by SAVIOUS KWINIKA
JOHANNESBURG – A PROMINENT technology executive has encouraged African entrepreneurs to be innovative and refrain from underhand tactics to scuttle competition.
Strive Masiyiwa, founder and executive chairman of international groups including Cassava Technologies and Econet Global, bemoaned a trend by some entrepreneurs approaching political leaders, regulators and lately so-called juju priests in order to suppress competitors.
“A lot of entrepreneurs in Africa don’t really appreciate that competition is a good thing for their business,” Masiyiwa stated on social media this past weekend.
“Some will go to quite extraordinary lengths to stop competitors rather than using innovation. They will even approach politicians and regulators to try to make it difficult for a competitor in one way or another.”
Masiyiwa, the Zimbabwean-born globally-known tech billionaire, noted that state-owned companies throughout Africa were notorious for using power politics to stop competitors, and yet did little to innovate with products that delighted customers.
“If you need power politics to help you grow your business, it will be difficult for you to be recognised as a great entrepreneur, even though it might make you rich,” Masiyiwa said.
“There is a thriving industry in some African countries of ‘juju priests’ who specialise in ‘helping’ business people curse or harm their competitors! These are not entrepreneurs. And this is a form of idiocy by the way!”
Masiyiwa advised entrepreneurs that to beat their competitors and grow at the same time, they must innovate to create new products and constantly improve what they have.
The philanthropist is familiar with hardships from a competitor, with his being the Zimbabwean government, which initially denied him a license to operate Econet Wireless in the country.
After a lengthy legal battle, in 1998, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe ruled in his favour, leading to the removal of the state monopoly in telecommunications.
This is regarded as one of the key milestones in opening the African telecommunications sector to private capital.
Cassava Technologies is on a rollout of Africa’s first artificial intelligence (AI) factories.
– CAJ News
