Yes, “What is wrong with Andela?”, as TC daily put it this morning. I tried to answer that question many years ago when I wrote – The Andela Problem. It was a very bold article considering that Andela was evidently and universally pioneering in the African software development ecosystem. The problem with then Andela, despite being an amazing company, is the same problem with doctors: your marginal cost does not improve with scale and because of that, you become constrained and bounded.
Think about it this way: a doctor has 24 hours in a day and largely meets one patient at a time. That protocol does not change if there are 10 patients or 2,000 patients available. Simply, medicine is not a great business even though they are the closest biological high priests to the altar of our Creator. Because they have the schematic and survey maps of human systems, they do miracles in great ways. We admire doctors!
But that does not mean a doctor practicing medicine can be a wealthy person. He or she will be fine but due to the marginal cost where he cannot increase supply to deal with expanding demand, he hits a ceiling. Yes, hiring more doctors in a clinic to deal with more patients does not improve the marginal cost.
For Andela, that is the same issue. While you can get clients for these developers, you are bound by the capacity to produce the developers; training them requires a finite time-frame. Yes, if IBM wants 20 developers, you cannot send them immediately as you need may be six months to get them ready.
There is good news though: Andela updated its playbook, becoming a recruitment firm by hiring anyone available with the required skills for its partners. I then called it amazing.because it has solved the marginal cost problem as it can advertise and hire experienced developers overnight with no restrictions of first training the developers, as it originally imposed on itself.
Yet, that old business model continues to be hovering on the business. The middle-skilled developers, not the experienced-get-them-anywhere-you-can-find-them, are at risks and they are carry-risks to Andela, TC Daily explains brilliantly.
Is Andela going to fire more developers?
Last year, Andela tweaked its business modelin a significant way. The company was originally founded and marketed as one that trains people into software developers then outsources their talents to companies in need of the developers; keyword “in need”. But in 2019, it laid off over 400 junior developers and stopped its developer training programme. Andela’s CEO, Jeremy Johnson, said there was “a shift in demand” in the company’s primary market. Placement companies were less “in need” of junior level developers. Andela decided it was going to focus on mid- and senior-level developers as “majority of the demand is for more experienced talent”, Johnson said.
But according to this report by WeeTracker, Andela is still struggling to find placements for its mid-level engineers. There’s a growing worry that these developers “are at risk of being frozen out.” Sources at the company say this risk continues to grow as the company continues to hire more experienced developers. One source said Andela is “constantly hiring in an effort to meet client’s demands with certain skill sets that the current pool of developers might not have.” That’s puzzling, and it puts question marks on the skillsets and the future of the company’s current developer pool.
The question now is: is the market for developers getting saturated or is Andela having a unique problem placing developers? This Quora question tries to answer the former. (TC Daily newsletter)
What is the difference between Usain Bolt and me? He is hardly twice faster than me. What is the difference between the best developer I know and a typical one – the former is easily 10 times more productive. Is he paid a 10x higher salary – definitely not. Strong developers are quite rare, while the weak ones literally bring a negative value to the business (due to costs of training, management attention, support, etc). From these basic assumptions you can derive the current state of affairs in the software industry: hiring managers select only a tiny portion of the candidates and discard all the rest. The result is the corresponding layering in saturation: the market is indeed saturated with low-grade developers while a huge unsatisfied demand exists for above-the-average ones. (Quora)
Andela is one of the companies we are studying this week in our Tekedia Mini-MBA (you can still join).
Ndubuisi Ekekwe thanks for this insight prof. The doctor you portray here looks like the stand-alone medical doctor in private practice, and not the one who goes out to build a business around medical services like having a hospital or clinic.
My Response: Yes. A doctor on mechanics of human systems, and not one on the business of healthcare and medicine. The doctor that does miracles in operating rooms, meets patients, etc is my focus here, not the one that may not have met a patient in years but works with MBAs and strategists to create leverageable value in the healthcare sector. Nothing is wrong in either: I was just explaining what drives the alpha.
As life pushes you to the brink of the wall, you are forced to innovate. That’s not the complete story though, the truth is that you only have one option, innovate or die. An adage in my local language says “ta ba sun aguntan kan ogiri, a poju da seni”. Literately translated as “when you push a sheep to the wall, it will have no other option than to attack you”.
Now that’s counter-intuitive because a sheep is known as the gentle and meek animal that is perfect at following instructions. But at what point will it so break free from its nature to the extent of attacking shepherded or any other agent? That’s the point where all humans seem to get also before they realize the urgent need to innovate.
There is a fundamental assumption in the adage though, the assumption that the sheep will choose life over death, the assumption that the sheep will choose to innovate instead of stagnating and the assumption that the sheep will rather have more option than one option. The assumption is not unfounded though, the assumption was made because the focus of the adage is not to teach about the sheep but make a point about human nature; we will always choose life over death, innovate than stagnate and more option than one option.
My question though and the puzzling of my mind is that why would we wait to the point of being pushed to the brink before we take this necessary action?
Option in the context of the essay is anything that improves your chances of attaining a set goal.
Knowing one more person in your field of endeavour improves your chances, so does learning a new skill and cultivating a healthy habit. You can extrapolate that list in the light of the definition given.
When do we create options?
I have observed that we tend to create options more when we have less of it. When the proverbial sheep in my illustration was being pushed to the wall, it did nothing, when its options were being stripped away from him, it did nothing, and when it was finally left one option, it sorts to create more for itself.
That’s the very behaviour I have observed in humans. The twist here, however, is that the reserve is the case in our story. A good percentage of us start out in life having close to zero option. You can only go to one kind of university because otherwise would mean, you can’t afford it. You only eat a type of food, you can only have a conversation with a select individual, in fact, only a stratum of the society is available to converse with you. You are kind of boxed.
It is at this point we sort to create options for ourselves. We seek to break out of a given social strata buy educating ourselves, upskilling ourselves, and making important bets that could potentially lead us to break free from our initial conditioning.
It is important that you know that so you can understand what the time is meant for and that you might use it wisely. Another tragedy which I often notice at this point of life is that all too often we seem to contend with the few options that we have created. It operates like a diminishing marginal utility, where getting more means to get less satisfied with more. If you can, avoid that tragedy. Work so much that diminishing marginal utility will not explain your option but increasing marginal utility. Because really, the more options, the better your life tends to be.
How do we create options?
We create options through experimentation.
What do I mean? You see when you start in life with close to zero option, a lot is stacked against you. Basically, the system of the world may not play at your favour until you choose to experiment on things. Experimentation entails bets, what are my chances of nailing this? If I nail it, what awaits me on the other side? Bets are important as you seek to increase your options in life.
I have a mental model through which you can quickly access if a bet is worth it…
“…when a thing has a finite, known and acceptable downside with unknown, infinite and acceptable upside, the best course of action for things like that is to accept it.”
That is the code for taking the best. Think about it this way, you have done your research about someone and you believe he can be the catalyst to a venture you are involved in, and you decide to cold mail her/him (the best), there are two possible outcomes in this scenario:
Downside: S/he refuses to reply or replies with a no.
Upside: S/he chooses to reply with a yes.
Now is the downside known? Yes. Is it limited? Yes. Is it acceptable? Absolutely yes.
The other side, is the upside known? Yes, but maybe not fully, s/he can do more than you are asking. Is it acceptable? It’s an upside for your decision, so hell yeah.
Then go ahead and cold mail that person. If the downside happens, fine. But if the upside, you would’ve increased your option in a never thought of way.
This is a pattern that I’ve noticed in all human endeavour. You are not left out.
But as we increase in option, we tend to relax. Law of diminishing marginal utility sets in. Why is that? Because erstwhile we have close to nothing to lose, but now “a lot” at stake. By our nature, this just pulls us back in our shell.
Be deliberate about creating options for yourself and you won’t regret such a decision.
While certificate remains the key to enter a number of industries and companies, the general consensus is that skills and knowledge are the core elements of executing a number of tasks for personal and societal growth. From the south to west and east to the north of the world, skills and knowledge gap remain debatable among the stakeholders in the labour sector. For instance, there is a wide skills and knowledge in the area of lean and offsite construction between Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
In Nigeria, the shortage of technical skills and knowledge is impacting the built environment that comprises the real estate, construction, material manufacturing among other industries. This has been cited by experts as one of the reasons impeding the effective realisation of the Nigerian Content Act 2010.
The continuous impacts of the skills and knowledge deficit have led to the formulation and execution of a number of strategic plans by the government and private sector, emphasizing the need for a paradigm shift in approach to skills and knowledge development in Nigeria. This is imperative as Nigeria enters the first year of the next three decades, expected to spend $3 trillion to construct and maintain infrastructure effectively.
As companies in various industries and segments in the Nigerian economy continue their strategic retreats in preparation for the year 2020, information from the Chief Executive Officer of Alpha Mead Group, Engineer Femi Akintunde indicates that the company is working on an e-Learning platform that would make teaching and learning of various Facilities Management courses in the industry easier.
Adding to the discourse, Olusesan Ogunyooye, Alpha Mead’s Head of Marketing and Communications, says “Like you will see in our communications, the talent Outlook seeks to appraise the current human capacity in the FM market in Nigeria viz a viz the required capacity required to drive the profession to relevance in the face of growing importance of FM in business performance.” Mr Ogunyooye made the submission in an interview with our analyst ahead of the company’s Facilities Management Talent Market Outlook discussion slated for February 13, 2020.
Knight Nigeria is another company in the built environment, making frantic efforts towards skills and knowledge gap closing in Nigeria. The company is proposing Real Estate Academy with the special focus on training and retraining young surveyors and valuers to ensure they imbibe the professionalism culture, the Estate Surveying, and Valuation practice is known for.
Global Property and Facilities Management International (GPFI) is on the race with “The Tech E-SIP Programme. According to the Chief Executive Officer, Dr Kola Balogun, the programme is one of the company’s strategic responses to creating a maintenance economy rather than just training technical skills manpower.
“It is designed to develop highly skilled technical manpower, empower them with social and business skills, empower them with resources to start a business of their own – tools, equipment, van, connect and hand-hold them to business as they commence their journey to entrepreneurship, Support them for the first 2 to 5 years of their business life. We are talking to Bank of Industry, to finance the Van and tools for them,” the CEO said in a recent interview with a local newspaper.
As these companies pursue the race, our analyst observes a need for the prioritisation of aspirational mission stressed by Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe. The young professionals and prospective ones, who are expected to be part of programmes for each initiative, should be informed of the significance of aspiring for greatness and being part of the journey of bridging the skills and knowledge gap in the built environment.
When I conceived the idea to provide a platform to co-learn and co-share, I was confident that the best learning would come from the community. The faculty would simply stimulate a conversation and the professionals would do what they do daily. With dozens of comments in our Discussion Board, that seems to be it. We have four months to go.
Yet, the impact from the community is already evident. A comment on the Board: “With less than a week in class I am very happy with the decision to join the Tekedia community. I am working on two different (Start up) Business Models. The videos and comments are shaping the ideas and models in a way that I am proud of. I am sure the end result will be a combination of efforts by the great insights from this community. Keeping fingers crossed as I continue with the development. Thank you Prof and the entire community.”
More so, from feedback, we are releasing the companies we have chosen for Week 2 Flash Cases ahead. I understand many want to study these companies well ahead to be ready for the materials. Next week, we will study Jevinik, OPay, MKopa Solar, Tinder, Airbnb and PhonePe in a session titled “The Grand Playbook of Business”.
You can still join us on this self-paced 4-month web programhere; everything is recorded and archived.
Source: Google Trends, 2020; Infoprations Analysis, 2020
In the last decade, the world has had various viruses to contend with. From SARS to Zika virus, monkeypox to Ebola virus and Lassa fever to coronavirus, businesses and individuals have recorded a number of losses in productivity and profitability. During the period, developing countries in Asia, Africa and Caribbean and Latin America had the largest share of the consequences of the viruses, according to various reports.
As at the time of writing this analysis, reports say coronavirus has infected more than 40,600 people globally. In velocity, variety and volume, data are being churned out from different organisations across the world about the impact the virus is having on people, businesses and countries with the projection that global Gross Domestic Product is most likely to dip in the first quarter of the new decade.
Exhibit 1: Confirmed Case, Death and Recovered by Region
Source: John Hopkins University, 2020; Infoprations Analysis, 2020
Analysing a 19-day data on the virus, we discovered that 10,759 deaths were recorded in countries and provinces or regions. There was a 99.2% connection between the confirmed cases and deaths recorded, while the confirmed cases resonated with the recovered victims by 95.2%. To the governments, healthcare professionals and families of the victims, these statistics are not encouraging in view of the speed at which the virus is spreading and killing the victims. According to them, current efforts on the containment of the virus need to be redoubled.
Looking at the data again, our analyst found that the difference between the confirmed cases and recovered people was not much. Analysis shows that confirmed cases was 220 on average, while it was 9 and 5 for recovered people and deaths respectively. As the data rollout in minutes, hours and days between January 22 and February 9, 2020, analysis reveals that people across the world sought knowledge about the virus and response efforts of the governments and health sector. Cumulative knowledge seeking threshold was 3,216. Out of this, Nigeria had 1,141 score.
Exhibit 2: Knowledge Seeking about the Virus by Region
Source: Google Trends, 2020; Infoprations Analysis, 2020
Strategic Lessons from the Wuhan City
Away from the staggering statistics, we need to walk through how China, through Wuhan, the hotbed of the virus, is teaching the world one of the right approaches to restrain deadly diseases. Wuhan is the city where the outbreak was first documented. Having seen the gravity of the havoc, the Chinese government swung into action with the construction of two specialised hospitals in the city using prefabricated materials to make the construction process quicker.
Apart from this, there are a number of design features such as the use of negative air pressure for the purpose of ensuring ventilated airflows into isolated wards, not out of the wards. These are some of the specific features of the two-story, 366,000 square foot Huoshenshan Hospital that will provide 700 to 1,000 beds and be managed by the Chinese military. The second hospital is Leishenshan. These hospitals are expected to assist the healthcare givers in coping with the suspected and confirmed cases.
Chinese government believes that construction of the hospitals is highly imperative to the reduction and eventual elimination of the ravaging virus. In this regard, innovative processes and technologies are not being used only, the government tapped emotions of the workers in the construction sector. A report says “workers were paid up to 1,200 yuan ($173) per day, triple their usual wages. At the site, there were at least 35 diggers, 10 bulldozers, and more than 100 people working on the facility.”
Exhibit 3: China’s Hot Provinces
Source: John Hopkins University, 2020; Infoprations Analysis, 2020
China has also proved to the world that it can enlist best construction companies for the building of infrastructure of national importance at this critical period. Beijing GeoEnviron Engineering & Technology (BGE), a pioneer in environmental remediation and provider of pollution control and waste treatment systems, and Oriental Yuhong Waterproof Technology, the largest waterproofing system provider in Asia, are among the companies contributing to the construction of the two hospitals.
The case of the virus has not been reported in Nigeria. However, with our understanding of the past and current approaches to the containment of global viruses by the Nigerian government, we present flash playbook, leveraging mined and analysed existing data. Our argument is that concerned stakeholders in the government need to learn the right strategies and practices from the countries that have had the highest share of the consequences of Ebola virus, monkeypox, SARS, Zika and the current one.
The Virus and Nigeria’s Preparedness
In performing its responsibility, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has issued a series of advisory statements to Nigerians on novel coronavirus between February 3 and 11, 2020. Information also has it that the Centre has supported 22 states for the establishment of emergency operations centres, in addition to the announcement of over N600m for the management of the possible outbreak nationwide by the government.
But, to Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, a Nigerian expert at the University College London and a Senior Honorary Lecturer on Infectious Diseases, “Each state is better prepared to coordinate within and across their borders in the event of an outbreak.” In its message to member states, the World Health Organisation believes that Nigeria is one of the countries in Africa prone to the contraction of the virus. Hence, the need for the prioritisation of Lagos, Kano, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Enugu, Delta and Bayelsa states.
In spite of mapping these states as the key areas for the Nigerian government at the Federal and State level, our checks show that Lagos state remains the only state showing significant interest in preparedness and response strategy. It has opened an emergency centre at Mainland Hospital in collaboration with NCDC and Lagos University Teaching Hospital to identify the virus through the Biosecurity facility situated at the hospital. The opening was not a quick one. Series of reports indicate that the state government swung into action after the officials of the Britannia Hospital in Lekki refuted claims of a suspect case of nCov in its facility.
Efficacy of the Preparedness and the Place of FM Companies
From academics to industry experts, there are concerns on the delivery of no-casualty containment through the existing infrastructure and people. Those who expressed their views along this line have cited the Ebola virus case in which a Nigerian medical doctor and other healthcare practitioners died while attending to a Liberian who contracted the virus in his country before entering Lagos Airport. Those who belong to the second school of thought on the virus have exclusively cited Nigerian government’s inability to announce restriction of people to China and other affected countries as is done by most countries in the world. Reference has been made to the fact that there are 160 Chinese firms in Nigeria with about 40,000 to 60,000 nationals living in the country. With the frequent visit to their country, public affairs analysts believe the government should have considered travel restriction as parts of its preparedness and response strategy.
While introducing this piece, we made reference to the fact that the world is seeking information about the virus. Situating this within the Nigerian context, we discovered that the extent of seeking the needed information about the virus by individuals and businesses in the key areas mapped by the WHO was low. On a surprising note, information about the virus from Sokoto, Abia, Ekiti, Bayelsa and Oyo was higher than in Lagos, Kano, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Enugu and Delta states, the states that are susceptible to the virus according to WHO.
Exhibit 4: Knowledge Seeking about the Virus by Nigerian State
Source: Google Trends, 2020; Infoprations Analysis, 2020
A Flash Scenario
If Lagos were Hubei, a province in China and the hotbed of Coronavirus between January 22 and February 9, 2020, where 27,100 cases were confirmed 27,100, deaths 780 were recorded and 1,480 people recovered, it would be hard to contain the spread of the virus [see Exhibit 5]. As the Exhibit shows, it is evident that it was difficult for the concerned stakeholders to reduce the contracting speed of the virus in the first 5 days of the period. Before meaningful results could be recorded, it took the actors 9 days. Assuming it took Nigerian government and Lagos state government the same days, the impact would be high on people and businesses considering the infrastructure deficit and proactive strategy earlier discussed.
Exhibit 5: If Lagos were Hubei, the hotbed of the Virus between January 1 and February 9, 2020
Source: John Hopkins University, 2020; Infoprations Analysis, 2020
Understanding the Flash Playbook
Now, the obvious truth is that fighting infectious disease outbreaks requires a coordinated approach with a strong continuous commitment to emergency preparedness and business continuity planning. In line with these and previous insights, we came up with a Flash Playbook for the concerned stakeholders. According to our model, containing infectious disease outbreaks is a matter of enlisting the right stakeholders from the public and private sectors. We have identified that facilities management and healthcare industries have strategic roles to play in restraining global viral diseases. The two industries are the lifeblood of every business. Every day, workers commute, work and interact within critical facilities such as water and sanitary facilities in public places. Management and maintenance of these facilities among others, are the sole responsibility of healthcare workers and facilities managers. Therefore, it is necessary to glean from the existing insights in addition to internal data and develop what we called Flash Playbook.
In the Exhibit 6, we explored the playbook further with the specific reference to the place of FM industry. At meso, micro and macro levels, there should be a coordinated preparedness and response strategy. Government is expected to lead the formulation of the strategy at the macro level, while FM companies and FM managers should ensure the development and execution of the strategy at the micro and meso levels respectively.
For instance, governments through its ministries, departments and agencies should liaise with the FM companies on the right approaches for management and maintenance of critical facilities. Facilities managers are also expected to devise specific strategies and tactics from the PRS [Preparedness and Response Strategy] developed by their companies for the real time management and maintenance of public and private sectors clients’ critical facilities using the right people, processes and appropriate technologies.
