What We Do
What We Do
Arete assists small and medium business owners/founders build sustainable businesses that will transform Africa. We work with founders to streamline operations, document their systems, set up processes to support efficiency and build platforms to prepare their operations for prosperity and posterity.
We help SMEs transition from profitability to sustainability and succession by utilizing their available skills and experiences to produce quality local goods and services that can compete with the best in class.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has indicated in its survey that seven out of ten SMEs that are born in Kenya every year do not live to celebrate their fifth birthday. Those that survive likely struggle to grow their profitability and build scalable models that can operate consistently and compete in the open market. Over the last few years, our market has seen many examples of companies that have failed to grow or even survive, for reasons including lack of proper governance and/or robust management processes and systems. These are the challenges that we seek to resolve.
We help SMEs transition from profitability to sustainability and succession by utilizing their available skills and experiences to produce quality local goods and services that can compete with the best in class.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has indicated in its survey that seven out of ten SMEs that are born in Kenya every year do not live to celebrate their fifth birthday. Those that survive likely struggle to grow their profitability and build scalable models that can operate consistently and compete in the open market. Over the last few years, our market has seen many examples of companies that have failed to grow or even survive, for reasons including lack of proper governance and/or robust management processes and systems. These are the challenges that we seek to resolve.
Founder
Arete supports SME founders/owners to develop and implement systems through which their vision is consistently and faithfully manifested in their businesses, allowing the business to deliver consistent products/services on time, every time, and ultimately, to operate independently of them.
Our services are aimed at enabling business founders/owners free up the time currently spent micromanaging their companies through the establishment of clear and documented systems, which ultimately allow them to hire quality staff to manage and operate the systems, as they desire it, and get back the time to focus on business development, innovation and strategy for growth.
Our services are aimed at enabling business founders/owners free up the time currently spent micromanaging their companies through the establishment of clear and documented systems, which ultimately allow them to hire quality staff to manage and operate the systems, as they desire it, and get back the time to focus on business development, innovation and strategy for growth.
Our Approach
We work with the founder/owners to walk through their businesses and identify and document their vision for the organization and how this translates into their critical processes, including identifying:
- What the processes are
- Who is responsible for each process
- Whether the process is resourced at the right level
- The best practice with respect to each process
When the organization is clear on roles and how each contributes to the overall customer experience:
- Productivity increases.
- Overall employee satisfaction improves.
- It is easier to outsource work or automate processes when needed.
- Efficiency is enhanced.
- Operating costs are reduced.
Once the business is analyzed, we work with founders/owners to describing in detail how to carry out each process. We support them to document production maps detailing the output of each process, the owner of the process and the metrics that determine whether the process is operating efficiently and effectively. The benefits of such an intervention are numerous, including:
- Enabling employees at all levels, including decision makers and stakeholders, quickly understand the company. The output is also useful in training employees to understand their job roles and familiarize themselves with the processes they are involved in
- Improving execution of business processes by identifying bottlenecks and inefficiencies and drawing up solutions for the same
- Preserving company knowledge by keeping a record of processes known only to the few people hitherto specialized in doing them. This way, the company does not spiral into a crisis when employees deemed critical to operations are indisposed or even decide to leave the organization and new employees can step in quickly and easily
- Mitigating risks and maintaining operational consistency across the organization
The following benefits are realized out of this process:
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- Everyone in the organization is on the same page and has a common view of the processes in the company, driving consistency.
- Bottlenecks and inefficiencies in processes that may otherwise go unnoticed are brought to the fore.
- The clear process documentation ensures it is easy to make changes to the processes in a timely and straightforward manner, increasing the organization’s overall speed to market.
- There is effective collaboration and performance in the organization and staff move away from working in silos.
- The Business can reduce costs and use its resources optimally.
