The Sunday Mail
Entrepreneurship Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere
Our continent is so blessed with most of the valuable minerals the world has ever had, the best weather for crop production and more than adequate labour force to turn around its fortunes within no time.
What’s needed are experts in the configuration of these resources into meaningful businesses for the benefit of the masses. Africa needs more entrepreneurs now than ever before given the ever increasing socio economic challenges.
Rise up African entrepreneurs and dominate the world.
Entrepreneurship entails configuration of resources in a unique and innovative way in response to socio economic challenges in the form of products and services within a business setup with the ultimate aim of making a profit bearing all the risks inherent in such endeavour.
Entrepreneurs have a unique way of entering, operating and competing in any market they choose to operate in. There is only one weapon that most of these entrepreneurs use and that’s their major distinctive factor, innovation.
All the world economies that we emulate are revolving around sustainable entrepreneurship. Most countries are endowed enough to revolutionise their economies through sound business policies, integrity and business ethics.
We are the solution to our problems
You don’t need to be a graduate from planet Pluto, Mars or Jupiter to be able to solve African problems. These are problems that needs us as Africans using the resources that we already have in abundance.
We just have to take ourselves to the mirror and see the solution to our bewildering challenges. Whatever you see in the mirror minus your current state of thinking, is the panacea to the African predicament. We continue to be importers of almost everything including the toothpick simply because we think the solutions to our problems are imported and external.
Most of our businesses are only growing to the level of our thinking. Even when one gets the opportunity to control the resources that are meant to benefit the majority, they misappropriate for their own personal gain. We’re never genuine in our approach to business.
Entrepreneurship and business needs a high level of integrity to be sustainable. We know of cancelled orders, deals and contracts of friends and relatives in business due to lack of integrity and an inclination to corrupt tendencies.
Entrepreneurial dominance doesn’t respect gender, age or race. You just need to have the skill, knowledge and grit to grind in a different way and you’re done. Zimbabwe has had a number of borehole drillers even since days before Independence, but what’s making Skylake Boreholes outstanding if entrepreneurship respects age?
Skylake is only 5 years in the business but has risen to limelight in the water provision industry (Borehole Drilling). The worst of it is that the organisation’s founder and CEO Samukange is a 26-year-old.
Most of his peers are busy complaining in the streets holding academic certificates, knocking industry doors seeking employment and making the loudest noise. But this guy looked into the mirror and saw the African and Zimbabwean problem and decided to deal with it head on.
Until we change our way of thinking as Africans and Zimbabweans in particular, we will remain self-enslaved in a liberated country. Water, electricity and food are basics that entrepreneurs must innovate around. We should never run out of these in Africa since we have all it takes to produce these in excess of local demand.
I once wrote about the powerful Hwange solar project by one of our own. A project which is set to spread into each province of Zimbabwe. Such projects need Government support so that they can even spread into the whole of Africa to an extend of exporting electricity.
Africa has large expanses of arable land and good rainfall to support the growth of major food crops. It’s surprising how such spaces with vast water deposits are being under utilised and yet we complain of lack of resources to turn around the fortunes of our communities, economies, countries and continent.
It’s sad that most African countries export most of their valuable minerals and crops unprocessed getting a quarter of the fully processed product in return. That’s all we get for our toil only to import finished products at five to ten times the price we got for the raw material.
Let’s embrace value addition on our crops and beneficiation on our minerals. Entrepreneurs let’s come to the fore and make things happen.
We too can do it
We have countries whose people, policies, politics, processes and procedures are well pronounced and punctuated to support local investments, innovation, creativity and productivity to the point of pulling together in the local and international markets. Such collective effort erodes individualism and self aggrandisation.
There are regionally and globally organised investment and marketing bodies such as COMESA, ECOWAS, IMF and others whose aim is to facilitate investment and the exposure of commodities to other markets regionally and internationally. Such efforts are meant to grow economies, industries and businesses alike.
Sustainable entrepreneurship stirs economic growth and development and as such it needs to be embraced from all angles.
Go beyond that idea. Execute, grow and sustain that life changing and ground breaking idea into a viable entrepreneurship pursuit.
Growth in entrepreneurship and business is a deliberate process that’s stimulated from within the organisation and mainly driven by the company’s bigger picture. The entrepreneurship and business domain calls for rolling of sleeves as you compete for market share and survival with other players.
You don’t emerge a successful entrepreneur or business person from nowhere. You need to qualify to be rightfully called so and become one.
Unlike our traditional names that we get straight from birth without having achieved anything besides managing to break through the mother’s womb alive, the term entrepreneur is deservedly given to someone after their own telling works.
No one is born an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is learnt. You can develop into an entrepreneur through acquisition of skills, necessary knowledge and the rightful application of the same in the field of business.
What we see in the groceries shops, hardwares or retail outlets are results of hard work that has been done beyond the scenes. The issue of entrepreneurship and business in general begins with a pressing need for certain products or services from the customers or market side. This is what triggers sharp entrepreneurship minds to innovate around resources coming up with products and services as demanded by the market.
As usual, once you get into a certain market, others players automatically come on board driven by the real or perceived profits you’re enjoying. As a business you don’t need to fold hands and look at things happening in your face. You have to strategise for you have an obligation to grow your business. Entrepreneurs are not only known for coming up with unique businesses but also for sustaining and growing the same businesses.
It’s not time to fold hands and wonder how others are doing it. Let’s join hands and utilise our God-given endowments, transforming them into life changing entrepreneurship exploits for the benefit of our African continent.
We have all it takes to be great as Africa. Together we can start, grow and sustain our businesses and feed into the local and national economies. Determined to engage, inspire and transform generations
The writer Dr Kudzanai Vere, the founder of Kudfort, Tengesa Online, Premium Business Network International and the Institute of Entrepreneurs Zimbabwe is an entrepreneur, author and transformational speaker in the areas of entrepreneurship and personal development. Dr Vere have trained more than 5000 entrepreneurs globally in the areas of innovation, organisation development, practical business management and ideation. You can contact him on +263719592232 or email [email protected]
