Marketing in the ICT Era

“With more than 900 million consumers, the continent of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing markets. In Africa Rising (a book published by Pearson Education Inc in 2009), renowned global business consultant Vijay Mahajan reveals this remarkable marketplace as a continent with massive needs and surprising buying power. Crossing thousands of miles across the continent, he shares the lessons that Africa’s businesses have learned about succeeding on the continent…shows how global companies are succeeding despite Africa’s unique political, economic, and resource challenges… introduces local entrepreneurs and foreign investors are building a remarkable spectrum of profitable and sustainable business opportunities even in the most challenging locations… reveals how India and China are staking out huge positions throughout Africa… and shows the power of the diaspora in driving investment and development.

• Recognize that Africa is richer than you think
Africa is richer than India on the basis of gross national income (GNI) per capita, and a dozen African countries have a higher GNI per capita than China.
• Aim for Africa two
Opportunities exist in all parts of the market, particularly the 400 million people in the middle of the market.
• Find opportunities to organize the market
From retailing to cellphones to banking, companies are succeeding by building infrastructure.
• Develop strategies for the most youthful market in the world
Companies are recognizing opportunities from diapers to music to medicine in a market growing younger every day.
• Understand that Africa is not “Media Dark” continent
From Nollywood to satellite to broadband, media is exploding on the continent.
• Recognize the hidden strength of the African Diaspora
The African diaspora brings resources and knowledge t African development and expands the African opportunity beyond the continent.
• Build Ubuntu markets
Create profitable businesses, sustainable growth, and social organizations by meeting basic human needs.”

What a thought, 900 million African consumers! But how do we get to them in a changing world bombarded daily with communication and mis-communication, education and mis-education spanning thousands of kilometers across the virgin land of Africa adulterated day in and day out by western, eastern and other – products of lands afar off? Do we know the Products that we need, at what Price, Where do we need them (Place) and is anyone telling us and creating such need for such product (Promotion)? The question lies not in any other word but HOW? It’s not just about getting there but HOW we get there, the means is just as important if not more important than the end – at least some times.

In the previous editions of this column, I have tried to convey ideas bigger than I, in the fashion in which they have dawned on my mind. It is imperative that we force ourselves to think in a simple fashion, that without ICTs we are DEAD! We are finished, dog gone! We are obliterated and vanish into thick nothingness. We are useless to the world, only to be regarded as an object needing to be studied in a university as the most ignoramus brother of the African ape thrown back into the stone age save for our clothes and luxurious lifestyle which would somewhat signify a variance from the time past Stone Age and Loin-Skin era. Ah, that sounds sophisticated you say, let me put it down in simpleton terms we need ICTs and need them now with the right policy frameworks and legislature in place to create an enabling environment for the people (that is you and me).

Do companies advertise because they are big or they are big because they advertise? What is a “big company” anywhere, the last time I checked the so called “big companies” borrow from the “small ones”?

PRICE
There is a cost and a price to anything and everything, at the end of the day it all boils down to, are you willing to pay the final PRICE? In a continent ‘considered’ to be poor by some who consider themselves to be rich by the standard which they have unfortunately set for all – us included (one size fits all), there is need for business to be innovative in cutting costs and coming up with a PRODUCT that has the ‘best’ PRICE. Best price meaning, a price that will be favorable to the buyer or consumer and at the same time achieving ‘reasonable’ profitability for the seller or manufacturer. More and more, ICTs are becoming a determining factor in the end PRICE of a product and organizations need to find the best fit between their business process and ICT. It has been said that “the diffusion of ICTs affects the status and competitive position of countries and jurisdictions, and has the impact across sectors and at all levels of society”. Just to build on an earlier idea in one of my other offerings titled Land Versus Knowledge, let’s revisit the case study of the computerized farm in South Africa and compare that with a ‘manual’ farm in the fertile Matepatepa region. Just to bring you up to speed, on case of the South African based farm I wrote “A brother to a close friend of mine who happens to be a Water Engineer visited an irrigation based farm down south where he was ushered into a control room manned by several computers and pieces of technology controlling the farm. So precise was the irrigation system that there were no random sprinklers riotously watering all over the place but mission specific computer controlled sprinklers watering directly with needle precision on top of each plant. Now picture that, not even a drop of precious water wasted due to the convergence of ICT and Agriculture.” To add onto that, imagine the benefits if the farming process is linked to a database showing the size of crop at any stage and the expected harvest date, calculating the expected yield with a precise knowledge of the input costs, basically everything to do with the crop. At the back-end would be a website, a Marketing Website such that even before the crop is ready for harvest, a prospective buyer can have a follow up of your crop, yes your crop, and until the final day you deliver to their doorstep they can monitor the progress of the crop. Now what can that whole process do to the SELLING PRICE? It goes without say that this process is efficient and does not tolerate leakages and wastage. Look at the elimination of storage costs in the finished product. Why not consider the elimination of or reduction in advertising and marketing costs – internet versus newspaper and television advertising. Let me stop here and allow you to THINK and go wild as pen and paper deny me. Now go to Farm Matepatepa with a new farmer with, (let’s dignify this guy), a tractor or two and waits for the heavens to give him adequate or sometimes too much rainfall, drought and ‘maguta’ (time of plenty) permitting whichever might be the case. This comrade has to visit the farm space ‘physically’ to see the height and so forth of the crop. Marketing is strictly after the crop has been harvested and samples are taken to the prospective market, (imagine carrying say a box of flowers on a plane to the USA to convince a prospective buyer to trade) which might materialize or not so into a sale. Consider the airfare costs involved, the hotel expenses and other hidden costs involved in the unnecessary trip. Needless to say such a Market might be unknown to the comrade in the fertile region of Matepatepa who is good at farming but is not ICT compliant and network ready and as such does not have access to “fertile” markets. Big deal hey! If one company has harnessed ICT in producing Widgets and another is still manually manufacturing Widgets then the ensuing difference between the two would be the SELLING PRICE of the finished product in the long run. Don’t ask me how that’s too obvious - machine versus human being.

PRODUCT
Again visit the farming example and see if the quality of the PRODUCT would be the same, gathering that one method (the computerized method) maximizes input utilization and the other depends largely on GOD or unforeseen factors and forces with little control left to the farmer. How many farmers study the soil PH at the middle of the farming season and have the audacity, creativity and or know how to alter it to suit their particular choice of crop in Zimbabwe and yes Africa? How many farmers have a direct relationship or link with their intended market and not the middle man if any? Who determines the PRICE of the crop and why? Does the farmer have autonomy over such a complex decision as to how to arrive at the last PRICE? Why not, if he doesn’t, I thought he was the one sweating it out day in day out tilling the land and all that? I almost forgot there that I am talking of the PRODUCT. Surely ICT is a big savior this one, remember I don’t talk of devils, I’m too cognizant of whose side I’m on. I love people who can imagine, picture this, a farmer who can control the amount of water that goes onto a plant, the amount of fertilizer (to the dot) which will go into the plant, the underlying soil PH of the soil supporting the plant, (in short the whole process is in the hands and under the control of the farmer), even for a lazy cellphone farmer the crop would be phenomenal. Yes cellphone farmer, why else would you need to wear gumboots and tread on some brown soil when you can just phone the control room and speak to a computer and give it full instructions as to what needs to be done to the crop. I beg you to stretch your imagination don’t focus on trivia.

PLACE
What PLACE now you say with almost a Nigerian accent what with the mai Azuka craze that just hit us. If you have been reading this page you would know by now that the thing we call PLACE has drastically evolved. I can almost visit anywhere, any PLACE anytime, in the world without moving an inch from my desk in the corner office that I occupy, for now at least, lest I get fired. From 21 Downing Street to Number 1 without moving an iota a furlong a foot a a a whatever. That’s amazing stuff right there forgive my unbecoming language but that’s amazing stuff. Can someone tell me which is the shortest route or easiest way to send a parcel optimally to America sorry China lest I forget about looking in the right direction? The easiest answer would be however the national bus would choose. The answer doesn’t matter if you have a monopoly on whatever PRODUCT you are selling but not if deadlines are in place and competition is rife ask me. If there is a DOHA conference in a week and you are the one tasked with supplying flowers to that conference and have to make sure that those flowers are as fresh as the Zimbabwean |Independence, then routes will definitely matter to you and PLACE will be as significant as TIME and the start of the world. How do you find out in the first place, about the DOHA conference when you depend on a black muscular dude who has to take whatever communication you want to make with the external world in a letter attached to a stick lest he touch the letter and adulterate the contents by smudging the envelope? Don’t forget this guy has to run across Africa from village to village on foot if you want to go back to basics. How many months will it take him just to get to some sea where he realizes that unfortunately he can’t swim across the great river depicted in Mr.Bones 2? What a laughing matter if you ask me! I don’t need to trek to the west or the north or the east at least I can sell my A Grade mbanje (no English explanation needed) from here at least it’s organically grown – says my brother from the other side of the law. PLACE! Where is my customer or would be customer located and how do I get the product there cheaply – notice this is the only time I will ever use the word, I strongly believe this word should be taken out of man’s vocabulary because cheap things are the most expensive things period.

PROMOTION
I like the way the South Africans do their advertisements, a big pam pam. Look at the craziness that goes into their humor, a dude laughs out loud at hearing the reduced PRICE of airtime (KNK – Kufa Nekuseka) etc well I not talking of a new position at work for those who have a strong work ethic ever applying for jobs but never thinking of enterprising. Sorry! I think I have run out of pen and paper here let’s talk about PROMOTION some other time there are serious issues right here. I am tempted to just give you a bit of a teaser on what direction we would want to look at what with Barnes and Noble, Amazon and the like hitting it large on the Internet scene. What about street TVs somebody had started that noble idea at Throgmorton House but I think they have somewhat taken a back seat on that one. Is there a way of broadcasting adverts on mobile phones and how do we narrow down to our target market and avoid the rest of the mobile phone community from receiving adverts on anti-bald head creams when they recently had their weave done (27 pieces for that matter)? Let’s get our creative juices flowing!


“Wherefore seeing we also are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” Hebrews 12 verse 1.