[kictanet] Mocality closing down?

[Brian Munyao Longwe]

Daktari,

I would like to humbly suggest that many of these international companies
that encounter mixed fortunes and eventually end up folding do so mostly
because they use the "parachute in, conquer, take no prisoners" approach
towards market entry. Going straight into hiring sales people and pushing
out to "close deals" as quickly as possible.

What most of them should actually be doing is engage in business
development activities which consist more of understanding the marketplace,
establishing partnerships, setting realistic goals based on solid data and
customising their products to match the local context (whatever that may
be).

Sorry guys, but Kenya is not a marketplace where "copy and paste"
strategies work - look at the myriad of failed international ventures that
have come here over the years...

Additionally - majority of the new entrants that come in and look for
personnel who have a track record of success. In such a young market as
ours this kind of approach overlooks the fact that those people have not
been tempered and refined by failure(s) and in many cases tend to
overestimate and overstate their expectations ....not realizing that market
entry is another form of startup enterprise which needs guts, thick skin,
street smarts and plenty of experience.

Brian

On Sun, Feb 17, 2013 at 6:26 PM, <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:

> It not unusual when a company fails. Indeed start-up mortality rate in
> Silicon Valley is highest. The questions we must ask are why did it happen?
> Could they do things differently? What do we learn from this?
>
> Any innovation like life will die. Death in enterprise is a certainty
> unless you understand Shumpeter's theory.  In his thinking, he defined an
> entrepreneur differently and very close to what can be referred to a serial
> innovator. If you take IBM for example it has changed its core business
> several times in its 100 year history. When the US discovered a VCR, they
> did not think it can be a hot product since people liked to watch movies on
> a big screen. The Japanese had a different idea and one that changed how we
> watch movies.
>
> I have tried to understand why IMOBI closed its business yet their
> services are in great demand. Some of the answers I am getting include the
> fact that Africa's returns to investment were below that of developed
> countries and they wanted to focus where their bread and butter came from.
> Here again we have the opportunities to look at this from a different angle
> as Japanese did and succeed.
>
> Unfortunately, we may not look into doing a small paper on such failures
> and seek for new areas.  We tend to agree with decisions of close down
> simply because we do not have the confidence to challenge them and do
> things differently. I am certain that if we do a bit of research on
> Mocality, we shall come with a new sustainable enterprise.
>
> We must begin to regenerate our enterprises otherwise we shall keep on
> finding ourselves in the dustbin all the time.  We can be a technology
> leader if we always to try to understand our ecosystem and do things the
> way we understand them.  The Western world dominates the rest of us simply
> because they investigate every happening even within our environment.
>
> Instead of condemning recent failures, let us understand why and what we
> can learn from that.  This is what is referred to as a knowledge society.
>
>
> Ndemo.
>
>
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry®
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gilda Odera <godera at skyweb.co.ke>
> Sender: "kictanet" <kictanet-bounces+bitange=
> jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke>Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:06:10
> To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Mocality closing down?
>
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
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