Supermarket chains damaging business by irrelevant precautions

That was something to worry about as earlier to its coming into the country, the Shoprite supermarket chain based in South Africa was doing business in the same premises and opted to close shop, implying that business growth had not occurred to its expectations. If the same happened to Nakumatt, it would follow that the problem isn’t just with the supermarket chains but business environment as well.

Now that Nakumatt says it has no intention of closing shop, it follows that it is still relatively upbeat about its potentials, and might be working to sort out internal controls like cost analysis and making economies where the need arises. 

While we can leave aside the product mix it presents in supermarkets and how tuned it is to local market needs, even what seems to be upper class clientele that ordinarily visits supermarkets, there are other problems. Some of them were highlighted by interviewed staffers in one of our weekend reports, and are observable to the eye.

We don’t see the need to discuss the more hidden aspects of how the company conducts its work, as some of the issues were raised by staff members, but perhaps some observable aspects, if one compares the method of the supermarket chain and others. 

They seemed to have erred by excessive precaution, intense checking of content and receipts when customers pay for purchases and get out. Ordinarily the company would be paying the salary of a cashier or teller, and then at least one guard towards the door, but the firm at times has a guard or two per teller, at the start.

Just how far business operators decide to create unnecessary jobs for persons they know especially when working in an external environment, perhaps in order to be able to pick a word or two from insiders as to what is going on, is understandable sentiment. 

The supermarket chain may have improved the product mix and even perhaps rectified the pricing, at times on the way up for certain products that used to be customer pullers but without auxiliary yield into other products. But excessive security could have marred benefits from this precaution, via overheads.

Indeed, for a routine shopper at the chain, one would be reminded of the song ‘every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you,’ in which case East African investors ought to prepare to take staff in their investment areas, and to a workable extent trust them. 

They can also use CCTV cameras in case of fears of foul play as is normally the case, as well as routine and regular audit, or surprise checks on the part of finance department personnel, who would have other work to do. 

To fill a shop with imported security guards in order to prevent local cashiers helping out relatives or acolytes with goods that are not paid for is a bit of an unfounded fear in Tanzania, but it is possible it is plausible business risk across the border, so they institute such precautions.