A friend of mine called Emmanuel who had been working in the IT field returned to Zimbabwe  from South Africa a few years ago. On his return he realised that there was no facility to send SMS messages to phones whenever one withdraws money from banks. He took of advantage of the expertise he had gained in South Africa and worked with a local bank to introduce the service in Zimbabwe. The facility had been operational in South Africa for a while but Zimbabwe was slow in its uptake.

So this is the huge benefit that the Diaspora possess-access to superior skills, cultures and technology. Some technologies will take decades to reach this side of the equator and the gap creates great opportunities  for those with an entrepreneurial mindset. I remember getting excited when this school in Harare introduced a school app, I thought the school authorities were being innovative. When I checked with friends based in the States, their answer was that this had been introduced many years back!

So for entrepreneurs especially those based in Zim, the message is clear-make sure that you are clued up on latest technological issues. Make sure you know what is in, what is out, what is coming etc. One way to stay up to date is to join forums where they discuss latest business trends, do watch news or read forums such as www.techzim.co.zw. Just make sure you do not miss out as doing so is perilous!

One can take our post on Bitcoin Fraud which we posted in January this year. We had analysed Nigerian Business Groups and realised that Bitcoin fraud was gaining ground. We estimated the fraud to land this side by mid year and we were not wrong at all! The point here is that as an Entrepreneur , one should always be scanning the environment and the environment does not have to be local only-do expand and cover the region, the continent and all the four corners of the globe.

A trend in West Africa will eventually reach Zimbabwe, A trend in India will eventually come this side. In the past it could take decades but these days the time lag has been reduced. So do check out for trends whether they are on risk management or opportunities. Compare and contrast with the current environment in the country and take advantage of the gap.

Scholars of Management Accounting would call this Benchmarking, a topic we will cover in future but for now lets look closely at what the richest man in Zimbabwe did to benefit from benchmarking. He saw a trend in East Africa and moved fast to take advantage, others who were not following events in East Africa obviously lost out.

By Dr Strive Masiyiwa

Understanding business models (Part 2)
__When you see an opportunity, get STARTED! A case study.

I knew it would be the next big thing. It was time to act, and be a “fast follower…”

The product opportunity I saw: Mobile Money. I’d been watching the developments at Kenya’s M-PESA, talking to friends in the industry, reading about it, and had even made a secret visit there to look for myself. I also knew what was happening in other parts of the world, in places like the Philippines and Bangladesh…

First step (to answer one of your questions at the Tanzania Town Hall): Do your homework!

Next step (yes, you’ve heard it before): #People.

I needed a small team of people of highly-motivated entrepreneurial executives. I plucked a guy working for us in Burundi, and asked him to move to Nairobi, the epicenter of this new Mobile Money revolution. He didn’t report to anyone else, except me. Every week he wrote me a report on his observations. Sometimes we would talk for hours on the phone:

“Sir, there are some smart Kenyans I think we can get…”

“Sir, we can get developers from Cape Town. Can I go see them?”

“I have found a guy in Cape Town but he won’t move to Zimbabwe, can I ask HQ to hire him and keep him in Cape Town?”

“Sir, the best platform for us to use is in India. Have made contact. We need to travel to India to see them…”

Months later:

“We have a system up and running in Burundi. It’s small but we’re learning fast…”

“Sir, I have been working with HR’s talent management team. We’re tracking some really smart young people who we think we could recruit and train to run with this. There are also some people in our system who want to try something new…”

__The #People and #Product were coming together nicely.

Next step: #Process.

“We need the ‘Process builders’ to get involved heavily now, because the business plan is looking good!”

“I love it!!”

# Finance systems? Check.
# IT systems? Check.
# Legal systems? Check.
# Marketing? Check.
# Sales? Check.
# Recruitment? Check.
# Distribution? Check.
# Training? Check.
# Logistics? Check.
(What else? You tell me).
Check!!

“Bring on some really experienced talent for process. You can even use consultants. This business will require complex processes for recruiting and managing dealers.”

“We also have a very sensitive product… Money!”

“Sir, our competitor in (x) is rushing to market with a similar service. What should we do, because we’re not ready?!”

“Neither are they, so stay the course. Don’t cut corners, even if it means they get a year’s head start. We’ll beat the pants off anyone who goes into the market with a half-baked idea.”

__Intense meetings took place every day on getting the #Processes right!

Twelve months later:

“Sir, Burundi is looking great. Can we scale to a bigger market now?”

“Not yet. I need to see more data.”

“Bring your team.”

After listening to them: “What do you want to call this great service of yours?”

“Sir, we were thinking to call it EcoCash.”

“I like it. Go ahead.”

Fast forward 10 years:

The executive who set it up is now one of the most senior members of our organization. He runs our financial services business called Cassava Fintech, based in South Africa. Their operations cover every aspect of Mobile Money including Digital Banking, Payment Systems, Mobile Insurance, Remittances, and eCommerce. They are active throughout Africa, and even in the U.K.

__Another question from our Town Hall meeting this week: “If you feel like you want to give up, what do you do?”

There were times when things broke down completely, and crisis meetings. Sometimes I had to fire people who failed or were not up to scratch. Sometimes people resigned or were poached! We lost so much money in the first two years that some of my more senior executives were actually begging me to shut it down. Yes, we almost shut down EcoCash before it took off!

This year the GSMA (the organization representing Mobile Network Operators from around the world), meeting in Barcelona, Spain named EcoCash the best Mobile Money Solution in the World for 2017!

__How did we do it? We kept our focus on the 3Ps.

If you want to find out more about “People, Process and Product” (and much more) go to Kwesé Inc (channel 405 on Kwesé TV). If you want to learn more about Cassava Fintech, visit the website: http://cassavafintech.com.

To everyone who took part in our Tanzania Entrepreneurship Town Hall (from Tanzania, here on this platform, all over Africa and the world via lifestream on FB) and to our hosts in Tanzania: Thank you. I really enjoyed meeting you and look forward to another one soon.

To be continued. . .

Have you seen the number of followers that Dr Strive Masiyiwa has on Facebook? He has millions of followers and has become the most influential African on Facebook! The reason for the followers is simple-Business! Africans want platforms where they discuss business, they want platforms where they are inspired by their business role models. They want to learn about entrepreneurship and there are few platforms for this.

Masiyiwa has therefore seen a gap and is enjoying sharing information through posts and recently Facebook Live broadcasts. He is always ahead of the curve and one needs to look at the people he is targeting and you want to know about them? They are youths, young people with a lot of energy, young people full of ambition, young people who are not afraid of taking risks. The future of business in Africa lies in Youth! If you are not targeting youths then you are missing the point. If you are dismissing youths then there is something totally wrong with your strategy.

Even political parties in Zimbabwe that are campaigning for the 2018 elections are targeting youths! We have witnessed a couple of youth rallies and at these rallies young musicians perform popular music genres such as Zimdancehall. On the Christian movement, one cannot escape the waves caused by popular young preachers such as Pastor Makandiwa and Pastor Magaya! The most popular musician in Zimbabwe at the moment is a youngster by the name Jah Prayzer who has relegated established musicians to second and other lesser positions on the music scene.

Youths are slowly taking over and they represent the future. If you operate a company in Zimbabwe and in your management structures you exclude youths then expect to lose competitive advantage in future. Most of your consumers are youths or are soon going to be youths and if you do not capture their feelings, if you do not capture their communication channels then you are a sure bet for failure in the long run. Population analysis puts the percentage of youths at 67% in the country and the numbers could be growing. This helps to explain the attention to youths by Zimbabwe’s most influential business person.

Dr Strive Masiyiwa has youths in mind and through his posts he inspires and also markets his Kwese Tv programme. Those of us who love marketing know that he is doing what is called content marketing! If he writes exclusively about Kwese Tv then few will be interested….he however inspires, educates and then throw in Kwese Tv at the end of his articles. Now that’s being a business genius and expect us to tackle content marketing in future which is still to be grasped by a lot of Zimbabweans.

The South African Connection

This week witnessed ZBIN featuring an article by a South African lady based in East London. The article on ‘how to open and run a restaurant business ekasi’ The post attracted more than 600 views and shocked the writer, Ms Siviwe. She had never written an article that got published and what had happened was that we collected the information that she was sharing on one of our groups and compiled a story. A good story that helps to inspire a lot of women interested in starting businesses.

I remember her fears when she said ‘But iam far, based in East London?’ Our response was simple-business nowadays knows no boundaries. Talent also knows no boundaries and what a way to start writing and you get 600 views with your first article! What is also happening is that the ZBIN brand is nolonger restricted to Zimbabwe as more than 500 South Africans visited our site to read an article that was relevant to them. ZBIN now has 1000 South African citizens on our Whatsapp groups, they discuss South African issues, they write articles for themselves…ZBIN only comes in to facilitate and providing a platform. We are also playing our part in a small way to help promote the future of business in Africa, the future that involves a lot of young people who are not afraid to break boundaries.

ZBIN Online TV

We have 2 new business newspapers coming and the reason is simple…..The Future is in Business! Two weekly publications will be hitting the streets in the coming few weeks to months. This is great news for the nation and ZBIN wishes them well.

On a related note, we have been doing Facebook Live Updates and seem to be improving each time. Each update has attracted more than 400 views and the numbers are increasing. We do not have studio equipment for the live updates but this is not a worry at all. Our intention is to provide our members and followers with up to date business or opportunities information. The live update is going to be a weekly event where we will cover various topics such as business registrations, opportunities in Zimbabwe, Running your business, Women in Business and a lot of other business issues.

The updates will include the Diaspora too so that they can share information on various topics as per request by our community. This should be a game changer in the area of entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe. We will use the platform mostly for updates and capacity building of SMEs. A cost effective method which does not cost a lot of money and we hope to improve and attract more than 10,000 per each broadcast session by the end of the year. Our volunteers will also use the platform to provide training and this will be a welcome move as there will be no need to hire venues or use money for travelling. Another first from Zimbabwe, young people showing that Zimbabwe got talent. Whilst Dr Strive Masiyiwa is making an impact on the continent, ZBIN is making a mark locally and regionally.

What is up this week?

A facebook live update from Vee in South Africa: She explains how to run a business in South Africa. We also make follow ups on a story of Bitcoin Fraudsters in Zimbabwe. Do expect an article on Face Book boosting. We encourage you not to miss the Facebook Boosting article as it is the new ‘in thing’ in the country. A number of companies are turning to Facebook Boosting and even political parties are turning to it too. We may even do a live update of this, do check progress on this during the week.

The Beira trip preparations are ongoing, all is now in order for a chance of forum members to critically analyse opportunities that exist in Beira. We would like to know how other Zimbabweans are doing it there. There is little written about Beira by Zimbabweans and we hope to be the first to write about it and also tap into opportunities that exist there. The distance from Harare to Beira is 457 kilometres and it is roughly the same distance from Harare to Bulawayo.