Invent, innovate and drive organizational transformation, performance, and growth. Capture emerging opportunities in changing markets while optimizing innovation and profitability. Digitally evolve your business or functional area, turning digital disruption into a competitive capability and advantage. Master the concepts of building category-king companies, and thrive, in any business sector.
Registration for the 4th edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA (Feb 8 – May 3, 2021) has started. Tekedia Mini-MBA is an innovation management 12-week program, optimized for business execution and growth, with digital operational overlay. It runs 100% online. The theme is Innovation, Growth & Digital Execution – Techniques for Building Category-King Companies. All contents are self-paced, recorded and archived which means participants do not have to be at any scheduled time to consume contents.
More so, it is a sector- and firm-agnostic program comprising videos, flash cases, challenge assignments, labs, written materials, webinars, etc by a global faculty coordinated by Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe. When we finish, we will issue a certificate from the Tekedia Institute, Boston USA.
Full curriculum is here; it costs $140 or N50,000 naira. Register via any of our payment options (bank transfer, Flutterwave, Paypal, Bitcoin, etc)
More reasons to join us and sponsor your staff:
For corporate members, our Lead Faculty, Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, will host 3 private sessions. These slots could be used in company events, boards, staff meetings, etc.
We have more than 90 Faculty members from great institutions like Shell, Flutterwave, MTN, KPMG, MIT, Access Bank, Afreximbank, Schlumberger, etc.
Professionals from more than 30 countries including Singapore, US, Canada, India, and Nigeria attended our last edition, enriching our community.
Besides our self-paced programs, we run thrice weekly live sessions, making our Faculty and invited guests available for members to ask questions.
We have a growing library of business case studies on companies. Also, our books including the highly popular “The Dangote System: Techniques for Building Conglomerates”are available FREE to our members.
Session Labs on Blockchain, Decentralized Finance, Cryptocurrency, Work from Home Admin, etc
We have bulk discounts for institutions registering many team members; please email. Happy New Year and a great profitable 2021.
Good People, let us discuss and debate with civility. Make your points and do not attack people. Those who are saying that Twitter ought NOT to have banned President Trump while he is a president have the rights to their opinions. The same applies to those who think otherwise. But calling names should stop please. Trump was the only person who made me vote for the first time in America; I campaigned and voted against him BIG time. He is a poor leader. Yet, banning him on Twitter while a President is not about Trump but about his office. I think that is WRONG. He is the Commander-in-Chief as we write, and he commands the land, air, sea, space, and bytes.
See what Twitter is doing to the @Potus handle. Since they cannot ban Potus which belongs to the American people, they are deleting his tweets. Is that not what we have proposed to Twitter? Embargo his tweets for 60 seconds and filter as necessary. We do that in Tekedia Forum; New York Times does it, and it is a common protocol.
Please you do not need to agree with those who think that Trump should not be banned, at least, while he is the big boss in the land. But respect that perspective. The other argument applies. I want people to keep coming to this digital square; let us not use hard words. Make your point and do not attack please.
Nigeria is one of the countries in Africa where the digital agriculture startups are evolving every year. The emergence is not strange to a number of public analysts and business minded people because the continent and the country cannot continue to play second fiddle in terms of modern agricultural practices. Available information reveals that Nigeria has more than 85 technology hubs, supporting development and growth of over 80 Agritech companies in the last decade.
The main aims of these Agritech companies have been significant improvements of the livelihood of smallholder farmers and encouraging those with sufficient money for investment to consider agriculture industry as one of the best areas to invest in. Outcomes of these objectives include food sufficiency and increase in the contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic Products in real and nominal values. As stated by one of the leading technology companies in the world, GSMA, Nigerian Agritech companies are offering services such as digital advisory and agri digital financial services (access to services), agri e-commerce and digital procurement (access to markets) and smart farming (access to assets).
From FarmCrowdy to Thrive Agric and a number of other brands, Nigerian farmers and investors deserve better products and services. This is one of the reasons these brands have strategic mission and vision statements. In the world of business development, these statements say a lot about how businesses see themselves in the short, medium and long time periods. Having a clear and communicated mission with the targeted customers and stakeholders makes value creation and sharing easier. A clear mission statement is the one that encompasses how people, products, processes and technologies would be used to create and share value proposition expressed in business model.
However, our examination of 34 Nigerian Agritech companies indicates that these elements [people, processes, products and technologies] are not stated [at first, second and third word levels] in all the mission statements of the brands available to our analyst. Only 20 brands have their mission and vision statements stated on their websites. According to our analyst, this has many implications. For instance, it would be difficult for customers and prospective investors to understand the value proposition from the mission statement indirectly. Analysis further shows that Thrive Agric, out of the 2o analysed brands, crafted its mission uniquely. The uniqueness of the statement lies with the fact that the company chooses words that resonate with the issues and needs in the industry. It also has 90 unique words, the highest from a total of 431 unique words employed by the brands.
Exhibit 1: Companies’ Ranking in Terms of Mission Statement Uniqueness
All the 20 companies do not have technology related words in their strategic mission statements. With this, our analyst notes that it would be practically impossible for stakeholders to believe these companies truly applying emerging technologies to solve issues and providing needs. It also suggests that the companies do not see technology related words as one of the strategies for attracting targeted publics.
From our analysis, it emerged that product as a core element appears at the second and third levels of dominant words in the mission statements, while process mostly appears at the third level. Analysis indicates that people as an element appears at first level than at other levels. Having people element in the first level implies that the brands prioritise people than other elements, which aligns with the fact that people are the heart of any business. Without people, processes cannot be formulated towards sustainable value creation and sharing.
Exhibit 2: Business Components Driven by Mission Statement
Our analyst examines public sentiments about Thrive Agric, with a view of revealing attitudinal dispositions towards the company’s processes, people and products. The statement that the company is making investment in agriculture seamless is explored along with the mission statement and views expressed by customers on online review community. In its bid of providing improved services and value to investors, Thrive Agric made a number of strategic decisions and choices between 2019 and 2020.
Despite this, customers believe that the company needs to work more on its value delivery, responses to investors’ plights, especially the payment of returns. Our analysis reveals that in the last six months, people were more negative than being positive to Thrive Agric’s value creation and delivery than in the last one year. More than 49% of 51 customers expressed negative feelings about the company, while 31.37% and 19.61% of the same number maintained positive inclinations and neutral views about the company respectively.
However, these feelings are blessings and issues for other brands. According to our analysis, positive sentiment towards Thrive Agric gives FarmKart and Payfarmer same sentiment. This does not lead to same sentiment for Farmfunded. When customers had negative feelings about how Thrive Agric is creating and delivering value, it leads to negative and absence of negative feelings for FarmKart and Payfarmer. Neutral dispositions towards Thrive Agric leads to neutral expressions towards Farmfunded.
As Elon Musk scales heights of fortune, Tesla follows. The electric vehicle manufacturer has become the fifth most valuable company in the S&P 500, overtaking social media platform Facebook. Tesla now has more than $800 billion market capitalization.
The Democrat’s win of the Georgia senatorial election cemented the swift run Tesla had had last year, upping its shares more than 15% year-to-date.
Democrat’s control of the Congress means American push for cleaner energy will get legislative backing through the passage of Biden’s clean energy bill that will boost the sales of electric vehicles. On the other hand, it means tech companies are going to face more antitrust scrutiny.
Facebook’s shares dipped 1% in the full trading week of 2021. The Capitol riot by Trump supporters also cast negative view on the social media platform that has been accused of complicity for allowing pro-Trump groups to promote their ideas which fueled the violence on Wednesday.
Tesla’s market value on Thursday crossed $774 billion, pushingMusk’s net worth above $188 billion. At Friday’s session high, Musk’s 21% stake in the company contributes more than $170 billion to his net worth, which belittles the combined market capitalization of General Motors, Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
Shares rose as much as 8.4% to a fresh record following analyst Chris McNally’s upgrade of the stock to the equivalent of a hold, according to Bloomberg.
He raised his price target on Tesla to $650 from $225, telling clients on a note that “whether we call it valuation confusion or valuation rotation, we have been on the considerably wrong side of Tesla for over year now.”
McNally explained that investors see Tesla as two separate technology companies – one that’s a market leader in electric vehicles and another that has several potential businesses, from full self-driving cars to battery and powertrain developers. While one part of the automaker’s value comes from the revenue it generates, there are two other components that are more market driven and are a bet on an uncertain future and a bet on Elon himself, he said.
“The market is currently ascribing a $100 billion value to Tesla’s self-driving initiatives, and about $80 billion to the potential of it becoming a battery and powertrain supplier, with about $25 billion to $75 billion to a possible energy-storage business that some think could become larger than the car business,” McNally said.
Tesla’s market valuation now stands at $829 billion and is likely going to hit a new height after Biden’s inauguration on January 20. The company reported a fifth straight quarter of profit in October, with plans to improve battery efficiency and halve the cost over the next three years. Delivery of cars made in its Shanghai factory also boosted sales and added to its rising valuation.
Bloomberg noted that investors’ enthusiasm for the stock also got a big boost as analysts and market watchers started predicting its addition to the S&P 500 around mid-2020.
And the astonishing rise has not only madeMusk the richest man on earth, it has also turned the limelight to Ark Investment Management, a shareholder in the stock and one of the most vocal and ardent Tesla bulls. Ark has 0.36% shares in Tesla.
However, Tesla still has Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple to beat in the S&P 500.
I do not think this is the right move by Twitter – banning the United States President is offensive and certainly WRONG. The best option would have been to embargo his tweets by 60 seconds before they become public. That way, you can filter whatever you want. While I am not a fan of Trump, it is very important that the US modulates before it makes a caricature of its ordinance.
The whole idea that the President of the US was “banned” in an open social media platform may not accomplish what Twitter has in mind. Certainly, I am not supporting Trump’s actions which I have written here will lead to one outcome: disgrace. Yes, without grace, the end is always downwards.
It takes a man who has reached the topmost mountain to know the deepest of valleys. I feel like reaching him, and talk about redemption as we do in the Scripture Union. It may be all lighted up in White House but he is certainly seeing the darkness of power. Grace to him.
They even went after @Potus to ensure he is cut-off
It looks like trump tried to tweet from @POTUS account about how he wants to start his own platform and how Twitter is "not about FREE SPEECH" but that those tweets were removed pretty quickly. Twitter has said it will not let Trump circumvent the ban via other accounts. pic.twitter.com/GNzd95buIE
Comment #1: A mere social media company banning the president of the United State? Dumb people won’t understand the implication, they think it’s about Trump. No, it’s no longer about Trump, but whether a mere social media company can trample on a constituted authority. A president is an institution, not just the office. This is how you prepare for a failed state, by giving ordinary people the impression that anyone can capture power, it’s a very dangerous trajectory.
When people cheer a nonsense like this, their own freedom is imperilled. If you think a social media company could have such powers to decide who has a voice or not, then you are automatically a slave.
Some things should remain sacrosanct, irrespective of ideological differences, a president remains a president until the last minute, it is the Constitution that determines when the time is up, at which point he loses legitimacy, it cannot happen ahead of time, else you are calling for anarchy.
The social media companies will soon be converted to publishing firms, since they have been inching to become gatekeepers. No single entity should be powerful enough to be both prosecutor and judge; it will be catastrophic if does happen.
Comment #2: Ndubuisi Ekekwe are you now saying Twitter should create an exception? This company and many others have been under the scrutiny of the Congress with respect to how their operations or community affects security and politics. Why should they risk being fined ? I don’t know why the president should be treated differently when he violates terms and condition of the said service or community. I don’t know why you came up with this, but it’s sounds like what we do in Nigeria- the law is for some and not for everyone.
My Response to #2: Pick a newspaper tomorrow, check those on the cover pages. They are not people in your village and mine. Those people hold influence. It is an illusion to think the law is blind and T&C apply equally. If I am to do it, I will filter his tweets as they are doing now in @POTUS where they are moderating him since that property belongs to the US Government and Twitter cannot ban it. Moderate him for two weeks and then put him in the bucket like everyone. Sure, I do not expect the President of Nigeria, US, Mali, etc to be treated the same way as I am treated!
#2 AGAIN: My concern here is that your focus is on his portfolio or office and not the insecurity that he orchestrated. Congress is even thinking of disarming him of the nuclear passcodes, my goodness, no disrespect for the president’s office but the man there has fallen below standard and no longer act in the interest of the people. I rest my case.
My last response: Embargoing his tweet by 60 sec will be a balance. You have to respect that office.
