As a major contributor to employment, economic and export growth, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector is the backbone of major developing economies.
In Nigeria, for example, SMEs contribute 48% of national GDP, account for 96% of businesses and 84% of employment, a PwC report stated. It suffices to say that when an SME fails, there are job losses, and the national economy feels the impact.
However, despite their importance to the nation’s economy, SMEs in Nigeria go through a lot.
Some of the challenges faced by SMEs in Nigeria include lack of access to funds, lack of skilled manpower, lack of experience, multiplicity of taxes, high cost of doing business, among others.
As a result of these challenges, experts say, up to one-fifth of SMEs fail in their first year, while the jury is still out on whether it is 50 or 80 per cent of SMEs that go under within five years.
While SMEs are directly responsible for a few of the factors that cause them to fail, most have no control whatsoever on majority of the causative factors.
Enters Corporate Messengers…
Established in 2000, Corporate Messengers says on its website that it is an international freight forwarding company licensed for international trucking and air and ocean freight shipping.
The company further said that it handles shipments from any point in the world to Nigeria, offering personalised service, “with the right combination of cost and transit time to accommodate its clients’ objectives”.
However, quite a few SME owners say Corporate Messengers is high on promises and low on delivery, offering services unbefitting of its acclaimed international status.
Some of the company’s inadequacies that have got to our ears include missing goods, undue and inexplicable delay of shipment, ineffective customer service, among others.
A distraught customer had lamented how a package procured from Amazon’s online store got stolen in Corporate Messengers’ care and Amazon had to replace the stolen product. The customer said they decided to try out the logistics firm’s services after a friend suggested but they were very dissatisfied with the outcome.
Another SME owner also had a sad tale to tell about Corporate Messengers.
The SME owner said he ordered some products from the United States in November 2021 and had been assured by Corporate Messengers that the time-sensitive products would be delivered in four weeks.
He lamented that more than an extra four weeks had elapsed without him getting the products and without the logistics firm being able to say with pinpoint accuracy where the products were.
The dissatisfied customer expressed dismay that Corporate Messengers charged “premium fees” to deliver shitty service.
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