Businesses reluctant to seek help

MANY small business owners in Fiji are reluctant or neglect talking to a financial adviser when starting a new business. This according to HLB Mann Judd Fiji director corporate services Sanjay Ram Saxsena.

He shared this during a presentation during last Friday’s Business Assistance Fiji (BAF) organised Awareness & Networking workshop in Lautoka.

“According to a study, 60 per cent of business owners who responded to the survey said that they had not met with a financial advisor,” he said.

Mr Saxsena said on behalf of their clients, they were grateful to BAF and Business Link Pacific (BLP) for providing subsidy in hard times.

“We were able to reach out to new struggling clients through this subsidy scheme and managed to assist them with business planning and compliance.

“Hence with subsidy in place, businesses are now able to reach us and sustain proper business advisory service.”

He said they were now able to gain wider appreciation of the linkages of different parts of their own business and develop better views of priorities.

“MSMSs are now able to get better quality advise from accredited professional business advisors.

“Businesses need to understand that seeking advise from professionals would assist them in creating well-structured business plans that would help the business to become a success and compliant in all areas.”

Mr Saxsena said these subsidized MSMEs were now able to improve their finance structure after gaining a better understanding of financial health of their business.