Johnathan Shoniwa Reflections

Needing encouragement? Take a look at this chorus from the late Whitney Houston hit song , 'The Greatest Love of All'. [Chorus:] I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows If I fail, if I succeed At least I'll live as I believe No matter what they take from me They can't take away my dignity Because the greatest love of all Is happening to me I found the greatest love of all Inside of me The greatest love of all Is easy to achieve Learning to love yourself It is the greatest love of all [Chorus] And if, by chance, that special place That you've been dreaming of Leads you to a lonely place Find your strength in love P/s  Of course the greatest love of all is Jesus' love.

As the Zimbabwe economy continues to deteriorate, local companies will have to sharpen their strategies to penetrate the international markets. Here are some of the benefits of accessing international markets: ·          Access to bigger markets – increased sales and profits (although from my experience one needs to sacrifice margins). ·          Diversify market risks – ameliorate over reliance on domestic market. ·          Economies of scale – drives unit costs down. ·          Source of foreign exchange earnings (may not be a key factor today in Zim but the day is fast approaching when it will all be about foreign currency). ·          Brand image enhancement – premium position resulting in improved margins. The challenge then becomes that of being competitive from a pri...

A lot has been said on Zimbabwe products price competitiveness. Why are Zim products more expensive compared to regional imports? Here are some of the reasons why: 1. Zim producers are using old plant and machinery which is expensive to run. 2. Zim producers are using old technology to produce. The problem with old technology is that it requires constant intervention, is labour intensive, consumes more power, etc. 3 . Local market is small and therefore Zim producers lack the economies of scale. 4. High utilities costs, water, power (in fact running on generators which is expensive). 5. High interest rates (suffice to leave it at that). 6. Importation of inputs as upstream industries are non existent (Agro-industries for example should feed from a strong agriculture sector). 7. Poor management (you will be surprised it accounts for a large portion). 8. High labour costs arising from failure to respond to changing environment. 9. Low labour productivity - no investment in train...

As the listed companies financial reporting season comes to an end, allow me to reflect on the companies results. We have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. The environment remains difficult for most companies. The main issues being power supply, lack of credit funding and lack of demand due to low FDI, low public and private spending. This is exacerbated by the high wage rate environment. There are two things companies should do. First is an objective evaluation of managemt performance, isolating environment issues and performance issues. Dare I say appropriate remedial action being taken. Secondly, companies must streamline operations by discontinuing non viable SBUs, mothballing or disposing unproductive assets and reducing headcount and salaries. The perks of yesteryear are not affordable. This sounds harsh but the reality is that if the current environment continues for another three years (and all signs are that it will), then companies will not be able to sustain the cur...

Whilst generally awards are positive, the proliferation of awards in Zimbabwe and internationally brings the whole merit of awards into question and dare I say into disrepute. Admittedly while it is everyone's democratic right to start their own awards, it is the credibility which is important. My personal experience is that my organisation would receive numerous letters advising us of winning some awards that we didn't even  know existed. In the interest of our own reputation we quietly turned down such funny awards, local and international. Just to illustrate how far these go is I was offered a doctorate by a dubious  international university which I politely turned down. How attractive, Dr Shoniwa!!! That's not all, we were invited to receive awards in Washington, Zurich, you name it. Our corporate executive was always alert to these funny awards which we knew we had done nothing to deserve or the criteria was plain dubious. So what is my point. My point i...

Extract from article which appeared in The Financial Gazette 23 May 2013 Human resources expert Memory Nguwi said Zimbabwe had some of the longest serving CEOs.  “We will not talk about if they are competent or not; if they are good enough they should be approached by bigger companies. History has shown that it is difficult to implement new ideas or programmes with CEOs that have been at a company for a long time,” said Nguwi. Analysts said shareholders need to take drastic actions to save their investment in view of poor performance of the entities in which they are shareholders. Some say there were companies whose results show that they were perennial underperformers but their CEOs have been at the helm for many years without shareholder dissent. “Are we copying the political culture in the country where we rarely get Ministers fired for poor performance. There are many CEOs and senior managers mostly at some parastatals who have long passed their sale by date. Ther...

"Exclusive focus on cost-cutting will erode an operation’s production ability, in the long run. Instead, companies must improve efficiencies and strengthen business processes by implementing production management systems, which will provide a holistic view of operations".