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Ideation Nook: Episode 13: Mugisa Prides in Offering Low-Value Enterprise Consultancy to MSMEs

The Ideation Corner is a platform that showcases Ugandan entrepreneurs, thinkers, innovators, policymakers and academics to share ideas and insights that inspire youth.

In this episode of Ideation Corner, Damali Ssali talks to Mugisa about her eagerness to help small businesses; Developing ideas, developing strategies and getting the business going.

Paula Mugisa is a business development consultant.

She studied business administration at Buckingham University in the UK and also won an innovation award for a mobile application company she founded at Oxford University, also in the UK.

She is also the founder and team leader at Teesa Advisory Services.

Teesa is a non-traditional management consultancy for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Uganda.

Through her company, Mugisa has helped build and grow several companies in Uganda over the past decade. She works with companies to plan, plan and execute business activities to catapult business growth.

THE HISTORY

Paula Mugisa has always believed that doing things differently can have a huge impact on everyday life.

Because of this, after running Teesa Advisory Services in the traditional style for several years, she realized that despite the profitability she enjoyed, she was not going to bring fulfillment.

She immediately decided to do it differently by focusing on a group of companies – micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) – that a consulting firm didn’t want to serve because they were
regarded as unprofitable.

She developed a nontraditional management consulting approach that helps MSMEs plan, coordinate and implement short and long term business activities to streamline and scale operations.

“I just woke up and said we need to find a way to get all of these services online. Use the technology to bring the price down and make it 50 times cheaper so hundreds of MSMEs can afford it. This was after I realized I had no influence. I had to change the approach to focus on MSMEs to make a bigger impact, ”said Mugisa, founder and team leader of Teesa Advisory Services, during the Damali Ssali Ideation Corner show.

“MSME is a category that most consulting firms would not consider. We know that they do not have enough capital and that many actors in this business segment are semi-educated, not educated or young people who have completed an education but are unemployed. And yet they have a strong demand for such support services, even though they cannot afford them. That’s why most consulting firms don’t serve them, ”she says.

“Not because they can’t, but maybe because they haven’t structured how to do it. At Teesa we do everything digitally; That’s why we call it non-traditional. This has helped us to offer affordable business consulting. “

INSPIRATION

Mugisa says she was inspired by the need to impact the lives of the underserved group of entrepreneurs and understand startups what they need to do to have thriving businesses.

Additionally, she wanted to investigate and answer the unanswered question of why most startups in Uganda collapse before their 5th birthday. According to Mugisa, the high rate of business failure in Uganda is due to the fact that most businesses were born out of need, not love.

“When a company emerges out of necessity, you end up doing the wrong things. But if it’s an idea you love, no matter how many mistakes you make, no matter how many mistakes you make, you will try to make it work: no matter how many times you fall, you will somehow find a way to get up. “

Over the past 10 years, Mugisa has helped several MSMEs across the country set up and expand operations.

Her interventions range from a variety of areas including idea generation, business skills acquisition, business coaching and mentoring, business consulting, assistance with concept / pilot testing, assistance with product / service marketing, and social community for local entrepreneurs.

Others include customer acquisition, recruitment, operational reviews, business systems and process development, marketing and advertising, financial and progress reporting, and market entry strategies.

Damali Ssali (R) with Paula Mugisa.

TIERED BUSINESS APPROACH

Teesa Advisory offers its clients some services for free. For example, services like the Ideation module, where they teach entrepreneurs and those refining their ideas to put up a revenue model and pricing, are offered free of charge.

“One of our most important business philosophies is effect by volume. This means that a certain number of our services are offered free of charge. I strongly encourage other entrepreneurs in this area to do the same; have a free service and serve many people, but also have a paid service at an affordable price.

Above the Ideation module is the Tutandike course, a paid service that gives companies a strong foundation. Mugisa won the 2015 Young Innovator’s Award at the Oxonia Enterprise and Research Conference at the University of Oxford in the UK for innovating a mobile application company bringing together educational resources from universities across the UK.

She says women make up 81% of her customers because they are always flexible and open-minded.

However, she says that women still face a variety of challenges, including self-doubt, the need for confirmation, and fear of taking a risk, and she helps them gradually overcome them.

To help the youth, according to Mugisa, Teesa Advisory plans to host webinar masterclasses and specific activations for university students to help them get their business ideas off the ground.

Registered participants who are unable to attend a live webinar will have access to recorded audio and video recordings and all other necessary information. Teesa Advisory conducts around three to four webinars a month. The calendar is always published on their social media pages and website.

DO IT NOW!

She advises that you always focus on researching your business ideas internally and always implement your ideas immediately.

“As soon as you come up with this idea, start implementing it immediately; Don’t hesitate, talk to people about it and everything else will come later, ”she says.

It challenges people to keep refining their ideas and constantly innovating in order to adapt their businesses to the changing economic environment and ever changing consumer tastes and preferences.