Administrative tasks of small companies turned into a successful business

Upon learning about the needs of Banja Luka-based IT companies and seeing how much time and energy they spend on administrative tasks, the 37-year-old economist Božana Ćorda offered them a service - that her office conducts these for them. Nowadays the owner of Boffice, this experienced entrepreneur and project coordinator runs office tasks for about 50 clients, mostly from the IT sector and creative industry.

The idea of starting her company grew over eight months and Boffice was started in early 2021. Using the connections and experiences of her previous work with IT companies, prior to launching her service Božana already had six contracted partners. Over the past year, this number grew eightfold, and she is now working on the development of her business and the strategy of expanding the team through BizUp, a project implemented by Foundation 787 and UN Women BiH, with the financial support of the United Kingdom government.

„Two years ago, I worked on an IT project of retraining, which aimed at preparing a 100 young people for the IT industry. It was then when I got in touch with all the IT companies in Banja Luka. Through talking to them I saw that administrative tasks are pretty painful for them. Even though these were smaller companies of up to 10 people, the owners were performing those tasks – making invoices, doing payments, all of that. Then I started thinking in that direction - what could be offered to them so that they focus on what is the core of their job, and I can do the rest,” Božana recalls.

Since a company similar to hers already existed in Serbia, she reached out and they explained to her how they started, what tools they used, what were the obstacles they faced, as well as what to pay attention to.

„The company Clever gave me a lot of tools they used. That was important to me because I didn’t have to do some things from scratch but instead used their practice. They were very open and that was helpful”, Božana recalled of how she learned from other people’s experiences.

Entrepreneurial spirit

This Banja Luka-born entrepreneur learned about business from her own experiences as well. As a 19-year-old she opened an antique shop in her hometown and soon realised why there was no shop like that before – there were simply no customers. Afterwards she worked in retail and furniture design, which was her private business as well, in partnership with a foreign company.

„I believe one is born with it. Even when I was a little girl, I was always keen on selling something. When mom used to make donuts, my brother and I would sell them at a local beach. It was always interesting to me how people are ready to pay for something which to me is an ordinary thing. In our home, a donut is an ordinary thing, yet people pay for it. So, even at the age of 6 or 7 I felt this entrepreneurial spirit,” Božana says, adding that Boffice is the third company she started.

Mentor support through BizUp is most useful, she said, because “someone else can analyze my business”, and by working with her mentor she is focusing on the issue of human resources.

„On our first meeting, when I thought that I had to have a full-time employee right away, I was told 'take it easy, you can have someone hired for two hours a day’. They simply gave me another perspective of my small business which I didn’t see and that helped a lot,” she recalled. “Then I got a mentor who helps me with human resources. I am now working on how to make an interview for a new candidate for employment, what are the tasks of that person, what are my tasks, how to delegate work. As the majority of entrepreneurs, I started working alone, and I do everything by myself. Handing over to someone else means I have to be prepared and means having some organisational skills.”

Through BizUp she was directed at the need to work on promoting her services as she did not invest in that segment of business because she did not need it – most of her clients came from acquaintances and personal contacts.

„I have to work on that in order to expand the business. I could still run all of this by myself, but I can’t expand my business,” Božana said, adding that when she hires new staff, she will have more space to communicate with new clients.

For now, her clients are self-employed proprietors and small companies for whom she performs administrative services, including submitting tax registration, preparing and paying invoices, as well as companies with three to five employees for whom she communicates with their accountants or a bank and does other administrative work like acquiring tax documentation, preparing invoices and payment requests.

As a young entrepreneur, Božana Ćorda had to be decisive and focused, but she said that different support programmes designed for women in entrepreneurship helped her. She believes that “the market is opening for women more and more“ – there are different programmes and financial and non-financial support to female entrepreneurs. Through BizUp she got financial support that she used to buy equipment for the new employee and partly for marketing and development of a software she needs in order to run all operations.

„There is a lack of mentorship support in general, because when women start a business, they are afraid how to enter the market, how to register. The mentality here is that we have a natural fear of the state and  some obligations towards it, which is really not as scary as it sounds in the beginning,” she said, adding that education and workshops with BizUp were very important to her.

„For example, the first time when I started my business, I didn’t know how to test the market, I wasn’t even aware I should do that. I believe those programmes can help from the start in testing the market. A lot of women register companies, not even knowing if someone needs their products or services. When I was starting Boffice, I did my research for six months and I already had several clients confirmed, so I wasn’t starting from scratch.”

This article was made possible within the project “Women Economic Empowerment in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Rebuilding Better” which is implemented by UN Women in BiH with the financial support of United Kingdom government.