The Lacuna in the system

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March 28, 2018

Many bright students still fail, they are sedulous but failure still occurs. Often times the lecturer becomes the culprit. It’s either the sadist lecturer failed me, that lecturer doesn’t know the course or the semester was too short.

While these reasons above might be genuine, there is a lacuna in the system.

We need to LEARN how to LEARN. Nobody teaches us how to learn even during those lengthy and boring orientation sessions. All we are told is that we ought to study hard, burn the middle night candle, Read and Re-read etc.

While a one hour mandatory class on LEARNING HOW TO LEARN would have made all the difference in those esoteric courses on Electromagnetic fields, thermodynamics
Econometrics, quantum mechanics /relativity, Pharmacology (endocrine), Real analysis, anatomy, and biochemistry, etc. we had to take.

That no one teaches us how to learn is no excuse really. I mean what do you use your YouTube sessions for?

In my final year as an Electronic Engineering student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I wanted to improve on my performance and research took me to Marty Lobdell – Study Less Study Smart and the Feynman Technique. And my final year performance (GPA: 4.91/5.0) was the best I ever had throughout my five years in college. I only wished I discovered these techniques in time to make learning easier.

I imploy you to follow those links to learn how to learn and improve your performance in any field.

If a method is not working, change it.

If it’s not optimal, change it.

If the method works, improve on it.

Do more of smart work.

#LearnHowToLearn
#ChangeThatMethod

The Uncontested Trophies Through Regulations

By

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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March 27, 2018

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Be careful what you wish. The world of Internet would change because of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Companies like Facebook and Google would be affected. In short, these companies are smiling at the bureaucrats in Brussels. U.S. Congress may have a regulation as more revelations emerge on how Facebook data was compromised by Cambridge Analytica.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union. It addresses the export of personal data outside the EU. The GDPR aims primarily to give control back to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.

Yes, they are fighting for us – to save us from our data which we willingly share with reckless abandon from getting into the wrong hands! But saving us would make it practically impossible to have any challenger to Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc in coming years. And many startups that depend on these ICT utilities would die. I had noted this in a piece in Harvard Business Review few weeks ago. Say it another way, by toughening data sharing, the regulations would kill competition, handing over the trophies to the incumbents in perpetuity. Yes, the option to build upon their existing infrastructures would be heavily curtailed.

Google’s language translation services are the best available. Very soon, Google Swahili- and Google Igbo-enabled tech solutions could become the local standards. A good strategy could be to find ways to position startups to build on the existing infrastructure of these ICT utilities instead of directly competing with them. The promise of voice assistant technologies in local languages could be powered by Google, in this case.

This is the deal: While it makes sense to regulate Google and Facebook and toughen privacy, we would make it legally possible for these entities to NOT share. And if they do not have to share, they have built a competitive moat which no one can overcome. Facebook’s suppliers are its users. It has been doing the external planet a favor by sharing their data. Now, it can keep ALL under the law, claiming privacy protection.

We would have the best user privacy but we would kill competition. Yes, Google and Facebook would continue to mine and collect all the data they want. The world of web belongs to Google robots. It has access to it. But now what it gets, it can easily keep inside. The implication is that everyone would have to converge in their worlds. Why? They have the best data and the network effects work in their favor.

The old web has been bidirectional system where Google and Facebook collect data and then share with others in their ecosystems. Today, that is gone. They have the rights to collect and keep. That is not going to make us better. I expect them to shutdown most APIs which many other entities have depended upon.

Comments from LinkedIn

Prof, this is an interesting perspective to the ongoing privacy debate. I believe it comes down to how much risk society and govt in general is willing to bear. It’s a delicate balance between between trying to engender the public’s trust in the use of these technologies and preventing over-regulation.

Leaving the dominant tech players “unchecked” could end disastrously as corporations are largely profit driven and will act in the best interest of their shareholders e.g deliver on quarterly earnings targets. While I do understand the concerns raised with respect to privacy, I fret over the possibility of greed driving decisions of these companies as society becomes overly dependent on the services they provide.

You noted “We would have the best user privacy but we would kill competition”. As it stands, these ICT utilities are near-monopolies enjoying dominant positions in their respective industry verticals. Like you rightly mentioned, “they have the best data and the network effects work in their favor”.

I do hope history (referring to Standard Oil, U.S Steel Corp. etc.) provides some guidance to regulators on how best to deal with regulation(s) for the tech giants. Regulation in itself is not bad but over-regulation is.

My Response: Because of Aggregation Construct, if you break Google and Facebook, another one will take over. It may not be Google or FB but another will. The near zero marginal cost makes them unique and what happened to Standard Oil, U.S Steel Corp. is irrelevant. The fact that the biggest gets better is the reason why you cannot easily regulate these ICT utilities. One will emerge and we would move to it.

Medcera Launches in Zimbabwe

By

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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March 26, 2018

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Today, Medcera begins operations in Zimbabwe. We like Zimbabwe and the promise of a new leader. Our promise is to help drive digital healthcare transformation in that beautiful African country. Our local partner is

Regain

11 Kent Avenue

Avondale Harare

Zimbabwe

About Medcera

Medcera is a web-based EMR (electronic medical record) and EHR (electronic health record) system with patient portal. It provides physicians and medical professionals with EMR/EHR and medical practice management technology that includes charting, scheduling, e-prescribing, medical billing, lab and imaging center integrations, referral letters, training, support and a personal health record for patients.

It supports large and small clinics, dentists, labs, pharmacists, and imaging centers to move their operations into the digital ecosystems where they can increase productivity, lower costs on medical information management, improve quality of care and employee/patient safety. Also, Medcera offers health insurance solution enabling integration of physician, billing, insurance, government receipts and other components of health insurance delivery in one system, at private and public levels. All Medcera systems run on the cloud with no requirement for any installation. It is supported with bank-level security.

Do Not Waste Time Starting B2C Ecommerce Business in Nigeria

By

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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March 26, 2018

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The easiest way to waste money and destroy value in Nigeria is to start an ecommerce business with B2C model. As I have noted many years ago in a seminal piece in Harvard Business Review, making money on ecommerce in Africa would happen but would take a really long time. I do not expect any to work till after ~~2023~~ (2022). But before then, it is putting good money in a value-destroying venture that would bleed cash until the owners give up. Ecommerce today in Africa at B2C is simply a loss-making online endeavor only people with deep pockets can do. You can be in it if you do not care for profitability.

In Nigeria, ecommerce is not a digital business. Yes, it is a traditional business because the highest element of its marginal cost is offline. That you have a website should not confuse you on that reality. Until we have a postal system that works, running ecommerce as a business would remain challenging [please continue to expand sales channel through your website; doing that does not make you an ecommerce firm. That distinction is important to avoid confusion here].

All ecommerce firms in Nigeria have defined geographies to manage the logistic problems [they do not deliver nationwide]. Interestingly, doing that removes one key element of the supposedly internet business from the typical global attributes: unbounded and unconstrained by geographies [Amazon ships across U.S relying on the United States Postal Service]. In other words, they are not internet companies because they are structured by limits imposed by geography due to marginal cost.

At a time, I asked one question: what is your marginal cost? It was very tough as we spent minutes looking at cost. Largely, to have scalable advantage, your marginal cost must tend to zero in a digital business. In other words, having an additional customer must not carry any new cost

{…}

My client had a great marginal cost in the web side of the business, but in the logistics side, the amount goes high. To add an additional customer in a new city will require cost, even though the marginal cost in an already covered city may be low. So, the only way to bound the cost is to narrow the service region. By coming to that conclusion, the company is no more an Internet business. That scalable advantage has gone and the unconstrained distribution channel which Internet offers has been made meaningless.

Jumia Evolution

An OLX shrinks and Konga redesigns, Jumia is looking for a way out via IPO which will be good if it can attract great value in the market. But unlike the first African unicorn (at least $1 billion in valuation when insurer AXA invested €75m for 8% in 2016), Jumia is now worth less. (Jumia’s parent Africa Internet Group is now largely Jumia as the firm has seen massive consolidation under the Jumia brand in Africa).

Jumia, the pan African online retailer present in 14 countries, maybe put up for sale. The company’s owner, Rocket Internet, is reportedly seeking an IPO for the business with a listing of shares to the value of €200m ($246m).

Rocket Internet is reportedly seeking to release cash by exploring a stock market listing for Jumia, the online retailer it helped establish in 2012. Jumia has operations in 14 African countries, and currently has 500,000 merchants using the platform, and more than 5m SKUs. It also operates a hotel booking platform and an online food delivery service connecting consumers with local restaurants.

In the first nine months of 2017, Jumia saw its losses widen to €80.7m ($99.1m), while revenues were just €57.3m ($70.4m). To put this in context, Amazon launched in 1994, and first delivered a profit in Q4 2001, seven years later. It wouldn’t deliver a full year profit until 2004. Until 2016 it was still considered unusual that Amazon delivered four consecutive quarters of profit. Jumia’s group revenues mask the importance of one market: Lagos, Jumia’s first market and by far its single largest driver of revenues. The Nigerian market generally has seen sluggish growth since 2014, although it is picking up now, and slower growth in demand has been compounded by fragile market conditions in Algeria, South Africa, Kenya among others.

All Together

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. Do not waste your money starting an ecommerce business in Nigeria until ~~2023~~ (2022). It is the most unfortunate way of wasting capital in Nigeria. Only the post office can make our ecommerce take off and without that infrastructure, ecommerce is a waste of efforts, in Nigeria.

Lessons on Leading and Executing in New Territories

By

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

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March 26, 2018

0

Rex Tillerson was fired by Trump. Before he became U.S. Secretary of State, he was a long time CEO of ExxonMobil. In my opinion, the CEO did not read his job requirements very well. He was hired to be the American top diplomat. Rather, he wanted to be a czar for cost-cutting [cut budget by a third] and reorganization [“We’re going to redesign” the dept]. He wanted to bring efficiency to government. Sure, bring the business experience; everything in government would be normalized.

Far from it: in business, you have market segments. In government, there is no segment. In business, you sell your $1,000 phone, $2,000 perfume, etc. You define your territory. But a politician’s market segment is ALL. Once a diplomat does not understand that, he would fail to see why bureaucracy is part of government.

When Trump team started complaining [he had traveled less than 50% of his predecessor over comparable time period], he did not take note. He was holed in Washington DC to bring process efficiency he perfected in ExxonMobil to State dept. The former has gross margin target; in the latter, it is largely immaterial.

Tillerson managed a Fortune 10 company, handled complex projects with close to $40billion in annual budget. More than 70,000 people reported to him. The efficiency in ExxonMobil which improves profit is not the most important factor expected from a top diplomat in the State dept. Sure, efficiency is important but it is not the end. If pursuing efficiency affects the diplomacy, that efficiency is now a problem. As he spent time reorganizing and redesigning the department, Trump felt they did not have a visible diplomat.

Although the former secretary of state’s contentious relationship with the president didn’t help matters, Tillerson’s management style left a department in disarray.

{…}

Tillerson certainly seemed to think so, notwithstanding the fact that he hadn’t spent any time in diplomacy or, for that matter, government affairs. He had barely introduced himself to the career civil servants at Foggy Bottom before he concluded that the agency they staffed was a portrait of bureaucratic mismanagement. “We had very long-standing disciplined processes and decision-making, I mean highly structured, that allows you to accomplish a lot,” he told reporters in July of his time at ExxonMobil. “Those are not the characteristics of the United States government.”

Yes, as he was cutting cost and reorganizing, he forgot his main role: be the face of America in the world of diplomacy. He might be improving State Dept, but Trump was not seeing the value on diplomacy. This is a business where out of sight is out of mind. Going out there to shake hands of allies could melt tensions which saving $100 million in State Dept budget would not compensate for.

Efficiency brings profits but government is not just about margins. I learnt that lesson when a Nigerian Senator reminded me that “no person comes to Senate to preach cost-saving; we are here to spend money” [I had proposed a National Chief Information Officer to help government and MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) consolidate purchase of software licenses to save cost from Microsoft, Oracle and the rest].

The business of public service is not that easy. If you are appointed as one [a great honor], approach it not with arrogance but humility that no external business experience can serve ALL citizens since no business has ALL citizens in their market segments. That means, you must invest efforts to understand why bureaucracy is part of government processes. Government plans for all and that makes things harder. That does not mean that we cannot improve the system. But never think those inside do not wish things are more simplified.

All Together

Trump might have fired Rex for many reasons. But he made that easier. He traveled less, was invisible to allies while holed in DC reorganizing bureaucracy. Efficiency is important but it must not be the end. As you grow in your career, find out what is KEY in that role. Focus mainly on that. That is what they would use in assessing your performance. While other things could be added, the KEY metric must be your focus. No one would remember a Secretary of State in U.S. that saved $100 million in a year. But Americans would remember that guy that melted tensions in global territories. If improving efficiency gets in that call, you have lost the mission.

[Remember the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Focus on the main things and other little things would fall in place]

The Lacuna in the system

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