Is it a business or glorified hustling?

February 22, 2013 Taura Khuluma Say it!!1 Comment

Recalling a conversation I have had on numerous occasions on with some business man friends of mine has inspired me to write about what I perceive to be an easily blurred distinction between being a business and a hustler operations dressed as a business. It may also be that whatever my perceptions are, I may be looking at the reality of business in some contexts through an untrained eye.

So I have been trained to believe, and have proven this to be true, that successful business is founded on a long term view and that business objectives are pegged onto this long term view of business. Long term businesses may also have a long term approach to profit margin and profitability which means they go for normal profit rather than super normal profits. A business might also identify a product or service to specialize in with a view to becoming the market leader in their respective markets.

But, my problem or gripe with some businesses is that they are much the opposite of what is commonly accepted a business for example if an individual with money and perhaps a registered company buys and sell a variety of products constantly are they really a business?. The issue for me is that there are many hustlers and perhaps dealers who go around buying and selling whatever the market is willing to buy and sell usually at 65 – 100% profit margin. And, they may never sell the same product twice as they move on constantly looking for the next money spinner, can we call this business a business?

Some people say actually their business is that of facilitation, they link customer needs to the solutions for those needs and since customer needs are forever changing the facilitator’s role also changes accordingly.Other will go as far as saying its the same thing that stock brokers do so the question of whether buying and selling an ever changing variety of products can be considered a business is actually redundant.

But still a relevant question…

Fastest growing consumer market

December 10, 2012December 10, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Africa 2012, African economoics, consumers, growing markets, Japan, markets, mckinsey quartely, morrocco, Nigeria, South AfricaLeave a comment

An October 2012 report by McKinsey Quarterly suggests that Africa is the fastest growing consumer market with more upward mobility up the consumer chain than traditionally wealthy markets like Japan.

Now I know some of you will at this point, direct me to the fact that Japan is one country and Africa is a sum of countries. But, let story develop. If you look at it from a market perspective, a market can be without boarders and so the comparisons can work. The findings from the continent wide research also found that not all of Africa is experiencing this upward mobility in fortunes it is in the traditionally strong Africa economies like South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco. While this is likely dampen any positive feelings about the potential for other African countries, I feel there is new opportunities littered everywhere in Africa for companies selling consumer goods.

The consumer population is growing with the number of people dependent on every working person falling every year meaning more people are earning an income and while they might not have a lot of disposable income, there will need basics and that’s where good market scouting can produce fantastic business opportunities for companies. Manufacturing will probably create the greatest profit margins but imports will probably out strip locally produced consumer products in terms of supply on the market. There is a need to recognise that Africa must add value to more of its produce because we are exporting crude oil and importing petrol and diesel, exporting cotton and importing clothes, exporting cocoa beans and importing chocolates all which a more expensive than we got paid for the raw materials we exported.

While investment might be an issue when it comes to developing the capabilities to add value to raw materials, I feel the bigger issue is show term thinking amongst businesses in Africa because they a focussed on making a much money as possible it is impossible to go for cumulative approach in developing capabilities. So rather than thinking of building fully fledged manufacturing operations perhaps companies can consider building capacity gradually until they reach desired production level. This process will put less pressure on required investment and allow companies to develop efficient businesses that grow organically over time which is how all developed economies grew because they also developed through expansion in response to growing demand from their home markets.

So the opportunity is there for African economies to grow on the strength of their own demand but competition from foreign companies exporting cheaper product will also grow in response to the grow consumer market, how we overcome that and grow African enterprises will define the future of our economies. It’s my opinion that a long term strategy to growth, prudent profit margins, capacity building will deliver the potential being described by the report

Closed for business!

November 17, 2012November 17, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Arsenal, Chelsea, Elections, Kardashians, London, Monkeys, Obama, racism, Referee, Romney, Swing States, TottenhamLeave a comment

So after giving gentle warnings to slow down, my body finally thought, fuck it and sprung tonsilitis on me. The worst 3 days of my year so far. Anyway, I am slowly getting back into the groove of things so I thought it might be fun to go back to taking a lighter look at the world and stop being so critical of all the wrong business practices I come across. So today I will talk about the Kardashians, Football (soccer to the unconverted) and racism!

We might as well start with the heavy stuff, so Chelsea are alleging that a referee called one of their player something racist. And they are screaming from the roof tops calling for immediate action and baying for Mark Clattenberg’s head all at once. One would be forgiven for being sceptical at all this especially as it is the same Chelsea that spent millions postponing their own self-confessed racist from facing the same justice! Come on, really now you want expedient justice?. So my brother and I was thinking about what the ref might have said and we settled on “don’t be a monkey”. Now, some of you will say how dare we! but we are black like Mikel so we get a free pass on that but the real question is if the ref said “don’t be a monkey” to a black player is that being racist? We thought it was funny and when the laughter stopped my brother said many black people would find it a little upsetting. Any thoughts? Remember it was just us monkeying around!

So being at home suffering as I was means I was exposed to day time TV, it’s half term here so the kids are at home and the extremes of what I had to put up with were as bad as Fireman Sam on one end and The Kardashians on the other end. Wow, how do these people make money out of absolutely no substance at all. The Kardashians are obviously good business people because they have managed to fool the world much like some priests or pastors get 100000 people filling up churches on a sunday. I can’t imagine anything other than faith, blind faith, making anyone want to pay the Kardashians money for that TV program. What were they paying for? It’s not even interesting, over exaggerated and pointless. I don’t hate them as people but please …..it’s all Ray J’s fault!!. Him, his joy stick and whoever planted the idea of getting out the video camerain his head. I suppose we might as well blame people’s fixation with watching other people have sex. If it wasn’t for all these things, there might have never been The Kardashians.

I am sure some of you have noticed that this blog entry is a bit old, the old body took too long to get back to working order so the writing went on hold for a bit. Anyway since the time I wrote this the racist ref has been exonerated by the Police confirming my earlier misgivings about the whole story. So today Arsenal played Tottenham and beat them 5-2 just like last season and just like last season all the talk leading up to the game was all about how Tottenham is now ahead of Arsenal but the numbers at the end of the day don’t lie, the gap is still vast and not looking likely to shrink anytime soon

More up to date news, Obama won the elections and so the race thing came up again and so some news paper I was reading yesterday went to great pains to show that despite Romney’s perceived favour from white Americans, the whites didn’t vote for him in 5 of the 9 swing states, so I think the whole think was just shit stirring as the Brits call it. It ain’t about the race dude, the people just weren’t filling your swag!

October 16, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Leave a comment

Branding in a recovering economy

October 16, 2012October 16, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Branding Zimbabwe, consumer expectations, customer relationship management, customer service, customers, Leadership, logo, marketing, price, product benefits, risk, Strategy, value proposition1 Comment

The issue of branding in all economies always draws interesting opinions especially bacause it costs money to develop and maintain branding in a postion that gives organisations competitiveness in their markets. The challenges in a recovering economy for brands and branding will inevitably emanate from the same issue of resources epscially money. The allocation of capital into developing and maintaining brands pales into the background as organisations struggle to survive within a challenging environment. The inspiration for this article is investigating how organisations accomodate branding as business strategy component during difficult times.

The interesting part of this assessment is how do organisations juggle the allocation of resources in the process of sustaining the organisations so that it contunes to be functional but also maintains a presence on the market through marketing and brand management activites that garner consumer attention but more importantly sales!

Marketing as a practise is often percieved as a investment heavy function that suffers first during spending cuts and downsizing but it is my opinion that reduction of spending in revenue generation activities is perhaps the wring strategic move to make. Alternatively I would suggest that business leaders consider re-orientating their business models into demand driven business that invest in lead generation and higher conversion of enquiries into sales. This strategy can only be driven by strong market presence and brand recognition in target markets. The marketing mix is this case becomes the driver of lead generation and enquiry conversion through configuring all elements so that they give marketers the best opportunity to present the product to the market.

Overall I feel there is too much unneccessary caution in strategic planning when it comes to responding to external pressures on sales and operations of businesses which compounds the pressure as business activity shrinks from cuts in production, workforce, marketing and innovation for brand development. There needs to be greater bullishness in finding alternatives in a process that is led by creative and innovative approaches to strengthening brands espeically long established brands that have emotional real estate in the market.

Branding represents much more that the logo of an organisations it communicates the value an organisation brings to its customers, its ethos on customer service, the quality of its products and the company’s position in the minds of its customers all encapsulated in a logo, font and colour. So look around and look at the brands you use and ask yourself if you see all those qualities in their logos, font and colour?

Defining customers service in Africa; route towards improvement in customer service

October 7, 2012November 17, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!advertising, africa, Branding Zimbabwe, consumer expectations, consumers, customer relationship management, customer service, customers, Leadership, marketable, marketing, potential, private sector, public sector, Strategy, trainingLeave a comment

Being a regular visitor to Africa in the last 11 months I have experienced varying degrees of customer service quality and concluded that getting “good” quality customer service is still a far fetched dream in almost all service encounters.

A few other travelling colleagues have been discussing how we could drive Africa towards universal good customers service as some research has identified Africa as a future destination for western companies looking to outsource customer service functions to African countries. There are several implications to finding a solution to customer service delivery in Africa, first of which is creating better experiences for customers and improving customer retention. Secondly if Africa is to realise the potential expressed in the above research referred then we need to have a marketable product by ensuring that every customer encounter with service delivery is positive, because you never know who your next customer might be.

It is my opinion that the process of improving African customer service provision must start with developing a clear understanding of how customer service is perceived in the Africa context. The lack of resources, imbalance between demand and supplier in many service encounters means that the supplier usually has an upper hand in most encounters thus removing the obligation on their part to be good to the customer who is dependent on them. This is in total contrast to environments where supply outstrips demand and so companies’ service provision is obliged to treat the customer as “king” in order to retain their custom. This reality of the service encounter in Africa reduces the customers’ bargaining power and potential to switch to an alternative source for either product or service. In the end the African customer feels obliged to accept sub standard customer service as a means to an end.

African private enterprise has substantially better service delivery than public service especially government services like passport offices, registration of births and deaths, medical service and any other essential services that a customer might expect from the government. Perhaps customer service personnel in public service offices do not even regard the people they serve as customers, which then removes the need for “good” customer service. Private enterprise on the other hand recognises the relationship it has with the people they service but greater demand than supplier reduces the impetus to provide “good” customer service.

My conclusion is that there is need for cultural re-orientation to get the customer to demand “good” customer service and service providers from both public and private sectors to view customers as opportunities to create relationships that will continue positively beyond each service encounter. This change will require leadership in both private and public sectors, training and adoption of clearly defined performance parameters supported by systematic evaluation. But the starting point must be a review and analysis of prevailing perceptions of “good” customer service to the provider and customer in Africa.

So, who’s buying the new iPhone?

September 18, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Leave a comment

Well you know how they say somethings never change? For Apple this is starting to ring too true with the iPhone family! Well they change but only to get bigger.

2 weeks back I spoke about how they were winning market share battles in the court, I feel they will need it even more now that many people are starting to think the iPhone 5 still falls short of the Galaxy S3, way short!. One of my colleagues said, the iPhone 5 is what the 4S should have been in the first place. It seems many of us were expecting the new iPhone to be mind blowing, just like the 3GS and the 4 did but maybe Apple have reached their limit on what they can invent for the product.

Endgadget did a spec contrast between the Iphone 5 and Galaxy S3, despite being on the market for what is an eternitty in tech times, the Galaxy wins many like for like contrast! How come Apple didn’t do a copy and improve or at least buy a Galaxy S3, tear it apart and build a better product. It works for Toyota, Samsung, everyone. How can they come to the market with a product that can’t beat an old product for specs?

And what happened to the baby iPad?

The problem with Apple vs Samsung: Is this situation going to lead to more marketing share battles being fought in court and not on the marketplace?

September 6, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!America, Apple, Athens 2004, Australia, Germany, Greece, law, market sare, nokia, Samsung, smartphone1 Comment

So it has come and gone that Apple have taken the fight wth Samsung for smartphone and tablet market share beyond basic marketing strategy. I worry that there is a possiblity of setting an ugly trend here were companies that feel insecure about their marketing positions can use legal instruments to win their battles in the shop.

So if Apple could win, who else has a chance to sue their rivals and get ahead in the market. Word is NOKIA still contributes significantly to the antenna technology in all mobile phones. Imagine NOKIA saying F OFF to everyone in the mobile phones game. Apple won’t like that one bit.

The whole thing reminded me of the Olympics in Athens when NIKE wanted to get Adidas to remove some of its branding from products and have just one trademark like NIKE does. They were suggeting that Adidas either has the 3 leaf mark or three stripes or the more modern 3 blocks on the chest but not all three or 2 as is usually the case. Apparently NIKE felt this was unfair advertising and Adidas were getting more out the money they paid for advertising at the olympics, which, incidentally was the same as what NIKE paid at the same time.

The problem I have with all this is it kills competition and creativity from marketers in their quest for market dominance. With budgets topping £28 billion in 2011/12 there is hope yet for marketing to prevail, perhaps the creators of products should stop focusing on their rivals’s product and invent new ground braking technology rather than this endless chain of innovation that has lead Samsung to pay a king’s ransom in fines.

But, maybe we have reached the end of our inventiveness as a generation. I often ask my students – “is it possible to come up with something totally unique and not a copy of anything on the market at the moment?”

So, post olypmics trauma

August 14, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!Leave a comment

I am probably going to be slated for being too cynical but £9 billion!

What did you get out of the olypmics?, free marketing for the UK, the BBC broadcasted to the world for free but apart from the outdoor events there wasn’t really much marketing going on just self centred British chest beating by the commentators who spoke as if the olympics would bring proseperity to all. C’mon it’s a two week event were other countries do better than us and we celebrate effort of those who didn’t quite make it. A british athelete finished last in the 800m final, 4 seconds off the winner and the tv pundits were celebrating his success. What? really just because he ran a personal best! Stop that, his personal best is 4 seconds the guy he’s supposed to beat, there is nothing to celebrate there.

Some amazing stuff did happen in the olympic fortnight though, Daniel Rudisha made me go all emotional watching him destroy the field. Someone on radio said that performance will be remembered as the day the 800m was transformed from being a middle distance race into a sprint! His laps were 5 second slower than the 4X100m relay world record, Amazing. Mo Farah, emotional stuff I cried! especially in the 10000m final, Amazing. Usain Bolt is still the King! and boy does he know it! What gets me is how the press hang on his every word and make headlines out of craziness without a hint of mockery. Usain loves united and jokes about playing for united = headline, c’mon he’s just playing, its not news!!

The premiership is back this weekend! life can resume normal service for us footy lovers. As a gunner this off season has been spoilt by Robin van Persie’s public diarrhea. Really dude? all of a sudden he is better than Arsenal, well move on then because just like you did, someone else will carry the torch and the gunners will carry on. I think we will do big things this term, big things, the team is settled, we don’t really need RvP coz we have cover and some people who got over dominated by him might come out and shine! Maybe Theo will play up front, its been on the card for a while now. Arsene knows!

More about more in the next instalment.

What’s on for the weekend

July 27, 2012 Taura Khuluma Say it!!2012, Al Assad, Dr Dre, God forgives but I don't, Illmatic, Jay Z, London, mapfumo, music, Nas, Olypmpics, Rick Ross, Syria, three kiings, ZimbabweLeave a comment

I thought I’d bring back this part of the blog because sometimes talking business can be a little boring and we all need to zone out of that for a moment!

So what’s on this weekend? I am going to the Mukanya’s show, it has been all of 20 years since I last seen the Mukanya live in concert. If you are in England I would recommend the show as well because judging by his

latest live in concert Youtube Videos it looks like it will be a good show.

Formula 1 is also on this weekned but if you are like me and you are support Lewis Hamilton the week promises to be a difficult one again. The last 3 races haven’t gone well at all and Lewis’ private life being in the papers for his alleged transgressions doesn’t help either but he’s led both practice sessions today so maybe it could be a good weekend after all.

New music wise check out Nas’ Life is Good album, Nas is back to illmatic goodness on this baby!!, my stand out tune of the album right now is Daughters. Rick Ross is also close to releasing a new album and the track doing the rounds from that piece is Three Kings with Dr Dre and Jay Z partaking in some chest beating for all their achievements in the rap game. I haven’t really taken to the song as some have but maybe if I put it on repeat this weeken it will grow on me!

Elsewhere, it’s Olympic season in London and if it wasn’t for piles of marking I might have gone down to soak up the atmosphere, it threatens to be a once in a life time event tonight around London. Speaking of the Olympics, I have a bad feeling about Usain Bolt, that dude might ruin his legacy this term coz it don’t seem like he is dialled in physically yet but you never know!.

Remember when Gadhaffi was caught and I wondered why he hadn’t ran away when they caught him. Al Assad needs to start making exit plans coz the tide is rising and when the people ain’t scared to die for a cause anymore then time is up. But I am sure he is still convincing himself that the Syrian people really want him and it’s only foreigners causing problems so he will stick around until we see some big ass soldier putting hands on him live on telly! And we will all ask, why didn’t he run away? They never learn, someone said dictators are power drunk so they can’t see trouble brewing.

May the sun keep shining and your cups keep over flowing, be safe and have fun!!

Taf Masiye

It's just my imagination!!!

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