As we re-image the economy, there remain uncertainty, and as Covid-19 matures to an epidemic, many a times, preparing for the next pandemic comes to mind.
Yet, there are so many lessons to be learned in many facets of business. One such takeaway is the mindset shift from a traditional and conventional way of trading season in, season out.
Upscaling the business to better respond to high peak season and diversify the service offerings during off-peak season sounds like a cliché. However, there were life experiences that warrant a change of the narrative.
Point in case is industries that were hard-hit and went into a hiatus at the height of Delta. These were naturally resuscitated as Covid-19 measures became less stringent; ultimately translating in a boom of economic activities. Though the demand increased, the service offerings were still at a conservative pace. This indicates that the narrative of emerging business owners in Namibia needs to change.
Another point in case is the wedding industry, and when we speak of wedding season in Namibia, it is not an unfamiliar term and we are fairly accustomed to it. Yet, when the wedding boom hit the market towards the end of last year as a result of many postponed nuptials, the wedding supply industry could barely cope. It was indeed time to make up for all the losses during the pandemic, and the demand shot up excessively. Customers were competing for suppliers, and inherently some had to be turned away.
What is supposed to be a happy occasion and once in a lifetime event where lasting memories are created, instead ended with suppliers not fulfilling orders or not actually delivering the expected quality of service that meets the minimum standard.
It boiled down to suppliers’ capacity to meet the market demands at any given time, not only in terms of manpower to manage production and orders to be fulfilled, but also lead time. Quantifying the lead time to generate the out and minimum standards i.e. actual production time per item and what is deemed to be within the acceptable level of efficiency and unacceptable level, tend to be a missing link.
Most business owners need to take stock and take control of their own production chain; essentially the customer takes over the managing of a supplier to get their order out. So much so that a culture has developed to provide an unrealistic date due to mistrust between the suppliers and clients on order fulfilment within the expected date. This does not auger well for an economy that is re-imaging itself, and cannot be a trend. This simply means we have normalised inefficiency in the system and there is no pressure on the supplier’s side.
Likewise, once suppliers reach their revenue target and less to do with capacity, there is also a culture of being fully booked, and clients then hop to the next person until they secure one whose service they are able to enlist.
So, an entrepreneur with a capacity to fulfil 50 orders a month, but only providing half of those orders, is essentially stifling their own business growth. This simply means the business will need to overcome the challenges in rising above the survival mode, and cannot scale or expand. Ideally, the business should have a pipeline or orders to sustain it all year long, and should be thriving all year long as opposed to when the model is purely built around seasons.
Most businesses are still revolving around the capital city; expanding to other towns is still deemed to be a luxury and a big business strategy, let alone expanding to another neighbouring country. It is possible to have a pan-African business or even global firm hailing from Namibia. If we are to democratise business and position them for growth, it demands a new risk appetite that goes beyond the comfort of traditional businesses. It calls for business unsual.
*The opinions expressed in the article are those of the author alone, and are in no way linked to any affiliates.