Dangote Group and Apple Corp have one thing in common: both are successful companies in their own domains. Apple is a category-king technology company while Dangote is a preeminent industrial conglomerate in Africa. Apple looks for technology areas with exceedingly huge opportunities. Dangote looks for sectors with untapped opportunities. In most cases, both do not pioneer the sectors, foregoing any first-mover competitive advantage. Rather, Apple and Dangote typically wait for others to move in first, do the initial hard work, and over time, they will plot how to enter, and dislocate the market – and win.

Apple wins most innovation awards because Apple makes great products. But Apple will rarely win any award for bringing new product categories. Before the iPhone, we had Blackberry. Before the iPod, there was the Walkman. Before the Apple Watch, we had Pebble. Indeed, across all domains like payment, music, etc, Apple had always gone to improve what was already in existence. Largely, they watch the incumbents, learn from their mistakes, and then go and build better products. And when the customers see their products, which typically deliver better value, across metrics, the incumbents will begin to experience loss of market share.

Dangote follows the same playbook in Nigeria. Once it discovers a sector that is generating good margins and nice cashflow, it quickly comes in. The playbooks from cement to fertilizer to agro-processing have been consistent on that construct. Dangote will not enter into ecommerce today because there is nothing there. But once there is life therein, expect the conglomerate to pay attention. With thousands of trucks, it can play a double play strategy on nationwide distribution.

For Dangote and Apple, winning markets comes with one clear business construct: unleashing accumulated capabilities with asymmetric resources and execution firepower via technology, financing, distribution, supply chain, human capital, etc that incumbents cannot match. Indeed, by the time pioneers in smartwatch saw Apple’s interest in the category, they gave up because Apple brought in a new basis of competition that is totally orthogonal for them to confront. Dangote does the same thing, and most times wins.

The lesson here is simple: first mover advantage is great, but operating a sustainable business with capacities to build competitive moats to protect castles is even more important.

It is clear now – the students are victims. For years, vice chancellors of universities, TETFUND, National Universities Commission, etc were telling Nigerians that they were  networking our schools. But now that we need to use those invested capabilities, the schools are not ready. As Nigerian students mark time at home while their peers in the U.S. and Europe continue to attend classes, albeit remotely, a new dislocation is being seeded.

But this is no more Europe and U.S., South African schools are pushing deep into online learning to help their students: University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, “has also entered into contracts with MTN and Vodacom which would enable the students to receive free 30 gigabytes of data (10GB anytime and 20GB night express) for one month…“Wits has negotiated with telecommunications service providers to have learning and library sites zero-rated so that you can access them at no cost to users.” Wit is a public school and has stocked 5,000 new laptops for students who may need them.

Of course, I am not sure anyone will expect MTN to do Father Christmas in Nigeria with the high voltage searchlights with fines we have beamed on its operations. So, with MTN out, you expect Glo, 9Mobile and Airtel to help. But it comes down to relationships. I am not sure up to 10% of our university leaders know the CEOs of these companies. Practically, the disconnect between our schools and companies cannot allow anything to work. With no relationship, no deal can be finalized.

But before I get carried away, Nigerian university teachers are on strike. With fighting coronavirus the focus of the government, that strike could enter new phases. So, head or tail, students remain the victims! Why? Everyone has forgotten that teachers are on academic lockdown as Covid-19 ravages the economy.

Imagine a Covid-19  lockdown without ecommerce. Magically, Amazon’s reputation before some politicians have improved significantly across U.S. and Europe as without Amazon, most might have struggled to execute their quarantine and social distancing strategies. Expect fundamental redesigns in the architecture of markets, post Covid-19.

Indeed, tech has won the hearts of many by providing critical infrastructures which have helped nations. Amazon offered grants to small businesses before governments. Amazon ramped down on profiteers before attorney generals. And Amazon prioritized essential goods even before governments could articulate strategies.

America runs on Amazon these days. By the time this pandemic is over, it is all going to be the United States of Amazon. Operational fluidity and peerless visioning process have won. Jeff Bezos runs a big part of America right now: Amazon is “calling up 100,000 troops, extending grants to small businesses, prioritizing essential goods, and cracking down on profiteers.” What again do you need a government for?

The world needs to educate some politicians on the balance technology brings. Sure, while there is a need for better regulation, yet, we must also understand that there is a fundamental advantage that comes with size. Without size, Amazon would not have executed this current playbook. This is not to write that we need only big firms!

The biggest deal right now is that Amazon cannot find enough workers to serve customers – and is no more accepting new customers on some of its product lines. Now, Amazon has a challenge: you must find workers and the politicians can help.

Africa needs bigger companies with capacities to fill the voids left by governments. Amazon is serving America big time, and Africa needs a blessing of that level. The promises of politicians are opportunities of markets. Big is not evil – we just need to ensure fair play by all.