Airtel Africa has hit a market cap of N5.4 trillion and became the most valued public company in Nigeria, eclipsing Dangote Cement, in the elite club of SWOOTs ( stock worth over one trillion naira). But it was not a smooth ride; this company nearly packed up and left for India. Fortunately, some smarts came up with new ideas.

I had written: “Having no alternative, Airtel retooled its business model, and became a quasi-financial institution which offers telecommunication services. Yes, Airtel outsourced some infrastructure components of its business, improving its CAPEX and by doing that, had money to invest on its customers. The result has been superb”.

The Airtel Africa transformation is a great case study of the power of business model. Yes, most times, the problem is not the market but your business model. Blaming customers will not grow the business!

In Tekedia Mini-MBA, I have a brief case study on Airtel Africa, using it to make a case why companies must do all to figure out a working business model. I see Airtel Africa as a quasi-financial institution in the business of telecoms. As a result of that model, it has great ratios.

Congratulations Airtel – the trophy goes to you.

Reuters

Meanwhile, MTN Nigeria continues to lead on the revenue table: “MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (MTNN) has reported turnover in the sum of N1.7 trillion for full-year 2021, a milestone that will help firm up its status as Nigeria’s biggest listed company by revenue.” Yes, MTNN has normalized the more than a trillion naira annual revenue which it began a few years ago.

The Nigerian operation of South African-owned MTN Group attained the new height after the number of its active data users surged by 1.7 million to 34.3 million, helping income from data sales increase by 55.3 per cent to N516 billion.

MTNN cited an extension of its coverage areas for 4G services October through December as the catalyst for the higher earnings from data.

Relative to its figure for 2020, revenue for last year grew by 22.9 per cent.

Airtel Overtakes Dangote Cement, Becomes Nigeria’s Most Capitalized Public Company

We have talked all about setting a structure for your business and putting policies and standard operating procedures as necessary for building a system that works with or without you. One thing that is as important as all of these is enforcing the policies and procedures that you have put in place.

So, what if you have a hundred and one policies that are only active in writing, and you have failed to enforce them. What do you think you are communicating to your staff? That anything goes, right? Without enforcement, your policies and procedures might as well be non-existent because they will not make any significant difference in your operations.

If you have a defined hierarchy of reporting, let it work. Stop butting in every step of the way. If not, you will end up having a structure on paper and not in reality. You will end up having so many staff and team leaders, and still doing everything on your own. This is a quick recipe for burnout. If people are paid to do a job, let them do it. It is the reason they were recruited anyway.

One reason why some business owners are reluctant to enforce policies and processes is that they always want to directly control everything. This could be a serious problem if not addressed. It not only affects the speed of delivery but also creates bottlenecks in your processes.

If you are the only one who controls orders and supplies, what do you think would happen when you are not around? Can the business still run in your absence?

I read a post some time ago that the boss kept keeping the staff away from core business processes, in the fear that they would steal his business idea and become his competitors. I thought it was quite laughable especially since there is hardly any business idea that does not already have a competitor. That is a wrong mindset because it keeps you at one spot, with a business that cannot run without you.

Great comments by the community on the piece I wrote on WhatsApp Web and WhatsApp Desktop. Largely, the consensus from our community is this: “WhatsApp can’t beat Zoom at the game of video conferencing.” I had noted that the new WhatsApp Desktop app enables users to make calls from their laptops, creating a mini-alternative for Zoom. In other words, if most Zoom calls originate at WhatsApp (and LinkedIn), with this new feature and possible screen-show feature in future, WhatsApp Desktop could go after Zoom.

Our community does not think that WhatsApp has a chance. I agree, but note this : WhatsApp does not need to be as good as Zoom to be successful. The strategy is this: have the one oasis (the core WhatsApp which here is Chat) and try to offer many other features primarily  to reduce the churn, and keep your customers with you. So, provided WhatsApp video is good enough, even if not great, the company has won. Why? That “good enough” can keep say 30% of the users especially for a free product.

In other words, WhatsApp Desktop video does not need to be as great as Zoom to be a success. It simply needs to be good enough to keep many within its ecosystem. So, examining the whole construct that it has to “beat” Zoom may not be the right call. 

Video is Zoom’s one oasis, Chat is WhatsApp’s one oasis; but they will offer marginal features to make it easier for users to enjoy one thing: have many of the things in one place and save themselves the headache of installing and flipping apps. Interestingly, most users appreciate that. That is what WhatsApp is doing – stay here and never leave for another Zoom call. In short, feel free to uninstall Zoom as we have all in one place.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment: It’s easy to underestimate what WhatsApp could do following this new development.

How can we overlook the fact that WhatsApp has Everyday Utility Value and consequently, it has the users? The other platforms are only borrowing those users. As WhatsApp recaptures its daily users on PCs, businesses will chase after those users, whether they like it or not as businesses tend to gravitate around platforms with large user base.

In my comment on the previous post, I also pointed out that WhatsApp doesn’t need to beat the tier one enterprise communications space. You, however worded it much better “WhatsApp doesn’t need to be as good as Zoom to be successful”, it only needs to be WhatsApp at the PC level.

WhatsApp is not the one competing here, it’s only taking back its rightful place.

My Response: “WhatsApp has Everyday Utility Value and consequently, it has the users” – the morning begins at WhatsApp, not Zoom!

WhatsApp Goes After Emails, Zoom, via Updated WhatsApp Web and Desktop

WhatsApp Web has evolved and this one is very consequential: simply, you do not need to have your phone linked anymore to chat via WhatsApp web. And if you install the WhatsApp Desktop, you will never need Skype for anything. Why? WhatsApp Web now supports advanced chatting and phone calls via your laptops and desktops.

The implication is huge: if you use WhatsApp Web or the desktop version, you can “wmail” – I am making that up for messages sent via WhatsApp Web or WhatsApp Desktop. By partially unbundling WhatsApp web from phone, Meta (yes, Facebook) is going after Zoom. This is a major disintermediation to the traditional email system provided you have the person’s WhatsApp contact. Most Zoom scheduling begins at WhatsApp; now, that video call can happen at WhatApp.

Expect them to offer slideshow support in the next coming months. Magically, everything Zoom and Microsoft Teams currently do will be available via your WhatsApp Desktop. The main difference now is that your phone sync to WhatsApp Web/Desktop is the logging you need in Zoom and Teams.

Possibly, WhatsApp web and WhatsApp desktop could offer a clear path for monetizing WhatsApp by Meta, at a deeper level. By moving things to the big screen, besides advertising, subscription is now evidently possible now for enterprise users who may need this service besides chats.

LinkedIn Comment on Feed

Comment 1: The competition has always been about who can keep customers on their platform longer. The more value users get on a platform, the longer they’ll stay. WhatsApp’s primary drawback was their overdependcy on the mobile application which was an advantage years ago, but has been hit by this new work-from-anywhere economy where users now want seamless transitions between all their devices wherever they choose to work from.

To point out though, WhatsApp is already being monetized through the Business APIs available for enterprises that allows them provide personalized and improved customer engagements:

Comment 2: That space is no longer a blue ocean where you go in and try things out, for Whatsapp to become a force there, it has to offer something better, with thrilling experience; right now it doesn’t feel like it’s close to doing that.

For Zuckerberg to play the subscription game at scale would be like swimming against the tide, because he made his name from freemium, which the world appreciated at the beginning, but now feels he’s constituting a good degree of nuisance. Nobody has ever satisfied people of the world, not even Jesus Christ.

Meta’s empire is already scary in its current state, so angling for mass adoption in market spaces where winners and laggards are more or less known, is not going to end in praises.

Zoom is the verb that owns the video call space at enterprise level, Microsoft and Google are having some shouts, others are in the also-ran league, and Whatsapp is coming to join the queue…

My Response: WhatsApp does not need to be as good as Zoom to thrive. The strategy is this: have the one oasis and try to be good in many things to reduce the churn, and keep your customers with you. So, provided WhatsApp video is good enough, that it is not great is irrelevant.

Comment 3: I do think, there is nothing possible, right?

But when considering going into a space, market, or ex ecosystem that is different from the very strategy that a company has laid, it is sometimes difficult or completely impossible, hence a complete overhaul of the existing design, strategy, or/and tactics might need to be done.

Following what Francis Oguaju said in his comment, I agree with him. The space is a Red ocean for WhatsApp. And with some features and the perception that Whatsapp has at hand, for me, it makes it impossible for me to believe it can compete in that space. It has to change a lot of things or completely change to make it possible for it.

I would leave the features to everyone’s information, which I believe we know.

Comment 4: I think WhatsApp is going after Telegram. With more than 500 million monthly active users, WhatsApp should be bothered by their obviously superior technology.

On Telegram, you can have video calls with an unlimited amount of people for an unlimited duration and the data consumption is very low.
Also, Telegram has always allowed users to connect an unlimited amount of devices to their accounts.

Telegram is cloud-based so you don’t lose your content even when you change your device. So you don’t get that ‘memory-full’ message that WhatsApp is notorious for.

Telegram is king o. It combines messaging with social excellently. I guess its only limitation is that it’s Russian.

Comment 5: The way a brand is positioned in the mind of users is very important.

WhatsApp can’t beat Zoom at the game of video conferencing; the brand was positioned to offer free chatting and data call services and that’s what we know her for.

Zoom on the other hand is premium video conferencing – I’ll subscribe to always have a team meeting for this service.

According to Prof. John Gourville, many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally over value the new, for new entrants to stand a chance they can’t be just better, they must be nine times better.”

The bar is high because old habit die hard and requires a lot to shake users out of old routines.

GoogleMeet should be asked how market? by WhatsApp before rolling this playbook.