|
Industry has line-up of new challenges to meet
2007-11-28 08:43:40
By Editor
The key message one gets from the results of the Eighth East Africa`s Most Respected Companies survey lies along the need for manufacturers to be more innovative or close shop.
According to 71 per cent of the CEOs and business leaders consulted for the survey, innovativeness was the chief strategy that enabled victorious manufacturing companies to come up with quality goods and services.
To be sure, this message is especially relevant to Tanzania`s nascent industry that is still nursing a hangover from the era of the centralised economy.
We are reminded of how the fledgling domestic industry was caught off guard when we took initial steps towards economic liberalisation.
That was when most major state-owned industries that had until then run as absolute monopolies suddenly came face to face with cut-throat competition.
Previously, manufacturers could just decide to produce any product even without tapping from the benefits feasibility surveys can offer – mainly in connection with what consumers really needed or wanted.
The most trying times were experienced during the national economic doldrums of the early 1980s, when acute shortage of goods and services were deliberately taken as a licence for the making, importation and sale of shoddy products.
As monopolists, they had little compelling desire to spend money on research and development or market research to determine consumer trends.
Those were the days when consumers had little choice, cruel times that fortunately did not survive the onset of economic liberalisation.
In fact, the idea of privatising ailing State-owned enterprises was partly caused by the erstwhile monopolists` failure to compete effectively in the marketplace.
Many of the firms that weathered the storm, including those recently divested, did so by adapting to consumer tastes and innovation, quality and affordability as decisive factors.
Firms that will succeed in pushing up sales and become profitable are those able to feed the market with the right product mix and locate a wide array of segments, like making available washing powder in small packets only big enough size to wash a single shirt.
Kenyan manufacturers are confirmed leaders on this score and are currently working on ways to understand how demand for quality products at low prices would require a fresh look at things like manufacturing operations, finance, human psychology, sociology and marketing.
The threats of competition are no longer confined to the East African Community partnership; they are hitting us from all over, thanks to globalisation.
This global reality demands that manufacturers work hard to ensure fair and effective competition.
For instance, the design of different distribution systems for goods and services will provide options for them in choosing the most cost efficient modes of reaching consumers.
However, what counts most is for our corporate leaders to change their mindset and disabuse themselves of the belief that investing in research R&D is a waste of resources.
In today`s world of high-status business, it is only companies like Microsoft that invest heavily in research and development that will ultimately triumph. That is for sure.
|
