Manyani: Insight Into Retrospect

Monday, April 23, 2007 at 11:02 | In Afropreneur, Manyani | 1 Comment

I never really understood why my pal John quit “gainful” employment until this weekend. The rush and satisfaction of running your own Afropreneurship is more fulfilling than any employment. I asked him how it felt convincing a venture capitalist to buy into your business idea and the man was speechless yet he had a smile and a tear on his face. ;)

A few years back Mucheru told me about this business idea that I immediately bought into. We just kept toying with the idea and even went as far as buying a domain and developing a transaction system for it based on how we envisioned business concept to work as well as what others have established. Somewhat with the hussles of employment and studies the prospect of turning the idea into a reality seemed to diminish. Recently, the need to see this idea through has been like a nagging woman. We sat down last weekend for about four hours to do the business plan. It was an intensive and most rewarding brainstorming session guided by questions and expectations any financier will ask and expect.

Across the corporate world, those making the biggest profits are those that add value to an existing product/service. The Afropreneurship model is founded on this fact. The target market is limitless and the possibilities for our prospective clients will be endless. The model works on a rather interesting novelty, it is not negatively affected by the economy. When the economy takes a plunge for the worse we experience an upward surge in clientele. When it takes a turnaround for the better there’s an increase in trade volume among our existing clientele.

While looking at the challenges we expected to face, it became apparent that apart from running a somewhat parallel economy we were going to take taxation complications to a whole new ball game. The concept has successfully worked elsewhere especially in the western world and with a little insight into the corporate world it should work on this part of the world.

The most satisfying aspect about this experience is the refreshing feeling of being alive brought about by pursuing something you believe in. This coming weekend we meet to refine the plan as well as come up with a project plan.

Manyani: Getting It Elsewhere

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 16:47 | In Manyani, Outsourcing | Leave a Comment

Of late with the departure of critical staff and the overwhelming yet critical incomplete work they leave behind, organisations are finding it necessary to get the job done by other people outside the organization within a short time frame. This plus the fact that the nature of doing business worldwide has been redefined by the convergence of telecommunications, information technology and media. Systems such as electronic commerce and enterprise resource planning systems have become an integral part of conducting business. As a result there has been a sharp increase in the need for qualified IT and business professionals to manage these functions. Demand has exceeded supply, and the need for such resources has resulted in increased personnel costs, longer time to market and longer product development cycles.

Chances are, you won’t find these highly skilled people in your own backyard. Yet you need them more than ever, now that competition is swooping down faster than business opportunities are taking off. And you realize that without them, your big dreams for a flourishing enterprise could rapidly go up in smoke. But you don’t have to manage all business functions in-house. Outsourcing provides a neat solution to several of your business problems.

Sadly in third world nations organizations have not been quick to embrace this practice as an intrinsic part of their business strategy and those that have have seen their balance sheets improve greatly in 2 to 3 years. Outsourcing extends the following advantages to the business:

  1. Reduced overheads thereby freeing up resources
  2. Avoid capital expenditure
  3. Improved efficiency
  4. Offloading of non-core functions
  5. Access to specialized skills
  6. Save on manpower and training costs
  7. Reduced operating costs
  8. Improved speed and service
  9. Established long-term, strategic relationships with world-class service providers to gain a competitive edge
  10. Enhanced tactical and strategic advantages
  11. Focus on strategic thinking, process reengineering and managing trading partner relationships
  12. Spread your risks
  13. Provide the best quality services, products and people
  14. Reliability and innovation
  15. Provide value-added services
  16. Increase customer satisfaction
  17. Avoid the cost of chasing technology
  18. Leverage the provider’s extensive investments in technology, methodologies and people
  19. Benefit from the provider’s expertise in solving problems for a variety of clients with similar requirements.
  20. Focus scarce resources on time-critical projects such as application reengineering
  21. Obtain needed project management and implementation consulting expertise, along with access to best practices and proven methodologies
  22. Reduce the risk of technological obsolescence and increase efficiency by consolidating and centralizing functions
  23. Keep pace and minimize the impact of rapid changes in applications and standards
  24. Extend the reach to more trading partners quickly and efficiently
  25. Reduce the overall IT management burden while retaining control of strategic decision making.

In summary, the reason why outsourcing is (and still) a success could be put on its ability to reduce cost but at the same time, still provide the quality that organizations need in their business operations. The only difference now is the way organizations deal with their outsourcing deals which equates to the success rate.

Manyani: Yardstick

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 at 16:38 | In Manyani, Project Management | Leave a Comment

Of late I have found myself doing little development or database work and spending my time in meetings discussing business intelligence plans and requirements. I used to hate meetings simply because they did not have an agenda or somehow it got hijacked by trvial matters. So far these meetings have been very productive. Engaging in planning for aspects of the business that were hitherto beyond grasp is I must say fun and challenging. Laying these plans got me thinking as to why despite the elaborate and detailed plans a project ends up failing even with all factors remaining constant.

Every project management guru says measure productivity. For some of these factors measurement is easy since they are based on output. Productivity on the other hand can be measured for some projects such business development, sales and marketing simply because the output of such projects has a direct impact on the balance sheet.

How do you measure IT projects? Do you look at efficiency, productivity or both? These aspects cannot be quantified. How do you measure the unquantifiable? There’s a school of thought that suggests timelines and other deliverables apart from the end product best measure productivity. However, these factors do not indicate the quality of the work. Would you rather have a project done on time with the necessary deliverables or quality work? What’s the trade off between quality and quantity?

In striving to achieve the basic expectations of time,cost etc. (quantity), we overlook the quality aspect. The nature of IT projects is such that the quality of the end product is what matters to the user and the business. Time, finances and other apects are purely disciplinary in terms of adhering to expectations. The quality of the end product can be used to justify all other factors. Quality justifies productivity. However, in order to stick to proper project management practises, it paramount to provide the business with progress reports.

Though not indicating productivity, they give the business a understanding of the status of the project and insight to the quality of the product.

There’s no formula for determining the productivity because the factors to be considered are endless but a great starting point would be progress reports and the quality of the end product. These two will prove that the team is productive and the project a success.

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