Month: April 2012

5 Reason why you should be looking to Africa as a destinations for your money

Taura Khuluma Say it!!Leave a comment

The reason I am giving here are forecasted to be giving their optimum return by 2020 which is only 8 years from now so good strategic planning would starting working on a 5 year plan for implementation in 2015 so that it “blows up” just as we hit 2020. Here is where the smart money should start considering as potential markets. Remember there is more money in adding value to raw materials than there is in selling raw materials or finished products.

1. There will be 5 cities will have annual GDP over $103 billion and 18 cities will have annual GDP of at least $10 billion.

2. Africa has at least 80% of the world’s platinum, chromium and diamonds plus at least 40% of the world’s Gold and Phospate

3. The population is growing at a rate that will see the total population go from 1 billion to 2 billion in 2030. The important thing to consider here is that as the GDP grows in the cities more people will also be able to afford more and with a growing population that translates into more consumers for your products and services

4. Africa is still in infancy in terms of industrial development but the same goes for services as well so consider investing as pioneers in internet based service provision line call centres in Kenya and South Africa providing affordable customer relationship management solutions to international customer. Also consider developing online traning and education services. There is a misconception that Africa is still in the dark ages when it comes to internet use but looking at the statistics of facebook traffic in Africa you will realise that over 15 million people are using 3G connectivity every day much the same way as those in more developed markets

5. Africa needs 2000 extra aeroplance by 2020, if you can’t run an airline think about the support services you can supplier to the airline industry. The opportunities are endless maybe think about starting your own airline, the planes are cheap and often come with their own staff and maintenance but the fuel bills are astronomic, still that’s just small challenge for creative solutions. If you find a lucrative non competitive route like HRE-LON-HRE you will laugh all the way to the bank,,

On that note, I am off to HRE for 1 of a billion reasons!!

Another social media site sells for mega money

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , 2 Comments

Just seen that Facebook has bought Instagram for $1 billion, 2 weeks ago CNN nearly bought Mashable for $200 million. There must be something these big companies know about the future of social media and I want in, you should as well. I have read about the increasing power of social media in bringing forth new schools of thought and even ushering in new cultures, it may be time to start going beyond reading and thinking about social media.

So, I find myself thinking (as part of doing), what does it take for a social site to “blow up” as they say in social media circles? A name that captures the imagination of the target group is a must, but don’t shout it out loud before you register it as yours, trademark it and copyright it first then shout about it. The next step is to get people to talk about it on other social media sites, there are two benefits to be attained here, free marketing for your sites to potential users but also free advertising for your site to potential buyers in the future. I am only intending to create a site to sell it on, I think there is only so far I can take it but there are bigger players who I would rather take the risk of taking it global. If the buzz is showing signs of growing, the next best trick is to get endorsed by a global cause or personality, this creates great leverage for your site but be clever about it, remember it is social media, any obvious signs of capitalism and profiteering will drive away potential growth. In the process of avoiding being percevied as a capitalist profit making venture also avoid aligning with causes that draw negative appeal.

Watch this space, one more channel to test my marketing education. Check out my friends at 3-MOB, they are an ever growing force in Zimbabwean social media, http://www.3-mob.com/

Blackberry doesn’t need your consumer dollars anymore

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , Leave a comment

News coming out of the Blackberry head office is that the company no longer want to sell its phones to non business customers anymore, why? Well, consumers just are worth a lot of money to Blackberry when compared to the business demand and consumption.

Looking at sales figures is the last business year, there is a worrying indication that maybe the non-business consumers might not want Blackberry either, the sale of handsets has gone down while its rivals keep posting record figures year after year. But take a look around social scenes you will see that a lot of people have Blackberry handsets and they use them a lot as well. I hate Blackberrys because it takes over people’s lives, especially the socially mobile late teens to late twenties crowd, all they ever do is BBM, a lot!!

So why is there a problem for the brand if, as research and observation shows, they have a stranglehold on the most fertile segment of the mobile consumer market.? In my opinion the problem is BBM, it is free and works on all Blackberry phones new or old. A customer buys their Blackberry because all their friends are raving about BBM but that is the end of earning for Blackberry despite supporting over 1 billion messages to be sent between its handsets per month. Imagine if they charged 1 cent per message, everyone can afford that actually everyone can afford to ignore that.

Second problem for Blackberry is what I call the “Nokia Syndrome” all their handset are the same, use the same operating systems look and feel the same irrespective of the price you pay for the handset. If you don’t know your Bolds from your Curves you can’t tell them apart but there is more to it than those two there is the Torch which is too fat to be a slider, the Pearl which is too thin for the Blackberry format and awkward to use. Never mid about that weird touch screen with the pressure sensitive screen that moved when you types on it. When customers can’t see the difference they go for the cheapest version and when potential customers struggle to find a unique proposition they go elsewhere.

Blackberry may stop selling to consumers and focus on the business segment but everyone who already owns a their handset will still benefit from their free BBM service which doesn’t seem to be much of a strategy for me, because that just means they are selling even less handsets. The solution is to stop giving free service to customers because ut cost money to create that service, even if it cost little to produce, giving free service send bad messages for business. Differentiate hand sets according to features and specifications, the one size fits all mantra or corporate look thinking doesn’t work in products they need mass demand to sustain profitability.

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