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The Hoopoe and the King

By
Tiamiyu Ismail
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0

After a long recess the King emerges in glory from his chamber, well braced for the evening hunt. He examines his assembly of men and discovers that the hoopoe is not present at his designated duty post. Immediately the King declares, ‘’surely, the hoopoe is the cursed one today, except he shall bring me some plausible reasons for his audacity.’’

Far into the east and sensitive to the humming of the wind, the hoopoe resolves to not retire home until he finds something worthwhile to appease the King with. So he presses further into the ether and soon discovers a mystery. He beholds a sublime kingdom ruled over by a lady.

‘’What heresy’’ the hoopoe says as he returns home to inform the King about this.
On arrival, the hoopoe prances forward radiantly to the amazement of the bystanders and the amusement of the King. Following a mild chuckle, the King beckons at his erring subject and says ‘’surely you’ve got some sweet jokes to tell me so I shall not punish your excesses.’’

‘’Your Lordship, in your name and glory, I have traversed the world and I’ve caught it in naked treachery against your Highness’’ the hoopoe says.

‘’Stop speaking in parables. I am no fan of empty wit. So come bare with your points’’ the King demands.

‘’I know of a kingdom in the farther East full of brass and gold, milk and honey and a wider army of subjects, all belonging to a lady. This I’ve seen in earnest horror my Lord. I swear by your name’’ the hoopoe assured.

Immediately, the King becomes enraged, brimming with a fiery storm, he demands in wanton possessiveness, ‘’bring me her throne. I want her begging for her dare life after such blasphemy’’ whereas it is the King who harbours wild grudges and vain cravings.

The King’s virile pronouncement comes to pass as surely the Queen’s feminine submissiveness is harsher than the venom of the mamba.
She caresses the Majesty’s fiery cravings to ashes with her airy, gentle touch.

Commentary and Lessons

The hoopoe is a species of bird found across Africa, Asia and Europe. It is known for its colourfulness, briskness and restiveness. The hoopoe also has a sonorous voice capable of causing hypnosis in those that pay attention to its chirpings. Due to its relative small size and light weight, the hoopoe hastens and tosses about with the movement of the wind and is rarely stable and reflective in the earth.

The Legend of the hoopoe is a story from the eastern social thought often told to admonish against social vices such as anger, bitterness, restiveness and immediate gratifications. The story appears in Surat Naml, chapter twenty-seven of the Quran narrating the dusk of the King Solomon’s kingdom after the King met with his would be alter ego, Queen sheba.

The moral of the story is also reflected in the classics, Sun Tzu: The Art of War. ‘’If the general is not victorious over his anger and sets them swarming like ants, one-third of the officers and soldiers are killed and the walled city not uprooted…’’

In the story, we are admonished to be wary of the hoopoes in our circle. These individuals do not have a keen sense of direction and never really enjoys minding their businesses. They always tend to mask their emptiness with their parochial prowess and their capacity to inspire superficial awareness.

When things unfold in their natural order or according to divine ordainment, the hoopoes always seek an illusory gap to connect. They are always on the lookout for crude or grapevine information to feed the ego of the significant others in their lives with. Because they are not intelligent and disciplined enough to create value, they always seek to gain attention and maintain their relevance in a social gathering by raising false alarm and spreading unverified information.

The hoopoes exaggerate reality out of proportion and creatively play their roles as catalysts of destruction. A king that wants to have control of his empire should be careful with paying attention to these individuals.
Beware of what you are fed with, especially by someone who craves a political favour.

Market Profiling and How to Sift Through the Market Noise

By
Tiamiyu Ismail
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0

In an anecdote often used in marketing, two sales representatives of a shoe company were sent on an assignment to explore opportunities in a country their company aims to establish a market. The first sales representative reported ‘’everyone goes barefoot in the country, hence, no market there for us at all’’. The second representative reported ‘’everyone goes barefoot in the country, hence, there is a massive opportunity for us there’’.

Both representatives were presented with the same fact but one saw a challenge and the other saw an opportunity. Generally, whether one sees a challenge or an opportunity in a situation depends on one’s capacity to connect the dots.

There is also a saying which goes thus; have a market before a product. To the neophyte, this often sounds self-contradictory since one without a sellable product has no business with the market in the first place. However, a proper way to look at it is this; to win a market, one needs to identify a gap in the market and develop appropriate solutions into sellable products or services.

The first bold step is profiling your target market based on the existing relationship between demand and supply. What are people demanding that are not being met in the right quantity and quality? The entrepreneur identifies and profiles his target market in terms of their existing and emerging needs and how he can efficiently provide services or products that meet these needs.

Who are my target audience? What do they want or need? How can I efficiently provide values that meet their needs? Answering these questions aptly informs a good marketing strategy and provides a leverage to navigate or sift through the market noises.

When analyzing who your target market is, you can categorize people based on how regularly they buy from you; the sort of product they buy; their motives of buying your products or services; and their purchasing power or budget limit.

The next step is to concentrate your marketing strategies on a specific market categorization or profiling to generate prospects or leads. Here, it is important to ask if your business depends on the quantity or the quality of your prospects. Quantity is seldom preferred to quality. Quality leads have greater chances to convert into sales based on your knowledge and profiling of your customers.

Your marketing strategy must be developed based on insights and cues from your target audience. It is believed that speaking first to a representative of your target audience before you develop your marketing strategy will enable you to ascertain the veracity of your target market profiling and test your assumption about what you think they want and why they could buy from you.

How you communicate your business proposition to your target audience also really matters. Business communication must be done in a language the target audience understands and that appeals to their experience and sentiments. Ask, will these communications convince them that your service can provide the benefits that meet their needs?

Being clear about what your target audience want and need and exactly what it is you are going to offer to them will enable you to develop the specific marketing message and proposition that will most effectively sell the benefits of your product or service to them.

Lastly, producing in the right quantity and quality that meet your customers demand in a timely manner and at an affordable price is nonnegotiable to maintain your customers’ trust and loyalty and develop goodwill over a long period of time.

Resources:
Good Small Business Guide 2012: How to start and grow your own business. Bloomsbury

Developing Aba Footwear and Fashion Sectors, Would You Invest In This Business Model?

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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2

FrieslandCampina is one of the world’s largest dairy companies with products sold in more than 100 countries. In Nigeria, the company is known through the PEAK MILK brand. It began as a cooperative of farmers in the Netherlands, around 1871, and set out for a global domination. All dairy farmers produce milk from their cows, and those are paid for and collected at distribution centers, and then processed for global export, through the FrieslandCampina brand.  Those farmers collectively own FrieslandCampina and the company publishes and enforces standards which all members adhere to. Using this business model, the company generates excess of US$12 billion in yearly revenue.

There is something we can learn from this company for textile, footwear, and other categories in Aba and other Abia cities. Let us assume that a group of business leaders come together and set up a company – and that company specifies product specifications, quality standards, etc across product lines.

 For footwear, let’s say we have Aba Global Footwear producing under “Enyimba” brand logo; footwear makers within that ecosystem will become the majority shareholders.

In operations, every footwear produced by members would be bought by Aba Global Footwear which has a core mission to market and distribute the footwear locally and globally. The artisans will just focus on making quality shoes for “Enyimba”, knowing that the brand owner (Aba Global Footwear) will buy whatever they produce.

This model has the core spirit of Igwebuike (strength in unity) baked with entrepreneurial capitalism. It supports the core thesis of the Igbo Apprenticeship System and “Onye aghana nwanne ya” [do not leave your brethren behind] since they mutually compete and cooperate while maintaining the core element of free enterprise.

The state government (via ministry of trade) will regulate “cooperatives” which are actually fully-structured enterprising entities owned by members mainly to ensure those artisans are well protected. 

The government cannot transform Aba and our cities by itself. We need new business models engineered by companies and businesspeople to come and help us.  

We’re looking at new business models which can make it easier for innovators to organize and drive growth in Abia State. For this, can you invest in this business model? Or simply, what do you think of it?

Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Co-chair Abia State Economic Transformation Transition Council

Why Blockchain Will Revolutionize the Financial and Socio-Political Sectors

By
Paul Ugbede Godwin
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0

Blockchain is a technology that allows the secure, peer-to-peer and real-time exchange of value without intermediaries. It has been hailed as a game-changer for many industries, especially finance and socio-political domains. In this post, we will explore some of the benefits and challenges of blockchain for these sectors, and how it can create a positive social impact in emerging economies.

One of the main advantages of blockchain for finance is that it can reduce transaction costs, increase efficiency and transparency, and enable financial inclusion. Blockchain can facilitate faster and cheaper cross-border payments, remittances, trade finance, and supply chain management, by eliminating intermediaries and reconciling data across multiple parties. Blockchain can also provide access to financial services for unbanked or underbanked populations, by allowing them to use digital assets such as cryptocurrencies or tokens as a medium of exchange, store of value, or unit of account.

Another benefit of blockchain for socio-political sectors is that it can enhance trust, accountability, and participation in governance and civic processes. Blockchain can enable secure and verifiable voting systems, identity management, land registry, public records, and social welfare programs, by ensuring data integrity and immutability. Blockchain can also empower citizens and communities to have more control over their own data, assets, and resources, by enabling decentralized platforms for crowdfunding, charity, social impact investing, and peer-to-peer sharing.

However, blockchain also faces some challenges and limitations in its adoption and implementation. One of the main challenges is the lack of regulatory clarity and harmonization across different jurisdictions and sectors. Many laws and regulations still require paper-based documentation or centralized verification, which may hinder the full potential of blockchain-based solutions. Another challenge is the scalability and interoperability of blockchain systems, which may affect their performance and compatibility with existing infrastructure and standards. Moreover, blockchain also raises some ethical and social issues, such as privacy, security, governance, inclusion, and education, which need to be addressed with stakeholder engagement and collaboration.

In conclusion, blockchain is a promising technology that can revolutionize the financial and socio-political sectors by providing new ways of exchanging value and information in a more secure, efficient, transparent, and inclusive manner. However, blockchain also requires careful consideration of its technical, legal, and social implications, as well as its alignment with the needs and values of its users and beneficiaries. Blockchain can bring big social benefits to emerging economies by enabling them to leapfrog traditional barriers and challenges in their development paths.

What Do You Think? Ministry of Aba Affairs and Development in Abia State

By
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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3

When the federal government created states in Nigeria, there were cardinal cites, upon which those states would be built upon. In Abia State, Aba, the Enyimba City, is the fulcrum which was expected to take the God’s Own State to the heavenly gates of opportunities, abundance and shared prosperity for all Abians. That has not happened because Aba is the city that needs to be saved from the miry clay, instead of it providing the greener pastures. Yes, the promises are latent and remain unlocked.

The Abia State state motto as captured in the coat of arms  is “prosperity through enterprise”. Aba will lead that because Aba is a center of enterprise and opportunity. To make that happen, there are many ideas which are being explored as we architect a plan for Dr Alex Otti, Abia State Governor-elect. Do we just give Aba its own ministry to help fast-track its development?

Sure, it is not going to be a ministry by name, but one that rebuilds, expands and advances a great city. With focused intervention programs, the Enyi of Ndi Abia will rise again. And when it returns to parity, that ministry could be scaled down.

What do you think of this playbook? Do you think it could help bring urgency to the development of Aba, the land of enterprise and opportunity, in God’s Own State? #AbiaIsBetter for your investments.

Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Co-Chair, Abia State Economic Transformation Transition Council

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