, you will be interested in going into that business. Passion and the hunger to succeed must be there to withstand the challenges that are to come later. If you now have staff who share your passion you are on to success". The President and Founder of Growing Business Foundation, Dr Nnoli-Edozien lists more factors that would-be successful business operators should bear in mind.

According to her, it is important for the prospective business owner to define his objective from the onset. Apart from that, the prospective business owner must have an unflagging drive. "Don't accept no for an answer. Be determined. Your attitude is absolutely critical", she says. Then, the would-be entrepreneur must spare time for market intelligence. That takes care of a number of critical issues, like location. "When you want to set up a business driven by traffic, you don't go and set it up at the back of somewhere. You put it at a place which is a nexus point. That is why it is called a marketplace, where people go anyway. You locate your product where you think people need it, okay", Dr Nnoli-Edozien said. "Know your market. Know what it is your customer desires. Deliver it in such a way that the customer comes back. In other words, you need to think long term. Don't think short term. You want to build a business, you want to grow a business, you need to know what the business cycle is. "Record your numbers, you need to know what your account is and track it. This is very important for you to understand what happened in the past, with a view to understanding what is happening now and changing positively the future.

"Anchor your business on service. Business cannot be motivated by profit. Profit is a shallow business motivation. Business is motivated by service. When you provide excellent service, when you understand your customers, when you understand your customers' needs, when you understand your market, when you understand your product, when you are growing as a business, as a business leader, there is no way you won't make profit", Dr Nnoli-Edozien said.

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