TODAY, we want to look an at entity which started as an SME but has grown into a fully-fledged company.
Radian Stores Limited has become one of the household names in the retail trade industry in the country, especially for electronic items like television sets, fridges, fans and others.
It is, however, interesting to trace its origins, up to where it stands today.
Radian Stores, which now operates 45 retail outlets throughout the country under the franchise arrangement, started as a small store unit at the Kalundwe Road junction on Freedom Way in Lusaka. Amratlal Patel, now 58 years old, a Zambian of Asian origin, founded Radian Stores at the age of 25 years.
He was born in Lusaka and went to Kamwala Secondary School where he completed his secondary school education.
Mr Patel then migrated to the United Kingdom (UK) where he did a computer course at Slough University between 1976 and 1981.
He came back to Zambia and in 1982, he registered Radian Stores, a limited company as the main shareholder with his sister as minority shareholder.
He went into business mainly to provide for his family. This was so because his father retired from Lusaka City Council’s uniform shop, a business wing of the council.
Mr Patel started the business with K3,000, the savings that his father handed over to him as capital.
Radian Stores started its business mainly as an agent for Choma Milling Company‘s outlet selling mealie meal while also dealing in groceries.
Mr Patel recalls that he used to receive a truck load of mealie meal and in just four hours the stock would run out.
He remembers that this was a time when the country was experiencing a shortage of commodities.
The profit margin from the sale of the mealie meal was small and what benefitted the business most, was that Choma Milling attached a one week credit period which enabled the business to reinvest the proceeds of the sell into other groceries before it could pay on the required date.
He started with two workers only by the names of Tryford Mwale who is now a chief cashier and Thousand Mwale who is the chief security officer at the Freedom Way outlet.
In 1985 Radian Stores added the clothing business trade to its existing business line to widen the business range.
In 1986 it introduced the hire purchase agreements to its customers and this was so because it also added the electronics and furniture products to its business range.
Among its major customers in this area of business were employees of the defunct Kafue Textiles before the facility was extended to Government employees, police officers and teachers.
The hire purchase business flourished such that during this period, Mr Patel was prompted to obtain his first business loan of K20,000  from the then Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCC) to help increase stock.
When I asked him if he managed to pay back the loan in time without any problems, he said that in business, fiscal discipline is of utmost important.
People could move all the way from far-fetched places like Mansa and Kasama to go and buy furniture and electronic items like television sets and fridges through hire purchase arrangement.
“Mr Konge, those days it was not affordable for an ordinary Zambian to own a fridge and a television set through a normal salary” he recalled.
The financial banking sector was not able to sign memoranda of understanding with companies and government ministries by then to extend personal loans to the employees as it is today.
He recalled that towards the 1990s and the early 1991 when the Zambian economy opened up, many players in the financial sectors came in such as the micro-financial lending institutions.
These started offering direct cash loans to employees and somehow slowed down the effectiveness of hire purchase business.
This business has been able to grow because Mr Patel sold some of his shares and reinvested, coupled with the timely diversification exercise.
Radian Stores’ expansion programme has been helped with the bringing in of a formidable team through the franchise arrangement.
Some lessons which can be drawn from this, especially by SMEs is the consistency, fiscal discipline and smartness with which Mr Patel has been running his business.
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