Business Analyst - July 5

Tuesday, July 5, 2022
BOOST LOCAL CAPACITIES TO
ACHIEVE AFCFTA POTENTIAL
ThE African Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA) agreement is seen by many as an
excellent strategy to develop Africa’s
economy through its manufacturing sector,
after many years of discussions about
creating a common market.
The AfCFTA will boost the continent’s
manufacturing sector by facilitating access
to new markets for small and medium
enterprises (SMEs), increasing economies of
scale and facilitating export diversification.
It is also expected to boost intra-African
trade, promote industrialisation, create jobs
and improve the competitiveness of African
industries on the global stage.
That is why a vibrant manufacturing
sector is crucial to transforming economies
on the continent in order to achieve
sustained growth, create more jobs and
achieve prosperity for all.
African nations currently trade more
internationally than with one another.
Intra-African trade accounted for 17 per
cent of African exports, which is low,
compared to 59 per cent for Asia and 68 per
cent for Europe, according to the World
Economic Forum.
But AfCFTA wants to do more than just
boost trade in goods — its scope includes
services, investment, intellectual property
rights and competition policy, although
some of these aspects are still under
negotiation.
Since Africa officially started trading
under AfCFTA in January 2021, the practical
impact of the agreement has been minimal,
while disruptions of global supply chains
due to COVID-19 restrictions in 2020 have
limited AfCFTA's potential.
The insignificant share of Africa in global
trade and the relatively low level of intra-
African trade can be attributed, to a large
extent, to the inadequacy of productive
capacity, especially in the dynamic sectors
of global trade.
For us, one of the challenges that can
hinder the realisation of a common market
for the continent is the lack of capacity to
add value to the continent’s raw materials.
In short, we simply export our products
in raw form, thereby thwarting the growth
of a common market.
This is because if other countries on the
continent cannot access finished goods of
African produce to import, they will be
compelled to buy them from outside the
continent.
The global chocolate industry is worth
over $150 billion. While West Africa supplies
70 per cent of the cocoa beans, most of the
value in a chocolate bar is generated in
Europe and North America.
When the public
ratifies your business
BY MAXWELL
AMPONG
There are many
definitions of
“success” when it
comes to owning a
business.
Good marketing begets
business. So does targeted
lobbying. So does nepotism.
The list can be long. But
customer recommendation
and good reviews are cheap
and effective ways that can
get your business to be the
preferred choice in your field.
BRANd FAMILIARITY:
Familiarity is a very powerful
tool.
In the 1960s, a research
psychologist named Robert
Zajonc discovered that when
people are repeatedly
exposed to a certain stimulus,
they start to react favourably
to it.
He called it the Mere Exposure
Effect, and it works. It works really
well.
When MTN started out in
Ghana, it was really literally
everywhere you go in every sense of
the word. I literally couldn’t drive for
30 minutes without seeing
somewhere and somehow that
bright yellow box with the MTN
initials in it. That consistency I
believe played a vital role in them
being so ahead of the other telecom
companies in many respects. We
engage the brands that we trust. We
trust the brands that we’re familiar
with. We’re familiar with
what we see every day.
EXTRAORdINARY
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
Human emotion is a very
important factor in what
we buy.
Even when emotion
comes second, there will
be many others that will
give you the efficacy you
seek and at that point,
emotion jumps in again.
People like people they
like; it’s that simple.
People gravitate to those
that make them feel
warm. There’s a saying
that people will forget
what you did but never
forget how you made
them feel. That’s what
customer service is all
about.
Aim to build a
reputation for so good a
customer service that people will
want to pass by just to feel that
warmth. Build a reputation for being
the one guaranteed nice experience
in someone’s day. Adulthood is very
hard for the majority of people. They
end up projecting their frustrations
onto the people they deal with, and
that person can be you or your staff.
If you manage to not get sucked into
that air of negativity, you might
retain that client because guess
what: who else will deal with all of
their craziness. YOU! The answer
must be YOU!
CONCENTRATE ON IMPROVING –
RIGHT YOUR WRONGS: Perfection
is a journey, not a state.
Clients are human beings. They
do not like to feel played and
chances are you are not going to do
everything right every time. The
most important thing is that you
keep working at it.
Believe in mistakes. Believe in
avoiding them by learning about
and from other’s mistakes. But more
importantly, believe in working on
not making them twice.
Chances are that a majority of
clients will remain with your brand
if they know that you can steer your
boat right when it gets off its course.
A mistake only irritates in the
beginning. An unresolved mistake is
what breeds harsh sentiment and
bad reviews. Bad reviews spread
faster by the way because people like
to avoid loss and bad experiences. So,
whether the mistakes are your fault
or that of the customer, it’s your
fault that you couldn’t curate a
smooth experience for your
customer; think of it like that.
When we started, I was
notorious for apportioning blame
during a pitch, and for good reason. I
spoke to the team about it and they
fell in line with it perfectly. My
reasoning was, if the buck stops
with me, and I am wrong, then we
are all wrong. Better to demonstrate
a clear path to solving the problem
in order to salvage whatever trust is
left from the client.
One time, many many years ago,
we gave this disastrous first pitch
and when I say “we”, I mean I.
Whenever the prospective client
exclaimed at some misguided point,
one team member would apologise
for not doing enough research or
something like that and then
another will apologise for mixing
our facts and so on and so forth. If
we lost that business, it would have
been understandable. But after the
pitch, I gave the client a firm
assurance that I was going to handle
his account personally henceforth, I
apologised for the errors of my staff
(go figure!), took his advice on how
to run my team better (they always
do that), and then I totally aced the
next pitch alone (to demonstrate a
change).
I have expanded on 3 how’s.
Build brand familiarity, give
extraordinary customer care, and
work on accepting and improving
mistakes. There are others. Offer a
guarantee one way or the other and
do not fail to deliver on that
guarantee. Build home support
wherever your business is, for people
like to support their own, arguably.
Have Loyalty Schemes. Execute good
pricing strategies. Partner with
popular people to increase your
approachability. Utilise Social Media.
Provide Free WiFi (it’s a people
magnet in 2020). Create scarcity.
There are many other how’s.
Here is where all that should be
headed: people should walk into
your office without question. Your
name should be the first they
mention instinctively when they
need the services you can provide.
You should have people come to you
for value, and for reliability.