This is mainly to organizations & people who have connected with Medcera, an integrated electronic medical record system, as partners. Here, I present ideas on business development pipelines as they work to help Medcera advance African healthcare sector. We are still accepting partners; connect with our team as noted here.
We are looking for partners across Africa and some Nigerian states who can work with us in their countries or states to deploy Medcera at scale. Partners must have deep business development networks and contacts in the healthcare sector and with operational structures in their domains
There are many sectors which offer bulk integration/business development opportunities for Medcera partners. Here are some:
Government (local, state, federal)
Military, police, law enforcement
Schools (primary to university)
Companies
Cooperatives/associations
ETC ETC
We want you to succeed because that is how we would thrive.
Ecommerce is hard especially in Africa where marginal cost challenges make it an offline business. Yes, if the cost of logistics still dominates the transaction/distribution cost, making the operations bounded by geography, it is nothing truly online. As I noted years ago in the Harvard Business Review, we have a long way to go before we can fix most of the frictions in the sector. My summary is that ecommerce is a wasteful venture at this time in Africa unless you have free money to be throwing at it before things improve. And do not call it an online business because there is nothing in it that is truly online: serving an extra customer does not end with a click. It costs real money to reach that person in an area with no postal services.
The biggest challenge in ecommerce is the marginal cost paralysis. And unfortunately, no ecommerce company can fix it since none can price without consideration of losing buyers to supermarkets and open markets. So, any ecommerce operator that wants to keep its products low must discount it and that means absorbing the marginal cost. That is what they do. And they keep doing so until they run out of more money.
As I explained in the HBR, buyers have options, from local open markets to hustlers on traffic lights. Any ecommerce must beat the alternative ecosystems on price to win new customers and keep present ones. To do that, they would need volume, only possible with a nationwide or regional operation. But without logistics like postal systems, that will not happen
Tomorrow’s Ecommerce Operator
If you want to become a tomorrow’s ecommerce operator in Africa, you have to do many things right. As Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp morph into platforms of trade, a clear separation would be extremely critical. The following are needed:
Connect merchants to sell more and increase their numbers
Get buyers to buy more and boost their numbers
Eliminate any element of friction which exists between buyer/seller
To be successful, you need to become an ecommerce banking institution with dedicated focus to serve your merchants and customers and nothing more. And you need to also become an efficient logistics operator. You would need a lot of money to do these things in Africa. Be warned: Africa’s largest company by market cap, Naspers, has been opening and closing ecommerce entities, in Africa, for years. None has worked out, from Kalahari to OLX Nigeria. If this firm cannot get this right, you need to examine your game plan very well.
Addressing these issues will require inventing new models: the new Konga is pursuing the integration of physical stores and digital ecosystem. It would cost money because the perceived asset-light advantage typical in online business would be gone. Building and running stores on generators in Nigeria is not easy. But that is what may be needed to unlock the inherent opportunities in the sector.
Ecommerce Bank Component
Take a look at what Amazon is doing where everything is done to improve the core ecommerce operations using the one oasis strategy. Amazon has built a formidable banking institution without a bank license: call it the Bank of Amazon. It covers any financial service solution you can imagine to help improve merchants and customers experiences in its portal.
Different financial products by Amazon (Source: CBInsights)
You would need to have such capabilities to reduce different levels of frictions if you want to thrive at scale. The merchants have to sell more. And the customers have to spend more. Doing that would involve improving the capacities to reduce frictions between them. Payments have to be frictionless and cost-efficient as well.
All Together
Any African ecommerce operator who has not understood that Amazon has succeeded by building one of the most feared financial service technology tools is not paying attention. By reducing cost for merchants and improving payment options for customers, the company continues to grow. Any company that plans to become a strong ecommerce company in Africa must also become a strong bank without a bank license, delivering services on merchant lending, payments and more.
There needs to be a way to incentivize merchants to come while luring customers to open their wallets, physical and digital. Interestingly, one key parameter that enables that to happen is promising and delivering value: making money and saving money. If ecommerce is about advancing commerce by reducing friction between buyers and sellers, fixing payments and logistics are the functional pillars in Africa. Anyone that can deliver this will need to become an ecommerce bank without a bank license.
It is very intriguing when monopolies weep. It makes nice sound bites except that monetary values are lost, and jobs are always at risks. Many months ago, when TStv launched, with statements boasting of disruptions, I laughed. I called it a Goliath’s challenge, reminding Tekedia readers that TStv has no chance. MutiChoice through clusters of its properties are experts on dealing with distractions like TStv: it has GOtv to take care of TStv and if the Nigerian newbie elevates its game, DStv is there. But there is a competitor from the flank: Netflix.
The video on demand players like iROKOtv and Netflix are also competitors. Anything that engages a customer time is a threat to pay TV.
That has just happened: MultiChoice properties are losing subscribers. It now needs help from government to regulate Netflix because the American video streaming pioneer is disrupting its business. Whenever you hear a monopoly asking for more regulations, just note that something is wrong.
MultiChoice, the pay-TV operator that continues to bleed subscribers, is fighting tooth and nail to remain relevant amid tough competition from online streaming services.
The pay-TV operator lost more than 100,000 premium subscribers in the previous financial year. It has lost a further 40,000 subscribers to date.
MultiChoice SA CEO Calvo Mawela attributed this loss of business to unregulated competition from video-streaming company Netflix, saying it had an unfair advantage as it was not under any regulatory pressure in SA.
However, MultiChoice, which owns DStv, said it was aware that failure to adapt its business model could make it a victim of digital disruption.
Multichoice CEO Calvo Mawela
The MultiChoice Problem
The problem MultiChoice is facing today with the loss of subscribers is not really about Netflix. Simply, MultiChoice knew that the trajectory of entertainment was moving online and will continue to do so. Online is going to become the equilibrium state of “view entertainment”. Yet, MultiChoice did nothing. It is typical; I called it the monopoly hangover when I wrote about Interswitch. These entities are making so much money in the present model to creatively destroy it. Typically, someone else has to do it for them as that is the only way they can wake up.
Every product offered then by Interswitch was anchored on the premise that it was the only vehicle to connect companies online for payment, in Nigeria. You either take whatever you get or you stay offline. When we connected to GTPay, the company also needed to be supported by Interswitch. So, from banks to startups, Interswitch ruled the market. A one-product company, at its best, with many other things (electronic health records, etc) all linked to it, it had its moments.
The Game Ahead
Battling Netflix would not be easy. Hollywood represents the finest brand in the sector. Netflix is elevating the game with its original programming which would be a tough challenge for MutiChoice to match. Yet, it can innovate. It has launched DStv Now, a streaming version of the DStv product. It also plans to have pure video streaming product. But it is debatable how that would go. As I have noted in the Harvard Business Review, companies like Netflix operates on the winner-takes-all model. The implication is that once they come, you have limited chance to take them up unless you differentiate well. The only positive element here is that MultiChoice is not a small company; it is one of the largest corporations in the world. It has the financial capacity to take up Netflix if it wants. Its parent, Naspers, is the largest entity (by market cap) in Africa.
DStv systems (source: Quartz)
But focusing on Netflix misses the point for MultiChoice. YouTube, Instagram and Facebook are all competitors. Anything that engages people’s attentions online is a challenge. Pushing to regulate Netflix while leaving YouTube & Co would be catastrophic. Of course, Netflix has the best premium quality and it is fair to focus on it to drive the message home before regulators. But that would not be enough.
“As a country we have national objectives … if I was to be very narrow, I would say [to Icasa]: treat us like Netflix, so we do not have to pay tax or comply with black economic empowerment regulations,” he told the South African newspaper. “I am saying bring the likes of Netflix in the same net. Netflix does not employ even one person in this country, it doesn’t pay tax, they do not have to do any local content.”
We would be watching to see how South African regulators would regulate American companies. The challenge before MultiChoice is the problem of competing on the web where distribution is unbounded creating what I have called diminishing abundance of internet.
All Together
Many see the call for regulation from MultiChoice as a sign of weakness. Technically, it needs regulations to win because it has been badly challenged and disrupted. No monopoly asks for regulation unless it sees a problem in its path of domination.
This call for regulation is a common call from established monopolies who find their grip on a local market challenged by a tech disruptor, and MultiChoice is no different. At first the South African company tried to compete, launching its own streaming service as eyeballs moved online. Now it’s resorted to calling for stricter rules in its own market.
The problem is not really Netflix because only few Africans can afford to indulge on video online at the scale they could find value from Netflix: data is expensive and internet penetration remains low. In that space, MultiChoice products (DStv and GOtv) still lead because they are fairly cheaper when compared to Netflix. Of course the only way to live today and tomorrow is to innovate as the price of broadband continues to fall, meaning that more people will move online.
MultiChoice is not an underdog; it needs to compete through innovation. Its problem is not Netflix, rather all the clusters of digital ecosystems which entertain users at personalized levels which satellite-based cables cannot offer. The ability to watch only the things you want to watch, which online videos make possible, cannot be compared to cable TV products which show you things you may not like because of lack of personalization.
If you check the microfinance bank licensing process in Nigeria, you will notice that it was written before the mobile internet era. It remains to be updated as I write. They have the unit, state and national licenses. According to The Vanguard, less than 1% of all the institutions have national licenses: “Less than one percent of Microfinance Banks, MfBs, licenced by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, have national licence to operate in the country.”
(1) Unit microfinance bank – with paid up capital of N20million,but without branches/ cash centres beside the main office.
(2) State microfinance bank – with paid up capital of N100million.To operate within the same state or the FCT subject to written approval by the CBN for each new branch/cash centre to be opened.
(3) National microfinance bank– with paid up capital of N2billion. Can operate all over the states or the FCT subject to written approval of the CBN for each new branch/cash centre.
Now, if you are a fintech startup which needs a microfinance bank license to support your operations on the web (like lending, saving, transfer, etc), which one would you go for?
Technically, a unit microfinance bank license may do, if the startup uses only the headquarters for its financing related operations. But doing that would create a big problem in the unbounded and unconstrained internet distribution system which enables that unit (microfinance bank) license holder to reach customers across Nigeria (the expected domain of the national license holders). Would doing that be out of compliance to the Central Bank of Nigeria? In the rule book, you have one physical office. Of course, internet has unbounded your distribution, making it possible to reach national clients.
The CBN, please update some of our regulations to remove ambiguity in our mobile internet era. While a unit license holder, operating on the web, can meet the physical domain requirement, the fact is that the risk is now at national license scale. Without fixing that, we can allow a systemic risk in the system.
This is what I suggest: The national license should be updated to National/Internet License making it clear that to operate on the web as the core distribution platform, any microfinance bank would require a national license.
LinkedIn Summary:Humility brings accessibility. Accessibility opens doors to do great things. Business is about expansion and addition, work out ways to manage how to do that.
If you have a habit where you do not respond to emails, you do not answer phone calls, and yet you run a business, you are in trouble in Nigeria.
Being an entrepreneur means losing some of your personal rights to time! But where you want to hold the full rights, you need to go and look for a job in a bank, oil company, telecom or government. They have systems that make money and even if nothing happens, your paycheck is going to come. But if you open a shop, you will fail if you have that attitude.
Do not take yourself too seriously. It would be impossible to serve markets if you do not have the spirit to connect with people. Returning a client’s phone call and replying that email could unlock a great future. Learn to be nice to people – good things will come to you.
The best audition happens when there is no prize. Audition always.
You know them – they never returned emails. They never return phone calls. They see everyone (but few) as forgotten. If you want to thrive, as an entrepreneur, do not be like them. Yes, there are people who just build relationships upwards and never bother to check what is happening downwards.
The fact is this: to become a good businessman or businesswoman you must develop a skill to make people feel good around you. You need to make customers feel appreciated. And you need to make everyone feel that way because today’s stranger may be customer or partner tomorrow. That is why people with skills to connect with humans typically make good business leaders.
Responding with “Noted” or “Thanks” or “Not possible” over ignoring people will not make us lesser humans. One of the things I tell close associates is that as you begin to find success, do not get trapped into thinking so much about yourself. By that, I mean, categorizing people. You stop picking calls. You stop responding to emails. And you stop endless excuses why no one can reach you in a week.
But that was that guy that had no start or end time. People liked the ability to reach you. Now, it is 8am-4pm as though that works for small companies. Being an entrepreneur means losing some of your personal rights to time! But where you want to hold the full rights, you need to go and look for a job in a bank, oil company, telecom or government. They have systems that make money and even if nothing happens, your paycheck is going to come. But if you open a shop, you will fail if you have that attitude.
Yes, if people call you twice and cannot reach you, they move on. If you check carefully, it is arrogance. Avoid it by all cost. Do not get trapped into the “alpha personality”. You might have hustled to find success, do not change that.
Humility brings accessibility. Accessibility opens doors to do great things. Business is about expansion and addition, work out ways to manage how to do that. Why it may not be possible to handle all calls, emails etc that come to you, delegating and shifting responsibilities make sense. But if you begin to make yourself so busy that no one can reach you, you are saying that you are too busy for new opportunities and partnerships.
But I never believe it is really about work. Most times, you are taking yourself too seriously. Possibly, you have a new title or you have added a new degree. Interestingly, those things do not matter when you are running your shop. People judge your business in the value they get and not the degrees you have. If they hire you and within 48 hours no one can reach you on emergency because you are busy, that would be the last contract.
