For many entrepreneurs who are visionaries, some of their ideas have been viewed as verging on heresy and madness. Entrepreneurs being who they are question the status quo, sometimes to the detriment of perceptions of even their sanity.
In a Huffington Post article Susan Wilson Solovic writes of her former husband Rich Pisani, an entrepreneur who ran for public office in the early 90s on the sole platform of bringing high-speed rail to Missouri. That idea at the time was seen as verging on radical.
Solovic writes that nearly two decades later, Barack Obama proclaimed the need for high-speed rail; an idea that has not caused the uproar it did for Pisani. She concludes that “timing is important for every entrepreneur, but sometimes it's simply a matter of waiting for your day to come”.
Any entrepreneur knows brands are crucial for business. Good brands deliver the product or services’ message clearly, confirm a businesses’ credibility, connects with target prospects emotionally, motivates consumers to purchase and cements loyalty.
However, there are times when this can go too far, and the brand overtakes visibility. Just today when shopping for paint, the only name that came to mind was “Peter Marangi”.
For those not in the know, Peter whose fictitious name is a play on using a common name in Kenya and the Swahili word for paint is a character that appears in advertisements of an established paint company. The role is played by the talented actor Anthony Kinuthia who provides a comic take on house painters and even after Barack Obama’s election gave "Mr. Barack" advice on what colour to paint the White House.
So when searching for paint products today the Peter Marangi ad was so powerful that the brand name “Duracoat” evaded me. However, when I asked for Peter Marangi’s paint I was promptly offered a tin of Duracoat.
So Basco Paints, the company in question, you almost lost a sale, but at the end of the day your brand Peter Marangi if not Duracoat saved the day!
“The abuse of entrusted power for private gain is always fine for the one person doing it, but it becomes catastrophic if everybody starts doing it.” - David Pitt-Watson
Last night on the news, Kenyans got to witness Dorothy Angote, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands leading what was a day-long graft busting raid on junior officials in her Ministry. The Ministry which handles nearly five million title deeds, has been continuously been named as being one of the top most corrupt public institutions in the country. For her efforts, the PS unearthed thousands of files that had been stashed, some of which had been “missing” since the 1990s.
Kenyans have long become used to the phantom menace called “missing” files. The ghost appears out of nowhere just when one needs to undertake a transaction with the government.
Anyway, Dorothy Angote’s impromptu raid at least saved some Kenyans from the cartel of rogue officers at the Lands ministry as well as what we shall politely call brokers, agents or tender entrepreneurs.
However, Ms. Angote’s prescription to the problem falls short of expectation when she announced that there would be a reshuffle and disciplinary actions for the errant officers. If the Lands Ministry was a private business, for sure at least there would have been mass summary dismissals, if not court prosecutions. To send a clear message, the punishment must be clear.
Kenya has not been alone in handling rogue brokers that encourage public sector corruption. South Africa has also been dealing with such brokers who because of their close connections to the political elite, seem to be amassing great wealth to the detriment of hard working entrepreneurs.
Bobby Godsell the chairman of Business Leadership South Africa was recently mentioned in the media calling for South Africans to stand up to tender entrepreneurs who benefited from state contracts.
He likened this business practice to "a form of economic terrorism" that imposes “a cost on state services and conferring no benefit”.
This came in the wake of allegations that the country’s ruling party ANC’s youth leader Julius Malema's who the BBC recently described “28, a little overweight, impeccably dressed, and rather fond of referring to himself with the royal ‘we’” had irregularly personally benefited from lucrative government contracts. However, Mr. Malema has denied accusations of unearned wealth by saying that he is merely the victim of a political conspiracy and a racist plot.
Indeed Malema is just another example of South Africa’s “bling culture” which has for some compromised ethical business behaviour. Entrepreneurs have had to be linked to a politically connected personalities in order to effectively compete on the public sector market.
Closer to home, business cronyism in the tender sector has led to great resistance each time the government tries to institute measures that will even out the information asymmetry when it comes to public procurement.
As we mentioned almost two years ago, the broker sector in Kenya has also become a culture where:
“You need a middle man to manoeuvre public processes. For instance, if one goes to the companies, lands or court registries, you have to more or less fight your way to the front of the queue. Brokers have taken precedence and because they have managed to become acquainted with the public officers, they tend to get their work done first … “
And it is this lack of transparent systems and promulgation of red-tape that have been a boon for the broker community. The cost imposed on not just entrepreneurs but every taxpayer in muddling through bureaucratic systems is what ensures that brokers shall always be in demand. After all, the opportunity cost of giving a broker a facilitation fee and lunch money to ensure that your application is submitted or your file is found, is much less than the cost of having to leave your business in order to chase up the matter yourself.
Then there is the issue of business competitiveness which has also had an impact on the need to fast-track (at whatever cost) government procedures. Bending the rules and paying the occasional bribe just to get a process fast tracked or even to be awarded a contract are common dilemmas faced by today’s entrepreneur. Moreover if one is doing it, then you can bet that others just to stay ahead of the competition will also do so.
It has now become recognised that an important catalyst to business growth is enabling entrepreneurs to compete on the public procurement market. And it is encouraging that young entrepreneurs are taking on the bottlenecks in the public sector, and developing new applications that equalize information asymmetries and promote transparency whilst combating public sector corruption. One such business is Tenders Unlimited, a new Kenyan business startup that provides databased access to tenders to business people.
Reducing the opportunity costs of red-tape frees up resources for more productive activities as well as spurring wider economic growth. Thus computerization of government documents should be implemented.
And finally to put rogue brokers out of business, procedures that require in-person attendance should be minimised. As seen by the influx of mobile phone money transfer systems onto the market, banks are now joining the fray and offering mobile payment systems that will eliminate the need for people to stand in long queues just to get their bank statements. Without ZAP and MPesa, chances are that the traditional banks would not have brought banking services closer to the people.
Now we are asking the government to bring it’s services closer to us taxpayers too.
Youth 4 a Better Future Campaign is an ongoing environmental and social campaign that promotes market driven agriculture, enterprise development, environmental conservation and research.
It is an initiative of Maa Community Foundation, Health Awareness Peer Education Programme (HAPEP), IMPACT Kenya Youth Initiative, Tabaiki Sports Association, KEYFORD and STOMAZ.
Its main objective is to raise awareness on environmental, health, sports and entrepreneurship development.
Currently the project has a very successful solid waste management enterprise in Narok town, a bee keeping project, a digital village centre, a goat project, an organic tomato farm project, a tree nurseries project, a micro finance and woodlot project. The target is 100 of such enterprises by November 2010, and by 2013 the founder Ole Mepukori projects that there will be 500 successful social enterprises across Kenya.
Yipe.org recently got the chance to chat with Ole Mepukori who said that he started in 2008, but opened doors to his friends who brought in their friends and so it went.
Right now the project has youth groups from really remote areas selling their goats at a profit to markets as far as Mombasa. “Yes” Ole Mepukori told Yipe, “we want all Kenyan youth to come join us and in ten years we will all look back and say, ‘we helped build Kenya’".
Ole Mepukori adds that the project is not only limited to young people, as he believes everybody has something to offer for the advancement of this cause, and even if that person is an eighty year old granny they can also play a vital role.
He concludes “Lets believe, say little, work hard and Be Young Forever!”
If you are interested in being a Youth 4 a Better Future join the community here >>>>
This is the first detailed global study of its kind that attempts to understand the nature of women mobile subscribers in low and middle-income countries such as Kenya and India.
Among the key findings, the report showed that:
There are 300 million fewer female subscribers than male subscribers worldwide
A woman in Africa is 23% less likely to own a phone than a man.
Going forward, two thirds of potential new subscribers for mobile network operators will be women.
Women in rural areas and lower income brackets stand to benefit the most from closing the gender gap.
93% of women report feeling safer because of their mobile phone.
85% of women report feeling more independent because of their mobile phone
41% of women report having increased income and professional opportunities once they own a phone
An article published in this week's Pambazuka raises issues about policies to promote economic development.
The article, “South Africa’s ‘bling’ culture is a disgrace” by William Gumede tells of a growing new-money class, living a Hollywood-esque life in the midst of poverty.
He writes that this bling lifestyle of parties and fast flashy cars amongst South Africa’s elite, is encouraging others to look for the fast buck, rather working hard or studying.
Even the leaders have joined this new life, with no less than President Zuma’s party the ANC launching a fashion line of leather jackets; the cheapest costing US$ 217.
All this social pressure to live the bling life has for some compromised their integrity and ethical business behaviour because of links to sugar daddy’s, senior politicians and even crime bosses.
Gumede faults South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) programme as having contributed to this state of affairs. Because one does not have to build a business brick and mortar, entrepreneurial drive has been culled.
And even for those that have slogged to build their enterprises, corruption in the big business market of public procurement has only benefited a few well connected entrepreneurs.
And Gumede warns that “this ‘bling’ culture will break down South Africa’s productive capacity. We are ‘eating’, but we are not building any new factories or plants that can create jobs …”
Lamentably for the young aspiring entrepreneur, it seems that it may be more worthwhile to try and connect with a blinged elite patron, than to put pen to paper and write their business plan.
Read South Africa’s ‘bling’ culture is a disgrace here >>
The 1st World Youth Meeting at Bari, Italy ended yesterday where African delegates released a Declaration that recognised the challenges African youth face including unemployment, corruption, poverty, lack of access to meaningful education, climate change effects, and civil wars among others.
The Declaration further demanded that African youth be included in decision making and that poverty eradication approaches focus on entrepreneurship development, specifically through the creation of youth funds.
