the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
We recently saw a wonderful video of the famous Noam Chomsky, a retired professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). To simply say he is a ‘retired professor’ is to utterly understate his impact on the globe, as he is one of the most cited scholars alive, so people really do go quiet and listen when he starts to speak. You can see him here.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“One thing I love about customers is that they are divinely discontent. Their expectations are never static – they go up. It’s human nature. We didn’t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’. I see that cycle of improvement happening at a faster rate than ever before. It may be because customers have such easy access to more information than ever before – in only a few seconds and with a couple taps on their phones, customers can read reviews, compare prices from multiple retailers, see whether something’s in stock, find out how fast it will ship or be available for pick-up, and more. These examples are from retail, but I sense that the same customer empowerment phenomenon is happening broadly across everything we do at Amazon and most other industries as well. You cannot rest on your laurels in this world. Customers won’t have it.”…and so wrote Jeff Bezos in his 2017 letter to Amazon shareholders. Since then the world has just got significantly faster, customers more demanding for higher quality, lower prices and more speed, until Covid hit the reset button and the world stopped for breath.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
There was a time when if you wanted to travel from Kenya to New York, the only option was a boat. Telegrams were the fastest way to get a message any distance and if a child left to study or live and work in another country, an occasional letter would be all that one could hope for. These days we have got as close as possible to Teleportation (moving from A to B instantaneously), without actually climbing into a machine and being transported to another place, as Zoom/Teams have become commonplace. We are now suddenly ‘transported’ into the office or living room of another with such ease. Indeed perhaps teleportation is not so far off - they have recently invented the ability to have a hologram placed in front of you that you can touch and the sensation will be just as if you are shaking their hand - incredible! Of course not everything is changing - on the subject of letters home (or occasional zoom), to be fair in this area - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!
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By the Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
We often hear of ‘first mover advantage’ whereby the first one into a new industry, country or product, the ‘Pathfinder’, has a significant advantage that is not easy to beat. But is that true?
To a certain extent, yes. There is after all a reason we all still talk about “Hoovering our homes” (yet Hoover Inc (formed in 1908) has not been the market leader for years), but to stay at the top (as Hoover did for many decades) is not easy and takes serious effort.
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“…in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is…”, so wrote Benjamin Brewster in the June 1882 issue of The Yale Literary Magazine, and don’t we all just know it! That is why for all the articles we read from the global consultancy firms; for all the University papers written about our industries; for all the young consultants who approach us fresh from University clutching their newly printed MBAs; we know only too well that nothing beats the experience of working at the coal face and seeing the day to day problems, up close and personal.
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
Sadly we are not talking of the amazing FemiHandbags; Ruff ’n’ Tumble; House of Tara; Lilly Alfonso; SuzieBeauty and the many other thousands of incredible brands from Lionesses, the labels that just scream quality, trust and passion. Here we look at the labels and the generalizations that then attach themselves especially to women and attempt to drag us down.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
Following on from our recent articles, you have tightened up your structure and processes, you have a decent team around you that understands and appreciates the direction you are taking the company. You have invested time and energy in training to motivate and keep your staff. You have ‘controlled the controllables”, and you have mitigated in part your un-controllables through partnerships or closer relationships in your supply chain. You have made it through the last two years with a mixture of grit, determination, self sacrifice and (yes) a bit of luck (to reread those articles, please visit our website here). You went online and now have an ever increasing demand for your products or services, not just from your local community, or your state, but from your wider country and even beyond (who knew that someone would find your website and click ‘Buy Now’ whilst sitting in Sweden!). You wake up one morning and realize that the time is right to ‘scale up’ and ride this wave!
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by Lionesses of Africa Operational Department
Let’s get something straight before we start. There is no universal truth that is time. Time for one person is very different for another. To give you an example: Time for a football team defending a 1-0 scoreline in the dying 2 minutes of the Cup Final is very different for the attacking team trying to score the goal that would take the final into extra time. For the defenders the clock ticks sooooooooo slowly, for the attackers it seems as if the clock jumps as it races towards the final whistle.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
When times are tough, when times are uncertain, indeed, when times are frightening, let us not make our lives anymore complex - let’s just keep it simple.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
Think what you like about him and his choice of design for his spaceship, or even his use of words on landing back on earth, but Jeff Bezos certainly had this right when he said:
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room.”
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Having seen (and discussed over the past month) the terrible effects on our businesses from Covid and the terrifying effects of global warming on our planet that we see each evening on the news, we could be forgiven for thinking that these are the worst things that are going to happen to us. As Humans we tend to concentrate on the most recent shocks and our memory tries to protect us as much as possible from the old by pushing previous fears deep into the background and then builds walls around them.
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
During the last three weeks we have written about our frightening and ever changing world. One in which life will never be the same again (it seems) and one in which changes happen not only with increasing size, but with an ever increasing speed. How this will impact in the long-term for some of our businesses remains to be seen, although for many of us, we have already felt at first-hand the immediate results.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Having screamed ourselves hoarse supporting the incredible Nigerian women's basketball team captained by the amazing @_thenigerianqueen Ezinne Kalu as they lost (only just) to USA in their opening game of the Tokyo Olympics, we remembered that sports has an incredible ability to allow us to transcend our normal, stress-ridden, coffee-induced sleepless nights (oh the joys of being an entrepreneur!). We imagine for a moment that we too could be on the court with Ezinne, obviously ignoring for a moment the 10,000 painful hours of training, gym circuits and mental drive (oh and the hours that our parents would have had to put aside driving us to games and training - as Melanie knows only too well!), that it takes to reach the top of sports or higher still - to have those immortal letters ‘OLY’ after your name…
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Back in March of this year we begged all to keep focus, that we were not out of the woods yet, that in spite of Africa as a whole having had a relatively ‘good’ Covid war (and there is nothing good obviously about any deaths or business failure, but it was significantly below the horrific expectations for Africa, thankfully) in our Weekender article (here) entitled “Now is the time to focus!” we urged all to not relax - it’s not over by a long shot.
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by the Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
Our thoughts currently go out to all our incredible and inspirational Lionesses and indeed all business owners in South Africa as we see the terrifying impact of riots, looting and destruction of property. More than 800 retail shops have been looted, more than 200 shopping malls have been looted, damaged or destroyed, and in KwaZulu Natal, it is estimated that goods worth between $400m and $1bn have been stolen or destroyed. To see Lionesses who have had all their hopes, dreams and aspirations stolen from them is heartbreaking. How can one prepare for such events - indeed if one could even afford it, how many insurance companies even offer insurance against this?
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
The pressure on the leadership of the company is already enormous as we navigate Cash Flow, Regulatory issues, Laws, Covid, HR, Supply Chain…. the list is endless. But having built the company that is producing good results, how do you move your company from ‘Good’ to ‘Great’.
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
We have had great feedback, support and excitement from our first research report produced in partnership with NYU, and in collaboration with ABSA, and of course with the incredible support of our >1.3 million membership. There are so many nuggets that one can take away from this, the South African Women Entrepreneurs Job Creators Survey (here), but the above chart, says it all. In a world where life is not equal, needs must and so we as Lionesses roll up our sleeves and start a business. As the business grows so we recognize that we are not just supporting local employment and through this the local community, but also our extended families. A hobby becomes a business with the arrival of paying customers. We are not quite sure when a start up becomes a Family Business, but we are certain of one thing, soon after the money starts to flow in, so does the family interest and with it the pressure mounts…
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
Negotiation, a word that brings fear into many, not least because it usually involves two or more parties that are not close, don’t know much about each other, and are not sure as yet if their counterpart can be trusted to ‘negotiate in good faith’. Easy to be overwhelmed.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
Without doubt the above is a beautiful picture from the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s recent publication entitled: “Increasing women’s access to capital critical in Africa’s fight against poverty.” Sub-titled: “Women entrepreneurs continue to face greater barriers to accessing financing for their businesses”, see here.
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By Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” So wrote Marcus Aurelius (seen above in a statue in Rome fittingly with a beautiful Blue Sky above him) in his book Meditations (here), which without doubt would have been a global best-seller at the time had he actually published it, given he was the last of the ‘Five Good Emperors of Rome’ at the end the era ‘Pax Romana’, controlling most of the known world at the time. However it was not published, they were writings only for him and him alone, which in a way adds great strength - they were not written to impress or to dictate or even to guide others, but more of a personal daily exercise, a mantra.
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