Jumia is going to release its quarterly results this week. Analysts are expecting a drop in revenue and a loss: “The Berlin-based company is expected to report a 2.1% decrease in revenue to $60.75 million from $62.05 million a year ago, according to the mean estimate from 2 analysts, based on Refinitiv data. *?Refinitiv’s mean analyst estimate for Jumia Technologies AG is for a loss of 58 cents per share.”

I went to ChatGPT and asked how Jumia could improve its business; below are suggestions. Of course, these are generic which can apply to any business.

I am watching how Jumia performs this week considering that it has changed management and did a major restructuring. If the company does well, that would  be a WIN for everyone, since perception is part of the game in Wall Street. Indeed, a growth for Jumia is a validation of the Nigerian economy and amalgam of future startups which may like to list in New York. But if things do not change, many startups will remain frozen, out of the view of IPOs from Nigeria.

How is Jumia business doing?

As an AI language model, I do not have access to the current financial statements of Jumia, an African e-commerce platform. However, the company has reported both positive and negative financial results in the past. In 2019, Jumia went public on the New York Stock Exchange, and it was the first African tech company to do so. However, the company also reported a loss of $69.9 million in the same year. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jumia’s gross merchandise volume increased by 23% to $326.2 million, while its losses also narrowed to $50.5 million. Overall, Jumia’s business performance can be described as mixed, with both positive and negative results.

Any suggestion on how Jumia can improve its business?

As an AI language model, I don’t have access to Jumia’s data, but here are some general suggestions that could help Jumia improve its business:

1. Improve delivery times: Jumia could work on improving its delivery times to ensure that customers receive their orders quickly and efficiently. This could involve partnering with more reliable delivery companies or investing in its own logistics network.
2. Expand product range: Jumia could consider expanding its product range to attract more customers. This could involve offering more high-end or specialized products, as well as exploring new categories such as home appliances and electronics.
3. Increase customer engagement: Jumia could focus on improving customer engagement by offering personalized recommendations, loyalty programs, and social media campaigns to keep customers engaged and loyal to the brand.
4. Enhance user experience: Jumia could work on enhancing the user experience of its website and mobile app to make it more user-friendly and intuitive for customers to use.
5. Improve payment options: Jumia could consider offering more payment options, including cash on delivery, mobile money, and other digital payment solutions to make it easier for customers to complete transactions.
6. Improve customer service: Jumia could invest in its customer service team to ensure that customers receive prompt and helpful support whenever they have questions or issues with their orders.
7. Expand to new markets: Jumia could explore expanding its operations to new markets in Africa, where e-commerce is still relatively underdeveloped. This could help Jumia tap into new sources of growth and gain a first-mover advantage in these markets.

From Reuters:

• Jumia Technologies AG is expected to show a fall in quarterly revenue when it reports results on February 16.

• The Berlin-based company is expected to report a 2.1% decrease in revenue to $60.75 million from $62.05 million a year ago, according to the mean estimate from 2 analysts, based on Refinitiv data.
  

I had made a nice presentation in a Harvard Business School program, and students in Wharton Business School invited me to join a panel. As I traveled from Boston to Philadelphia, my mind was set to listen to the keynote speaker for the event. Then, the moment came, and Tony Elumelu began to speak. He had titled his keynote “Perception & Reality: One African Entrepreneur’s Journey”.

The title of the presentation was not typical. He was a businessman, a banker, a magnate, but NOT an entrepreneur, I reasoned. Yes, the word “entrepreneur” had been built under the construct of an aspirational vision of overcoming challenges, in the process of building businesses, to fix frictions in markets. But when a man or a woman becomes super-successful, a new nomenclature becomes necessary.  But the man is still using “entrepreneur” as he chronicled his beginning (the cowboy-34 year-old bank CEO), his ascension, and non-gravitational acceleration into the pinnacle of African business.

In Secondary Technical School Ovim (Abia State), we were taught Isaac Pitman shorthand (not offered in WAEC but my village heads hired outside tutors who taught us just in case for the future). I did not put a lot of effort into it, but nonetheless, I picked one skill: the ability to summarize any speech on the fly.  This was my summary of TOE presentation:

(1) You need a vision (2) Match that vision with strategy (3) Hire the right people (4) Test, validate and scale (5) Confidence (6) Be open-minded (7) Build a brand (8) Have balance (9)Think broad, Take Risks (10) Society matters:  “… he kept reminding the full-packed auditorium that if he could do it, that any of us could certainly do what he had done.” Read here.

(I will follow up later what happened after the publication and another lesson on business leadership)

Comment on Feed

Comment 1: So, a time comes when one outgrows being an entrepreneur?

My Response: Not really. But you would not expect a bank owner to say he is an entrepreneur. You never overgrow it of course. but I was not expecting it since most times, we use the word “entrepreneur” on the path to ascension, but when you have succeeded, we drop it. But when he used the word for himself, he reshaped my understanding of the practical real meaning of being an entrepreneur. Most times, we look at it to break at the attainment of financial success. But from his angle, it is usable as the pursuit of value through enterprise continues. Indeed, you can find success in banking, but you can become an entrepreneur in oil & gas and other sectors, as you begin to build to fix frictions in that space.

Comment 2: Entrepreneur for me is the business guy who refuses to acknowledge his ascension. Attaining business goals require periodic realignments, new business targets, new milestones to be met, new products to be tested. Thats why only men and women who consistently strive to better yesterday’s business accomplishments are termed Entrepreneurs.

My Response: Great insight there. This was indeed what TOE had in mind as he used “entrepreneur” instead of “businessman” which is typical