Economical article 3
Contents
Economical article 3#
Pushing past Ground Zero: a Q&A#
Publisher: Medium
Publishing Date: Jul 31, 2019
A brief prologue
I particularly enjoy talking about emerging markets because this is where the bulk of the world’s population live, and this is where I come from. I strongly feel that emerging markets need to form strong communication ties and trade with each other to build capacity and favorably compete with more developed markets.
For the purposes of this article, Ground Zero is the point at which the business idea that has been incubating in your mind enters the physical world for the first time. It could be in the form of telling family and friends about a potential business or even registration of a business and quietly saving resources to start. An influencer who produces quality content and has started talking about, making or promoting their own merchandise would also fall in this bucket.
This is more of a reflective post, so I highly encourage jotting down your thoughts as you read this post. Enjoy!
AND….. WE’RE BACK TO OUR POST!
We begin with the following video from PolyMatter:
*A great video that shows one big picture perspective on business.*
When we think about doing business in emerging markets, it is very easy to focus on the list of must-haves required to get a business from Ground Zero to up and running. This list tends to vary quite a bit depending on whom you ask and has a million and one items. The aim of this post is not to give you just another variation of the list, but to give a useful thinking tool when you come up with your own custom list.
My perspective on a business is this:
It is a system
It is complex, made up of many moving parts
It is in a rapidly changing environment
It is extremely sensitive to its environment
It is extremely sensitive to the inputs that go inside it
Why is a business a system?
A business in my opinion is a system because many moving parts of it are useless on their own, but together, they make sense and get a lot more done than if they remained separately. With more and more businesses having to integrate their communications to create compelling customer experiences, teams within the organization need to have a unity of purpose, willing to stand in the gap for their colleague. After all, when I as a customer enter your premises, I can’t tell who is HR, finance or supply chain — to me you all represent the same brand, therefore if I need assistance, I will ask any employee that I meet.
Why is a business complex?
As more and more sales are made, demand for your product starts to rise and you realise that you, as the founder and wearer of many hats, have limited bandwidth. You need other people, more money, more time and more raw materials. You then have to start forming relationships with your stakeholders and diligently monitor the health of those relationships. Throw in government regulations to comply with and you have yourself a very complex system that also has to remain a going concern as you plug in any holes.
Why does business usually happen in a rapidly changing environment?
If you were to ask a Kenyan centenarian (someone that’s 100 years old) to describe their country, they wouldn’t know where to begin. They were born into the British empire, witnessed (and maybe fought in) 2 world wars, fought for and gained independence from the British empire, got real-time information about faraway lands and saw computers shrink from room-size to pocket-size. That’s a lot of change. Now compound this change with shifts in culture, as more Africans have become more globalized, slowly doing away with ancient customs — change becomes even more rapid! The world is becoming more connected, relying less and less on traditional media and opening up a whole new digital landscape. Businesses have to find ways to identify all these changes happening at once in order to pivot and stay relevant and open.
Why is a business extremely sensitive to its environment?
Every business is one PR disaster away from a major drop in demand and sales or one legislation away from attracting a business-closing fine. There are businesses that still exist with a bad reputation (or no reputation, which is even worse) but you have to admit that their salespeople really struggle to close and their employees have to keep defending where they work. That’s no way to live! Businesses need to thrive and grow; therefore, risk management has to become part of your business equation.
Why is a business extremely sensitive to its inputs?
Think of all the things you need to make a business — time, money, people, machinery and finished product, just a few basics.
When making an omelette, too much or too little of anything can throw it off balance, and one rotten ingredient makes the entire omelette rotten.
That omelette is your business.
How does this perspective affect your big to-do list for starting a business?
Based on the big picture, your list needs to be:
Comprehensive
As abstract as possible - avoid the nitty-gritty!
Flexible i.e. constantly updated to keep up with environmental changes
Contextual i.e. based on lessons learned from daily interactions
Smart i.e. it prioritizes business inputs that have the biggest impact
This leads us to the following question:
What are the characteristics of your key market?
When I think of African markets, 3 words come to mind:
Random
Oral
Relationships
Why random?
Africa has one of the most diverse populations in the world with over 2000 languages spoken and millions of perspectives around a wide range of topics. Conventional market segmentation does not work well here.
Why oral?
Culture is one of the market characteristics that is mostly impervious to change. Before, during and after colonial times in Africa, traditions and cultural beliefs were passed down orally. This culture typically manifests in our poor record-keeping and de-prioritization of research — we prefer spoken records to written ones and we rely more on anecdotal evidence than empirical evidence when judging a situation and coming to a conclusion. No wonder the continent consumes academic and practical models developed in and for other markets — the resources and will to build their own are very limited.
Why relationships?
African culture is very collectivistic and who, not what you know takes priority. This also means that many contractual agreements are handled depending on the quality of the relationship that the 2 individuals at the heart of the exchange have.
In conclusion:
Take your time to reflect and form your list. Write 3 core items that your business needs at the moment; for each list item, do an action a day. Experiment and regularly review your list to stay on track.
I hope this article helps your decision-making as you hop on this roller coaster called business. Good luck!