Working late tonight. I need to finish the first Framework for our new store on Tekedia. Later this night, I would post the One Oasis Strategy, fully developed, and expanded in PDF. This particular document would be made free. But subsequent cases, constructs, theories, etc would be under paywall.
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I see it at airports, homes, roads and everywhere: one citizen retaining a truck load of policemen to guard him or protect a trip of less than 10 minutes. It is always painful watching the elite of Nigerian Police guarding private and unauthorized citizens. It is simple: have few tens of thousands and the DPO can close the barracks and deploy all the officers to you. The demand is huge, and for this to be happening, it means the police officers do great jobs.
Yes, our police guys are professionals when they are compensated and motivated. And even the Ogas know that. So, in a country of 180 million (take your number) people, with 400,000 police officers, about 40,000 of the citizens control 38% of the whole force. (The officers are sent in pairs, in some cases in truckloads. Some could go with two Hilux vans for one man. I expect the unique citizens to be 40,000). The implication is that the remaining 250k officers are now to police “180 million-40k people”. In other words, 38% of the police force guard 0.022% of the population
The Police Service Commission, PSC, said that more than 150,000 police officers were attached to VIP’s and unauthorised persons in the country. Nigeria currently has about 400,000 police officers.
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“We cannot afford to have more than half of the population of the Police in private hands,” Chairman of the commission, Mike Okiro.
Nigeria is a puzzle indeed. That this happens is a shame: private citizens colonizing services we all pay for, converting the Police into their private properties. But why you may want to be hard on the private citizens, the fact remains that if they pay taxes, government should provide security. But where government is not there, you may not necessarily blame them for going for the best possible security they could afford.
So, at the end, you take this blame to successive governments which have refused to boost police capabilities on fighting crime [to reduce the need of this personalized police business] or simply outlaw it [let the rich buy their security from the private sector]. But I tell you – this commercial police force is not going anywhere. Yet, it needs to stop, if we believe in the equality of the Nigerian people.
Some cities in Nigeria are experiencing acute fuel scarcity. It does happen in our great nation. It is a reminder that our systems are still at infancy. If not, there is no reason to run into troubles distributing fuel when the citizens are ready to pay. And the problem is not necessarily pricing: some are ready to pay at any price. The problem is Distribution & Logistics. Yes, the same issue that causes problems for ecommerce companies in Nigeria.
For ecommerce, you look at the marginal cost driven by geography. That marginal cost is composed of transaction and distribution costs. But transaction cost is typically negligible since it cannot be eliminated, and is not tied to distributive geography. But distribution cost is where the game is won, and it requires having a great process with solid pillars.
Though operationally it is at the lower phase of the chain, distribution in Nigeria is the upstream because that is where the knowledge base is uppermost, and the highest value could be created in ecommerce. The ecommerce portal is downstream; anyone can make a fancy site with nice SEO. The man that builds the best logistics system for the ecommerce companies would have more leverage than the sites.
The lesson: you have the goods in the warehouse but you cannot deliver to the customers because the distribution is broken. You cannot leapfrog that challenge. You have to solve it to have a great ecommerce operation.
That is the same issue with fuel scarcity. Fixing this must be uniquely Nigerian, and it would require a new architecture. I would be speaking in NNPC this week as we work on how to fix this national challenge. My focus would be looking at technologies that would enable our leaders to solve this problem. Please be guided on what you share; I am good in picking ideas from comments.
There is something I like about most U.S. banks: they combine retail and advisory services in branches no matter how small the branch is. When you walk in, you get a picture of a bank that is ready to collect your deposit and also discuss mortgage, lending, education funding, savings, etc right before you. The tellers are there while the advisors are in their cubicles talking to clients.
Sure, we do that in Nigeria in many ways, but the advisory part does not seem to be what any client can have access to. In other words, we make it look like you just come here to make deposit, and unless you have truckloads of cash, the advisory aspect would be away from you.
In my opinion, that is wrong. If branch staff members are not looking at how to help clients deepen their businesses and lives through advisory services, they would not strengthen the relationships necessary for future growths.
I recall a call I got from my U.S. bank many years ago. We had done a project for a Swiss businessman in Africa. They paid to my U.S. firm. The next day, the bank sent their staff to meet me, to understand how they could help the business, and if we plan to keep the cash, how the bank could make it work for us. As we discussed, they presented scenarios based on cashflow in our business. I was impressed that they did not see us as a number, but a firm, they could develop deeper relationships.
Till today, none of my Nigerian bankers have come to us with any conversation of such services. The message has been “the account is doing well” which means that inflows are coming. There is a service gap in our bank and we need to fix that.
Imagine if we can have in each mega bank branch a Future Bar (think of 9Mobile Geek Bar or Apple Genius Bar for dealing with your phone issues), but here the focus would be to discuss investments and advisory services available to young professionals, as they begin their careers. Yes, we are not in the phase to use AI to drive such processes online. But we can build structures to get the young people excited to have financial plans.
Many people in Nigeria especially in the informal sector usually begin great but some run into troubles due to lack of financial planning. Visit your village and you would see people that started great businesses, post-apprenticeships from their masters, but today are struggling in villages. Their banks could have helped them when their failed businesses were booming. Yes, besides the retail-first strategy, we must add advisory services to create more values for clients.
In a short entry by Guardian NG, a Google engineer explains the key challenges before Nigerian startups. The list includes the usual factors plus an important one: scalability, mentorship, finances, connectivity, market size and changing consumer needs. That last one – changing consumer needs – is the most important factor for any startup. Indeed, for you to create a new basis of competition, i.e., to become disruptive in your sector, you must invent a new demand system.
For technology startups coming out of Nigeria, and Africa, the challenge of lack of product scalability, and poor mentorship may continue to pose serious limitations to their growth. These are aside others, including access to finances, connectivity, market size, and changing consumer needs.
As identified by Google chiefs, on Wednesday, at the ongoing Global Accelerator and Launchpad Programme, in San Francisco, United States, startups needed to change the way people consume products and services.
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While stressing that Google currently focused on startups from emerging markets such as Nigeria, he noted that the next target for the firm was to reach the next billion people with technology.
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To Luke Wroblewski, also a Product Manager, startups must measure the kind of design that works specifically for the task; focus on core features, grow critical engagement and ensure adequate ergonomics.
Wroblewski advised startups to stake a balance between quantity and quality to create a lasting solution.
For companies like Google, they understand that they would be unable to have next billion users if they continue focusing on already met (or known) needs. So, what Google has to do is to invent a new demand system where customers have new needs (think of googling over going to Library). And once those needs evolve, meet them as a category-king entity, enjoying the first to market (yes, the first mover advantage) benefits.
How do you change consumer needs? You create products which serve users at the levels of expectations or perceptions, with perceptions being better. In other words, you create products which stimulate new needs in the lifestyles of users. Things they never thought they needed, but when they see your products, they would quickly activate a latent (existing) need which that product would solve.
Steve Jobs, Apple Founder, was legendary for stimulating demand. He worked without surveys or focus groups. He was a genius, peerless in his generation. He saw an unborn future many years ago. He was an icon, who changed his world. He developed a good design paradigm of working at the perception of customers, beyond their needs and expectations. He found glory and Apple triumphed with iPod, iPhone, iPad and more.
I discuss why organizations must focus on developing products and services that go beyond the needs of customers to their expectations and perceptions. Focusing on the needs of customers is a recipe for disaster. The whole desire must be to deliver products and services at the level of customer perception where they are offered products and services which they might not have even imagined would be possible. But the day they see the products they will say wow: That is the thing I have been thinking. This also explains the limitations of focus groups because focus groups are tethered to what the customers think they need. Perception of customer level service is offering something which could not have been requested during focus groups, because such products will not come into the imaginations of the people being studied.
Simply, we have a challenge in Nigeria: we cannot be solely building products for needs which are already met by products in the markets. For us to have millions of users, we must make products in Nigeria that can stimulate new needs which do not currently exist, and then serve them efficiently.
Great Comments from LinkedIn
Comment 1: A tough one, in a country where lots of people are still struggling to meet the basic needs, without much success ofcourse. While they try to run away from their problems, it becomes more apparent that their intended destinations even have more problems.
In the middle this challenge, startups now have to make products at perception level. But there’s an impediment: how affordable would those products at perception level be? If they fail the affordability test, everything goes back to purchasing power conundrum; which oftentimes makes great products more or less appear useless.
It’s a big challenge, investing the energy, intellectual and financial resources, and after coming up with such a great product, only to be hit by that ultimate reality, which is: consumers LOVE your product, but CANNOT afford it. The Google guy talked about achieving the right mix between quality and quantity, and in our case; you still have to figure out those who can afford.
Perhaps it could be the reason why everyone is almost doing the same thing: from telecom to banking, and everything in between; because those who tried to be different have practically gone out of business. All the troubles in the land are closely related, startups facing same.
Comment 2
Two things.
1. Nigeria is a peculiar market. Very peculiar that when you intend to wow your customers sometimes, you wow no one – only dwindling sales. As mentioned by Francis Oguaju products borne out of the perception construct tend to be high-end and rarely affordable at scale.
Changing consumer behaviour/ needs is largely identified by data. At startup level, you either don’t have the scale or the data to draw insights on consumer behavioural patterns.
Therefore, generally speaking, my take is let startups even get the rudimentary very right. Let them even stay in business n turn in a profit first. Let the business environment be enabling and at ease first. Then they can start thinking of wowing their customers.
