Have you seen the latest syllabi from leading universities in the world? There is emphasis on globalisation and global strategies. Students are supposed to strategically think in a global way. Restricting your thinking to your local context is no longer good enough. Think beyond Zimbabwe, plan beyond Zimbabwe and tap into opportunities that abound beyond our borders. This will help your initiatives ensuring sustainability. A risk in Zim maybe an opportunity in Botswana and vice versa. Red tape in Zimbabwe may not exist in South Africa and so on.
So next week when you sit on the table discussing or reviewing company performance-are you going to think strategically or you will restrict yourself to Zimbabwe? When you review your performance on the Balanced Scorecard, are you going to review how you are doing globally or you will simply review local perspectives?
Restrict yourself locally and you will have no one to blame! Trends coming are that of companies breaking boundaries-through digital marketing one sees companies advertising to readers or potential clients in countries that are far from their location. I can decide to target stone sculpture lovers in Moldova or Ukraine, at a click of a button-I can target young adults in Manchester or Houghston! I can compete with a company doing business in Kenya without leaving Harare…
ZBIN and Global Perspective
Last week we had a global initiative that targeted Malawi, Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa and Botswana. Within 2 weeks, we had our best success story to date! Within ZBIN forums one now hears SeTswana, Nyanja, Sotho, Zulu, Xhosa….we have become regional! In a few weeks it will be Portuguese within our forums as we add the Portuguese in Mozambique too.
We have a fabulous case study of what lies ahead in terms of business in Southern Africa. We managed to invite 7 regional representatives to Zimbabwe within a space of 2 weeks. We did not know them 2 weeks ago, they also did not know that they were to come to Zimbabwe in 2 weeks time. Everything happened so fast like lightning and we did not disappoint-high quality training and logistics that ensured the success of a program designed and delivered in Zimbabwe.
Most had doubts especially those coming from Botswana and South Africa-the question was what is it of good that can come from Zimbabwe, a country facing financial troubles? Some were warned against coming to Zim but they resisted the pressure-they all came –enjoyed what they saw- and went back. It was a humbling experience to see some visiting Zimbabwe for the first time and the good thing is the follow up that ZBIN will be doing going to all of the 6 countries we covered. Within a week, we created 7 regional jobs, we also created an additional 5 jobs of local staff who will be supporting the regional countries. The 7 regional jobs are supposed to each create more than 50 jobs in their countries within the next 6-8 months.
This is going to be a successful story of Africans designing their own programs and funding them without government nor donor support! This is going to be a story of Southern Africans creating value by working together doing what they enjoy most-business!
We kick started the programme last week and our capital was $1,000 only but this amount is going to create hundreds of jobs, empower thousands of people across the region and we hope that it is a model that will inspire a lot of stakeholders. More to come in terms of updates and review in the coming months.
So whats Up this week?
ZBIN to be extremely busy with our regional initiative so expect few activities from your favourite forum. Major events involve the following:
Facebook Live: Have you seen the poor quality of our videos? We sincerely apologise for this and hope to improve-maybe in the nearby future we will be able to afford studio equipment for the live broadcasts. For now we have to do with what is available…do our thang and keep going! We are covering all members on the forum-locals and diasporans. This week we do have Thelma talking about investment on Wednesday at 7:00pm. Do not miss this one-we urge you to participate and come with questions.
Focus on Mining: We hope to cover a couple of mining issues-command mining opportunities and everything you may want to know about mining such as registration of mining claims and mineral prices
Business Opportunities in South Africa: Estimates put the number of our sons and daughters in South Africa at 3 million. Some have doubted the figure especially when compared with official records of the number of Zimbabweans in South Africa. What we all agree on is that the population of Zimbos in SA is huge. Most of the people staying there are working as professionals which is not bad but the time for entrepreneurship in coming up fast! Time to venture into entrepreneurship is slowly coming up….Zimbos in SA should think beyond the current professional jobs market! There are plenty of opportunities that we seem to be overlooking. We are therefore starting a serious campaign for Zimbos in SA to take advantage of opportunities in Mzantsi and we will do this by providing free information.
So enough for this week, wishing you happy holidays
Munemo wekwa Musana-Bindura!
