Sure, some will be disappointed – now, he is supporting banks! I wrote and praised a public servant yesterday and many were disappointed. That was really strange: if we truly want to bring change, we need to be fair, and focus on the data. I am not an activist – I am an engineer; I use facts to make my calls. If you do well, I praise you. But if you do wrong, I offer my perspectives which may not matter. 

I read how people are abusing banks, on how they are frustrating SMEs in Nigeria. Before you accuse me that I am defending banks, I want to show you this table. I made it because I understand the business. I worked as a banker in Lagos!

Banks “borrow” from the Central Bank of Nigeria at 11.50% (latest number) and they have to insure that money. They have staff and operations to run. Then, they need to make profit to stay in business. By the time they are done, realistically, they should not lend below 17%!

For them to lend below 17%, it means that money is not coming from CBN, but from other sources which might be cheap (donor agencies, DFIs, etc). You may argue, what of the customers’ deposit which is “free”? There is nothing free there since if they lose your money, you will NOT take any excuse. In short, the risk has to be balanced. 

With the CBN lending-deposit-ratio where they need to lend a certain percent of the customers’ deposits to avoid fines, some banks prefer to pay the fines instead of losing your money. See it this way, a fine on N10 billion may be N50 million if the ratio is not hit. That is well better than trying to hit a ratio and lose N1 billion on a bad loan. Now, you can see why CBN fines have not drastically made your bank beg you to come and collect loans anyhow!

My point is this: for CBN to reduce that rate, inflation has to become manageable. If not, it cannot reduce the benchmark. Interestingly, there are many factors that come into play to manage that inflation and to a large extent, you need to be producing things and having a better economy.

Nigeria has a long way to go and everyone is a victim. And that is why we need to work harder. The U.S. can lend its banks at near zero-rate because its inflation is well under control. Nigeria does not have that privilege at the moment. So, we should not be abusing banks, but rather go and build our Amazons, Googles and Teslas, to strengthen the economy and make it possible to lend at 6%. Cursing and abusing bankers will not fix the rate! 

This is simply magical – Amazon now employs 1.1 million around the world. In the United States, it comes behind Walmart as the private sector largest employer of labour. Today, Amazon is a digital conglomerate with tentacles in ecommerce, web cloud services, robotics, logistics and voice recognition. And in these domains, it is one of the top three, if not the category-king.

Amazon will add 3,000 more employees to its books — this time in Boston. The online giant is expanding the technology and software development teams that work on Alexa, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Robotics and Amazon Pharmacy. After Walmart, Amazon is the country’s largest employer, employing more than 800,000 people just in the U.S. The company has experienced “unparalleled growth” in the last 12 months, says The Wall Street Journal, hiring over 400,000 employees in 2020. Its global workforce totals more than 1.1 million.

What is happening here is typical: the most important element in modern companies is building the fundamental stack. Yes, spend the fixed cost, and once that is done, other things can be added on top. It takes out the old construct of core competency, since adding new services today does not require extremely new capabilities, once the fundamental stack is there.

Yes, if you have a cloud infrastructure, you can add music services, voice recognition technology, web metric technologies, and more, largely because the core investment has been done and these ones are not evidently onerous. That is why Facebook can do many things today since the hard work has been done. Facebook Local, check. Facebook Portal, check. Facebook fintech, loading.

If Amazon has logistics infrastructure to move books and office supplies, why not add drugs by opening a pharmacy? If Amazon has a supermarket chain, why not offer pick-up? Amazon does some of these things already and they are connected under symphonic innovation.

Symphonic Innovation is innovation that is not domain-specific, but is anchored on a unified and harmonious approach in the deployment of technology components to accelerate productivity gains and cushion competitiveness. With Symphonic Innovation, you do not deploy and launch for one technology area like blockchain only to be tripped by AI or big data; you launch with a mindset that these technologies are like extended musical compositions which must be carefully organized to make the orchestra an unforgettable experience.

There is one core lesson for emerging regions like Africa: the vision can start as a digital business, but can quickly grow into the meatspace, providing huge societal benefits besides fixing market frictions, but also providing jobs to the citizens. Scale has value because, most times, only big companies tackle extremely challenging problems. Amazon is serving America, Nigeria needs its equivalent.

One of my best subjects in the university and which reminded me that I had left the secondary school level was Philosophy and Logic. Yes, except that course, everything in the first year in the university was done in the final year in secondary school. First semester mathematics and physics were largely Further Mathematics in secondary school. With Philosophy, the professor took us into excursions on the fundamentals of knowledge!

So, in the leadership program  in Tekedia Mini-MBA, I have been looking for how to bring psychology, a distant practical cousin, in our curriculum. But that psychology must focus on how to drive business growth and innovation. I promise you one thing: finding experts in that domain is not an easy matter.

But as always, we got blessed. A business psychologist and the managing psychologist at the Institute of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and a KPMG alum, has joined our faculty. Anthony Alagbile CPsychol, CPLP earned an M.Ed in Mind, Brain and Education from Harvard University. He graduated from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University with First Class degree. 

How do you lead? How do you build a company culture? Speaking with him was another knowledge excursion; a really brilliant man.

Mr. Alagbile is developing a course on organization psychology and how it could help businesses tp thrive. 

Learn from the best; join Tekedia Institute.

Tekedia Mini-MBA Edition 4

Symplifix, Nigeria’s Airbnb for warehouse & equipment  [aggregates warehouses & equipment across Nigeria and makes it easier for people and companies to do short-term renting], is coming out of beta and launching fully next month. To do that, it has job openings in Lagos, Abuja and Onistha and then remotely. 

Symplifix is a digital marketplace which uses data and technology to aggregate grain dryers, silos, cold rooms and warehouses which it offers to its community of users on a pay as you use basis at very affordable rates.

These jobs include Business Development Associates, Regional Logistics & Scheduling Coordinators, Office Administrator, Customer Support Associates, and Accountant.

I was an early investor in Symplifix and it was incubated in Tekedia Mini-MBA. The founder and CEO, Ejike Ekwenibe, did an amazing classwork and I talked him into making it a business. He has since raised more money.

[The fun part: the Alhaji who brought the bulk of the money also got a special gift: free admission to Tekedia Mini-MBA and last two weeks in an investors’ review, he asked me questions on aggregation construct. It was a magical feeling to know that he joined us in our program.]

If interested, please apply to jobs@symplifix.com and the team will explore. Good luck.