Red-eye cheap seats, for business
2011-03-18 08:00
Stefano Sessa
I recently started my own business in the (wait for it) mobile industry. It’s been a super interesting ride and we hit the ground running with a few key clients and a super stable back-end to top it off. This meant that we had little to worry and as a result, money flowed in.
However, since then certain legislative changes and key marketing trends have caused a slight drop-off in a specific type of clientele (which, in my opinion is for the better).
Since then, we had to wake up as a company and refocus ourselves on what it is we want to be and in doing so it became abundantly clear what were facing in the “real business world”, not the vanilla-scented, rosy-cheeked princess I had become used to. For a lack of better words, sh*t became real.
And what it is that we were facing was that the competition is strong, like bull. And fierce, like JuJu. The fact of the matter is that companies in this industry have gone from niche to terrible in a space of 12 months. Which is great if you persevere. However, perseverance in business costs quite a bit of money, which is fine because it grows on trees but should there be no rain (like Summer in Cape Town), things become tricky.
Now as an entrepreneur and business owner, I am all too aware that the key priority is to make a profit, however, in parallel to this priority is the desire to “make the world a better place” - Michael Jackson (RIP).
Promises
This holds true in my case as well; there are few things that annoy me quite as much as small, medium, big, enormous, colossal and stupid businesses being ripped apart, not only financially but also qualitatively by the fly by night opportunists of the business world. These are the guys and girls that offer you a service which comes across being the same as any other, but believe me they are not.
Promises are made (and broken) and efficiency is degraded. Yet, this does not bother their client, because, in most cases the client does not know any better. They see the bottom line and that is where it ends.
I have massive appreciation for the bottom line, but I have more appreciation for systems and services that work and that are in effect positively enriching its users. I believe that by eliminating the bad seeds South Africa stands a much better chance of building better businesses, stronger marketing campaigns, and more value to the end-user and more good in general.
It’s a shame that there are so many young, smart and legitimate start-up businesses out there that are failing, daily, because of the ignorance and bottom line driven managers. Quality should be key in making decisions, obviously taking into consideration monetary factors (There is no decent company that won’t bend on price).
New approach
Senior level managers need to instil a new approach to handing out tenders and signing up new technology vendors. Importantly the approach need not only take into consideration the bottom line and the age of the business. Senior managers should be looking for younger partners; they should not be looking at the age of a company (I am aware that businesses fold and that it’s a key factor, but new technology is generally better than old technology).
Although, this is unlikely to happen soon, and whether or not it does makes no difference to most of us but if we want South Africa to reach new heights, we need to embrace the new, the better and the faster technology that we have available to us nowadays. We need to ensure that our businesses are streamlined and that vendor outages and system failures don’t diminish our ability to ensure the number one business priority, profits. Profit is cool (read, Big Pimpin), but so is staying afloat and profits don’t come to those that don’t float.
Hope for the best
In turn, though, I believe that start-up businesses should also stop offering shoddy technology to its clients. Not only does it mess up opportunities for me, but it also messes up the possible opportunities for other quality technology providers. I have no idea how yet but a system to filter out the filth and keep the good needs to be invented. Perhaps we need to look at screening business owners in IT before allowing them to even register the business, or is that the same as saying that only secondary educated citizens may vote…. Who knows, but something has to give.
For the time being though, stick your finger in as many pies as possible and hope for the best. Oh, and smile.
Peace out.
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