In business we like to talk of disruption. To grow, you have to disrupt the incumbents by setting a new basis of competition which will help you to take market share from them. The digital camera innovators disrupted companies like Kodak which built their businesses on thin film photography. In Nigeria, we have seen the old powerful banks like First Bank and Union Bank live under the shadows of Zenith Bank and GTBank which used technology to redesign Nigeria’s banking sector. The market capitalizations of these banks make that disruption very evident.
Yet, it is not always necessary for a company to disrupt for it to grow. To explain that disruption is not always required for growth, I will use free-range chickens, found in most African villages, to create an analogy. A free-range chicken “is a bird that is allowed constant access to the outdoors, with plenty of fresh vegetation, sunshine and room to exercise”. As a teenager, I grew some and it was a very good business!
This bird does not compete for your time. Unlike dogs and cats, you practically do not invest so much time on free-range chickens. In the morning, they leave the house and in the evening, they return. They feed for themselves!
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In business, we can be like chickens. Yes, create a new market in Africa even when you are not disrupting anyone. It is not always that one has to disrupt, but it is mandatory that one has to CREATE, in order to find GROWTH.
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Haha- I can relate very well to this. A few weeks ago, I was left with N500 and was thinking of how well to spend it, since that all I had, so while taking a stroll to where I would buy my stuff a stopped off at my friend who sells shawarma to have a small chat.
On leaving an elder friend of mine- ahead of class to us all came, and ask me to buy him a piece, surprisingly to me I was not reluctant to buy it, ehn, me that don’t have money, and even when the thought of buying the shawarma came to my mine, I killed it.
The point is spending, business is not always logical. Nature leaves room for our emotion and madness- like the stray Hen, we just have to learn its ways if we can and seize its opportunity.
Good postulation here.