The Institute for Risk Management South Africa's (IRMSA) Risk Intelligence Committee Member tells the OFM Business Hour that this guidebook stemmed from the prevailing business challenges she identified in her PhD thesis – challenges that were encountered in equal measure by her grandparents who owned multiple businesses in rural Limpopo and went on to be nomadic entrepreneurs around the 1920s. 

She identifies these challenges as:

• Struggling to articulate what problem you are solving as a business or what value you are providing your customer as a business.
• Business resource management challenges.
• Failing to have a competitive advantage over other players in the market.
• Managing risk. Dr Modise warns that some entrepreneurs are risk averse, when they need to be focused on navigating the risk, move around it – so to speak.

Also Read: #OFMBusinessHour: Read of the Week - The Ordinary Millionaire

In addition to this Dr Modisane, who is a recent recipient of her PhD in Economic and Management Sciences from the North-West University (NWU), further sheds light on the considerations that one needs to make before taking the leap into multinational markets. 

• The country of interest’s regulatory environment: labour regulations, policies and bureaucracy.
• The economic environment: macro and micro factors such as consumer confidence levels, employment rates, tax rates, size of the available market, demand of your product and services and availability of suppliers amongst a slew of others.  

Also Read: OFM Business Hour - Risk management can fight corruption

Prior to this sit-down, Modisane was on the OFM Business Hour in 2020 where she commented on how corruption robs both the public and private sector to the extent of eroding individual professional brands and that of companies (reputational risk). She said at the time, that it undermines the employees of both sectors who are truthfully and impartially committed to their professions. 

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