There is excitement in Tekedia land: Africa’s leading customer experience (CX) high priest has joined Tekedia Mini-MBA and she will be teaching a course on  “Customer Experience Management and Innovation”. She has 20+ years of experience delivering CX success for local, pan African and international organizations across telecommunications, financial services, technology, health, entertainment, religious, education, manufacturing, and auto dealer organizations. 

deBBie akwara, CMC  is on a mission to grow businesses, one customer experience at a time across Africa.  She is the founder and Group CEO of Niche Customer Experience (CX) Group.  Before Niche, deBBie managed CX at First City Monument Bank, Zenith Bank, United Bank for Africa, Etisalat, and Bridge International Academies. She also has work experience in frontline customer service & sales, learning & development, and human resource management.

This is an extremely important course because at the end of everything, business is nothing but fixing frictions which customers have. You win with customers, and CX is a catalytic element of that process.

Join me to welcome deBBie to Africa’s modern business school, Tekedia Institute. People of the world, learn from the best – and master the concepts of building category-king companies by learning the physics of Customer Experience.

You have launched. Now, you need to grow. How do you do it? Join us tomorrow as we co-learn on the mechanics of business growth. I work with some principles making sure the execution has operational resilience necessary in volatile and uncertain markets where data remains patchy to develop solid playbooks. We will look at those principles and see the “physics” in them. Most great companies in Nigeria and Africa have those as part of their business DNAs.

Sat, Jul 31 | 7pm-8.30pm WAT |  How To Expand A Business – Ndubuisi Ekekwe . Link in the board 

Join us.

If Facebook is an entertainment ecosystem, its future is video. And it seems that is the case. Instagram is moving rapidly to position itself as an entertainment ecosystem which shows you content irrespective of your connection or relationship with the creator. Partly due to video, the social media giant reported $29 billion in revenue for Q2 2021, more than a 50% increase over the previous year.

Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft had yet another blow-out quarter, as expected. Google parent company Alphabet managed to more than double its net income year over year, thanks primarily to YouTube’s online advertising sales. Apple TV and Apple Music helped lift the iPhone giant to 93% higher quarterly profits, though CFO Luca Maestri dashed hopes for that high level of growth to continue next quarter. And while Microsoft took a hit in its Xbox gaming subscription business, its profits still climbed 47% from the same period of 2020. All told, Apple, Alphabet, and Microsoft posted combined quarterly profits of $57 billion. (Fortune newsletter)

All these changes are coming because these companies are looking at the number of hours spent per user. Interestingly, video is a better way to entertain that text. The implication is this: Facebook will juice videos and more of  them as it continues to work to hold its own space.

YouTube numbers have already validated that videos deliver great results. Facebook is evolving to Facevideo to be part of that evolution.

Facebook users are spending a lot more time watching video, and short-form video like Instagram Reels is growing fast. Speaking during the company’s second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that “video now accounts for almost half of all time spent on Facebook.” And on Instagram, TikTok competitor Reels is the “largest contributor to engagement growth.”

Though he stopped short of sharing more specific stats, the new details suggest Instagram’s Reels may be gaining more traction as the company vies for creator talent. Zuckerberg also noted that the company’s focus on creators and shopping would also help it reach its longer term goal of becoming a “metaverse company.”

The destination is “building something brilliantly new and different from the internet as we know it” through the creation of a metaverse: “As part of Facebook’s next chapter, we’re setting up a new Metaverse Product Group. Each of our major initiatives – community, creators, commerce, the next computing platform, etc – will unlock many new experiences by themselves. But together, they’re all part of a much larger goal: helping to bring the metaverse to life. I believe the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet, and creating this product group is the next step in our journey to help build it,” he said.”

Zuckerberg said, the metaverse will bring enormous opportunity to individual creators and artists; to individuals who want to work and own homes far from today’s urban centers; and to people who live in places where opportunities for education or recreation are more limited. A realized metaverse could be the next best thing to a working teleportation device, he says. With the company’s Oculus division, which produces the Quest headset, Facebook is trying to develop one.

Video is emerging as the channel of the future. Very soon, more adverts will move through video.

Just very excited to commend our team at Touch and Pay Technologies Ltd which powers Lagos State Cowry card. Thank you Olamide, Kabiru and Michael. I am always super-excited to discover and support extremely bold young people. And I also thank the government of Lagos State under the leadership of Governor Sanwo-Olu.

I mean, I do not want to write much since I am a party here, but what he did is what everyone wants to see in Nigeria. TAP competed against American and UK companies – and at the end, they picked a local company  that can customize to the level they want, not just take it or leave it. I thank His Excellency for supporting the local team. And our team delivered.

Good People, if your state dreams of what is happening in Lagos to happen in yours (eliminate revenue leakage), we are here. TAP is one of the largest fintech companies in Nigeria on many fronts. And it is super-amazing.

With Lagos running well, we are beginning massive continental-level growth. We want to have conversations with states, nations and players on how TAP technologies can work for you.

Tekedia Capital

Tekedia Institute is very excited to welcome makers and innovators from Soulmate Industries Limited, Africa’s largest indigenous hair- and body-care product company, to Tekedia Mini-MBA which begins Sept 13. From the home of Soulmate Hair Condition Plus, African Herbal Hair Grow, Relaxer and other great brands, you continue to inspire your nation and continent with innovations.

We are honoured for the opportunity to co-learn with a company with three decades of history, producing products which are sold in London, New York, Atlanta and other global cities. And across these cities and African capitals, every look changes when one finds a Soulmate!

For those integrated to become global distributors of this Africa’s beauty powerhouse, click here for the brochure.

Welcome again to Tekedia Institute.