So excited that we have just closed multiple year pre-payments for Business Growth w/ Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a new Tekedia Institute program which is Zoom-only. Business executives, professionals and students are coming on board. We are offering the option to pre-pay for a maximum of 3 years at once which will mean 15 sessions.
We thank Emmanuel S Akintunde for signing up for three years. There is an app called Clubhouse where people just talk and talk; Tekedia Growth is a business translation of that, and our conversation will be more valuable as we will be discussing business growth.
Pick your seat and master the physics of business growth.
Program will run for 8 weeks, every Saturday at 4.30pm – 6.30pm WAT, on Zoom. The sessions will be recorded and archived in the portal for members who may miss them. For each session, the faculty will teach and make a presentation and then discussions will follow. This program will run from Sept 4 to Oct 23, 2021.
Good People, the new program is coming out fine – so far, 127 members have responded in the 24 hours we unveiled. We are expecting to reach 1,000 members as quickly as possible. I also report that some are coming for 3 years. Yes, you can prepare for three years.
Program: Business Growth Playbooks with Ndubuisi Ekekwe
Time: Saturdays, 4.30pm – 6.00pm WAT
Location: Zoom
Start/End dates: Sept 4 – Oct 23, 2021
Faculty: Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Lead Faculty at Tekedia Institute
Business systems and making alpha. I have got the first session ready and the title is “The Physics of Growth”. Yes, we will explain the natural philosophy within business growth in Africa. This is a cambrian moment and the future is exciting.
Join me every Saturday at Business Growth Playbooks w/ Ndubuisi Ekekwe. Register here for N20k or $60.
Updated: So excited that we have just closed multiple year pre-payments for Business Growth w/ Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a new Tekedia Institute program which is Zoom-only. Business executives, professionals and students are coming on board. We are offering the option to pre-pay for a maximum of 3 years at once which will mean 15 sessions.
We thank Emmanuel S Akintunde for signing up for three years. There is an app called Clubhouse where people just talk and talk; Tekedia Growth is a business translation of that, and our conversation will be more valuable as we will be discussing business growth. Pick your seat and master the physics of business growth.
As new technologies evolve, businesses, individuals and governments are having opportunity of solving varied problems and providing needs. The new technologies are also increasing competition. Every business wants to be at the top and well positioned in front of the digital audience, who make decisions based on what they read, listened to and watched on different digital enabled platforms.
In this piece, our analyst examines Search Interest Competition, an emerging competition in the digital space being driven by Search Engine product of Google, Bing, Yahoo and other technology companies in the world.
The focus is on understanding how the competition is or not favouring selected cement brands in Nigeria in relation to their specific performance on the Nigerian Stock Exchange market. To the best of knowledge, this is the first piece in Nigeria that examines workability of Search Interest Competition. Our analyst studied the performance of Dangote, BUA and Elephant on Google Trends, a tool that normalised public search behaviour on the Internet through Google Search Engine. The performance of the brands on the Nigerian Stock Exchange between June 24 and July 2, 2021 was also factored into the analysis.
In our analysis, we discovered that the volume of the Nigerian population interest in Dangote reduced its trade volume by 1%. It was minus 24.2% for the BUA cement. With 18.3%, Elephant performed better. This indicates that one unit of the population interest in the brand translated to over 18 units increase in its trade volume. We found a negative connection [-21%] of the population interest in Dangote cement with BUA cement, signifying that the more the population had interest in Dangote cement the less they had interest in BUA cement. With this insight, it could be said that the population prioritises Dangote brand more than the BUA brand. This is expected to manifest in the trade volume of Dangote brand during the period.
However, analysis suggests that Elephant brand competed favourably with the Dangote cement during the period as the connection analysis shows a 7.8% linkage, which indicates that the more the population had interest in Dangote, the more they had interest in Elephant cement. With this result, it is expected that two brands would have a significant increase in their trade volume during the period. Our analysis further indicates that the interest the population had in BUA cement accounted for 5.9% of its trade volume between June 24 and July 7, 2021. Elephant cement recorded 3.3%, while Dangote had less than 3%.
Some Premises That Support the Brands’ Performance in the Competition
While our analyst believes that there are other factors which could contribute to the performance of the brands, it is instructive to note that the brands made some strategic moves that could be linked with the outcomes of our analysis. For instance, Dangote cement successfully issued N50 billion bonds for expansion projects and others during the period of our analysis. It also partners with NCF on ecosystem restoration.
BUA cement debunked the rumour that it planned to increase price. “We are now aware that Dangote Cement has increased the price of its Cement (ex-factory) by N260 effective Monday, June 14, 2021. BUA is not a part of this increase and will not seek to increase the price of its cement (ex-factory) in the foreseeable future.
BUA therefore restates its earlier position communicated on April 24, 2021, that it will not join in any increase in the prices of Cement for the foreseeable future.” Divestment of over N1 billion from the BUA Cement Plc and donation of N230m infrastructure to relocated communities in Sokoto could also be potential factors.
Society needs to grow and develop sustainably. Society needs theoretical understandings of various concepts and constructs domiciled in the university, colleges of education, polytechnics and other higher education institutions that generate theoretical knowledge. As imperative as it is for the academia and industry to come together despite that the numerous benefits that would accrue to both, it has always been difficult for the stakeholders have appropriate models for overcoming stumbling blocks along the strategic partnership road.
Our check indicates that “Industrial-academia linkage (IAL) is a crucial mediator and modulator of skill development, adoption of knowledge and promotion of entrepreneurship. It also aids in the strengthening research and development investment via exploiting the synergies and complementarities present in scientific and technological capabilities. This, in turn, nurtures commercialisation and mobility of labour in both the public and private sectors. In 2019, our analyst noted that Nigerian stakeholders need to connect and fix paralyses in the R and D sector, one of the sectors that is critical to sustainable growth and development of academia and industry.
In the report, our analyst pointed out that “it is necessary that businesses and academic researchers remove barriers preventing research co-creation. As an advocate of combining academic and industry principles for understanding issues discomforting people and organisation’s growth, Academic-Applied Research Co-Creation Hub is being proposed as part of solutions to the issues in the R and D sector, using academics-professionals approach. AARCOC emerged after critical analysis of the current situation of research and development engagements in Nigeria. The hub intends to make significant contributions to sustainable academic and industrial development using scientific methods.”
From 10 members of the Hub, who reside in Nigeria and other countries in the world, the Hub has been able to produce a number of academic publications in national, regional and global reputable journals and books. It has also been able to produce popular articles and white papers that enable businesses, political leaders, policymakers and individuals made informed decision in their respective domains.
Our New Proposition and Model for Realising IAL in Nigeria
Our analyst and his colleagues in the Hub have realised, through the outcomes of the researches conducted so far, that there is a need for an information portal that will be the main repository of knowledge for the stakeholders in the academia and industry towards the formation of sustainable strategic partnerships. Therefore, Abito Citta is coming on board to provide an enabling environment for academics, students, professionals, business and political leaders.
The platform seeks to dwell on providing solution driven content rather than problem driven content being produced predominantly by the mainstream news media across the country. The Hub believes that educational institutions and research centres or institutes have more to offer the Nigerian society than perennial conflicts and crises. At the same time, both the industry and academia have more to gain when they are properly clustered and linked.
From the analysis of the data and insights that emerged from the Hub in more than two years, two categories of linkage are being proposed. These include mono-linkage and multi-linkage. The expectation is that there will be more types as actors interact and information flows freely. With mono-linkage, we envisage a situation where an academic institution or research institute collaborates with a company on a particular project [teaching, research and development, capacity building among others]. Multi-linkage is the opposite of the mono-linkage.
Whether mono-linkage or multi-linkage, Abito Citta team expects an academic institution or research institute to have collaboration with businesses in its immediate community [location] more than those outside the community. This is premised on the Hub’s analysis, which indicates that collaboration with the close industry benefit the host community more than a synergy with distant industry.
This morning, the first thought that came to my mind was “when last did I contact my teachers/lecturers?”. I discovered that over the past few years, I have transformed from someone who couldn’t read a word to someone who had started reading, writing, and even publishing a journal. Isn’t that amazing? I believe most of my readers have also witnessed this transformation. Having said that, most of us are also being overwhelmed with one thing or the other to the extent that we do not take our time to recognize the good efforts of our teachers whom have in one way or the order made us who we are today.
You don’t become an engineer, a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer, a president or even a senator without being taught by a teacher/lecturer. How often do you contact them? Have you ever taken your time to travel down to your secondary school or university to say hello to your past mentors? Or better still, have you ever picked your phone to call your past Professor to say hello or probably send a text? I believe our answers will be “No”. Our teachers need to be appreciated for what they do for us. Do you know how happy your teacher would be when you call him and say I am Bakare Mutiu Shola, one of your past students and that you just called to greet him/her. Remind him how he often scolded you during Physics classes and how you have become a Professor of Physics.
Do you know that by contacting your teachers to salute them, you are encouraging them to do more? For example, I came across my MSc research topic in one of my Professors’ class. After the research and publication of the work, I contacted the Professor to appreciate his wealth of knowledge. He was so happy and promised to do more. He commended me that people like me are those who make them put more effort to what they teach. Our teachers, like everyone love when we appreciate them. I know you are also thinking of one amazing teacher/lecturer. I implore you to pick up your phone to call him/her to appreciate them. Everything isn’t about money.
