Liberian President Commends Ecobank’s Developmental Support

The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has commended Ecobank, describing the bank as a true partner in the reconstruction process in Liberia .

President Sirleaf, who was speaking following the Banker Award that recognized Ecobank as the “Best Bank in Liberia ” said the award is richly deserving, as it would send further signals to the international community that Liberia is ready for business and that the government is doing all within its reach to protect the business environment in Liberia .

According to the Liberian Leader, Ecobank has proven that Africans have the expertise and capacity to provide banking services comparable to what is obtainable in any part of the world.

She commended the bank for its expansion initiative which she said is providing financial access and a source of great and immeasurable relief to rural inhabitants. According to her the bank’s support for microfinance activities which is not common amongst commercial banks is another high mark the bank continues to score within the sector in Liberia.

Speaking earlier, the Managing Director of Ecobank Liberia , Mrs. Morenike Adepoju thanked the Liberian Government for creating the enabling business environment that has led to the bank’s ability to provide value-adding products and services to the bank’s publics in various parts of Liberia and subsequently resulting to international recognitions.

She assured that Ecobank will continue to march forward in strides, scoring a first on all performance indicators to the pride of Liberia and its people.

Ecobank Liberia was one of ten Ecobank affiliates within the Group that emerged winners amongst the 148 countries recognized for the 2008 Bankers’ Awards, thereby putting the country on the map of world class banking institutions.

The Banker Awards is often described as the most esteemed and credible banking industry award in the world.

Offshore Professionals Queue for Jobs in South Africa

Recruitment agencies have reported a dramatic increase in the number of international professionals and South Africans living abroad who are seeking employment in South Africa after the waves of retrenchments that have hit the US and Europe.

Penny Chaskelson, the managing director of The Personnel Concept, said the agency had seen an increase of between 20 percent and 25 percent in international professionals inquiring about employment opportunities in South Africa.

“There has been a dramatic increase in responses from all over the world, and that is first and foremost a result of the global financial crunch,” she said. “However, this has also been exacerbated by the fact that some professionals were already happy to move to any location for the right job.”

Georgina Barrick, the managing director of Renwick Talent, said the group had seen a jump in inquiries about employment opportunities in South Africa since September.

Some were from South Africans who had been working in financial services outside the country, mostly in the investment and banking sectors.

“We are receiving about five applications a week and about two-thirds of these are South Africans,” she said. Approaches had come from London and other European capitals, but there had been sudden interest from Egypt, with four inquiries from that country last week.

Martin Westcott, the chief executive of Production Engineers Corporate Services, said the trend of international professionals seeking jobs in the country was logical because the South African economy was still showing some growth.

He said the trend had come at a time when South Africa needed to recruit more skilled professionals to reduce inefficiencies across the spectrum.

“This is as a result of skills shortages. Some companies were even failing to realise their employment equity targets, due to a lack of appropriately skilled personnel.

“The arrival of these personnel in the country could provide us with the opportunity of skills transfer,” he said.

In apparent validation of this trend, the Umsobomvu Youth Fund said that it had taken advantage of the situation by recruiting 20 skilled professionals who would be partnered with 40 young South Africans to develop their skills.

Malose Kekana, the fund’s chief executive, said 15 skilled professionals had been identified. They would be partnered with local youths “with the purpose of grooming them for us. We have put the effects of the financial crisis to good use.”

Kekana said the professionals would not have great cost implications for the fund, as Umsobomvu would pay only for their flights, accommodation and meals.

FORMER MD OF IDEAL SECURITIES SUSPENDED FROM CAPITAL MARKET

The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced the suspension of Mr. George Nchendo Okafor, the former Managing Director of Ideal Securities and Investments Limited from all Capital Market activities.

The suspension, according to a notice on the Commission’s website is as a result of the serious allegations made against him by the Board of Directors of Ideal Securities and Investments Limited relating to his tenure as Managing Director of the company.

The Commission affirmed that the suspension remains in force until Mr. George Nchendo Okafor clears with the Commission all outstanding issues raised in the allegations.

WHEN FIRST REGISTRARS REJECTED FIRST BANK’S CONFIRMATION

But for strident protestation, the management of the Securities and Exchange Commission might have insisted on the January 2009 deadline for the dematerialization of share certificates in Nigeria. Some investors believe this is yet a tall dream for both the SEC and investors especially in consideration of the inadequacy of the Registrars.

Because of lack of appropriate recording system, most registrars have had an automatic recourse to demanding that any investor that wished to dematerialize his or her shares certificate to first go get a bankers confirmation of his/her signature. This attestation, according to the registrars helps ascertain the authenticity of the signature.

The banks had made the confirmation requirement a money making venture, some demand for N5000 for each confirmation. However, an investor informed Fortune&Class Weekly of the shame of the process.

“I have 50,000 units of FirstBank Plc and because of the January 2009 deadline to dematerialize shares certificates I went to my bank which incidentally is FirstBank. After collecting the confirmation, I went to the office of First Registrars where I tendered the banker’s confirmation but I was shocked when officials of First Registrars rejected the banker’s confirmation from FirstBank. Seriously, I am considering writing a protest letter to the Managing Director of FirstBank,” the investor said.

ILLEGAL SALE OF AFROIL SHARES: INVESTORS WANT STRONG SANCTION AGAINST SKYE BANK, OTHERS

Some investors whose investment in Afroil Plc have been locked in as a result of the full suspension on trading placed on the stocks of the company since June last year, have called on the management of the Securities and Exchange Commission to apply punitive sanction if Skye Bank Plc, issuing house to suspended company and other individuals indicted in the alleged illegal sale of Afroil Plc shares.

The stock of Afroil was one of the cases in exemplary manipulation at the Nigerian Stock Exchange last year. Afroil was an unobtrusive penny stock as of 16 February 2007 it sold at a meager 42k. Then beginning from the day after, 17 February, it rose exponentially to a high of N27.46k before flattening out in the N20 range thereafter.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had expressed strong suspicion over the pricing activities of the stock then and had called for its suspension. The SEC conducted an investigation into the company and the stock market post listing requirements.

Details of the investigations of the SEC were worrisome. Afroil Plc was only masquerading as a listed company; it had indeed lost its legal status as a registered company because it had been wound up by an order of a Lagos court ruling on the request of the company’s creditors for receivership. Yet, for mysterious reasons, the company stock suddenly became the toast of the exchange.

SEC, according to an insider, suspected manipulation and decided to trace the whole bits of under the table deal to the issuing house, stock brokers and fund managers that had something to do with the public offer of the company.

After concluding investigation, the SEC dragged Skye Bank and 13 other individuals and corporate entities before the Administrative Proceeding Committee of the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging illegal sale of Afroil Plc shares and other violations of the Investment and Securities Act 2007 and the rules and regulations pursuant thereto.

Other corporate entities and individuals suspected to have participated in the illegal sale of Afroil Plc shares and who are made to answer to questions by the Administrative Proceeding Committee are: Mr. Ishaq Olakunle Sanni, K.S. Fund Managers Ltd, Rita Ify Ejezie, Eghosa E. Osaghae, Gbolahan Abiodun Agoro and Alhaji Kassimu Tafida Bakori. Others are: Christopher Elukuemen Olumese, Olusola Badmus, Jonah Unigwe Ikhidero (Chairman of the company 1996/2001), Skye Bank (Issuing house) Reward Inv. & Sec. Ltd (Broker/Dealer), PSL Securities Ltd (Broker/Dealer), and Odili Okechukwu & Co. (External auditor).

The SEC had in a hearing noticed that following the conclusion of preliminary investigations into the affairs of Afroil Plc in respect of the illegal sale of Afroil Plc shares and violations of the ISA 2007 and the Rules and Regulations made pursuant thereto, it has become necessary to invite the persons listed above to appear before the Administrative Proceedings Committee of the Commission to explain their roles (if any) in the matter.” The first set of hearing, which was made between November 26 and 27, concerned investors that have been following the Administrative Proceeding Committee, called for stiff penalties for those found culpable in the Afroil affair.

HOW TO PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT IN BEARISH MARKET

By West Africa Capital Market School

After having reflected on the fact that there is now little doubt that the Nigeria Stock Market is in the midst of a bear run and that the bear would dominate the market over a long period, experts at the West African School of Capital Market, have offered to avail capital market operator the appropriate trading strategies for the bearish market.

“Economic fundamentals do not support a swift return to an upward price trend,” the experts noted in a dispatch to operators and investors. “With oil hovering in the low $40s, there is precious little money flowing from the public sector unless of course there are draw downs from dedicated accounts to fund some sort of large scale infra-structural investment and even this will take some time to trickle through based on emergent large bets against the local currency.”

The experts highlighted eight broad approaches to managing clients’ portfolio for stockbrokers.

1. Avoid investment diversification. Diversification is a great idea in good markets as it cuts down market and sector risk. However, in a bear market, the problem is with the broad market. The broader your selling of low performers, and concentrating your investments in fewer stocks that have shown the best performance, is the way to go. Your risk is no longer corporate performance but low confidence in the overall market and so it does not make sense to be broadly represented.

2. Help clients identify and preserve core capital – you will have to trace client investments by contribution/performance to identify core capital. Let clients know that you are focused on ensuring that they remain “in the game” and are positioned for a market rebound when it eventually comes.

3. Review your website and its contents to reflect the new realities and change research recommendations from “buy’ “sell” “hold” to a “preserve”, “growth” and “aspire” type recommendations. Preserve stocks will provide growth and income necessary to preserve core capital and maintain lifestyles. Growth will beat the overall index and Aspire is for long term gains when the market picks up. Conservative clients may choose to start out with 50 per cent Preserve, 40 per cent Growth and 10 per cent Aspire and then mechanistically adjust the portfolio later.

4. Shift emphasis from selling stocks to financial planning and wealth management if you have the skills for these. Financial planning is far more defensive than wealth management which requires the identification of non-financial wealth and the setting up of the right trust structures.

5. Be wary of new investment types that you don’t fully understand. The property market, for instance, will in all probability self correct especially at the high end where oversupply and tighter bank credit is now becoming an issue. If you are just getting into property come in at the middle and low end. Avoid the Lekki-Epe axis by all means.

6. If you choose to bet against the naira, do so in an intelligent way and realize that dollar rates can crash if government so desires. You need to get an inside track on just what government thinking is. A strong dollar will cut imports in the medium term and do long term good to the reserves but this strategy might go horribly wrong. We have to wait and see.

7. Keep your people engaged as much as you can. The obvious reaction is to slash and cut and sometimes this may be necessary but rather stay positive and prepare for the bull market because it will come back and for a fairly sustained period too. This means lighter more qualified and educated personnel and wise investments in scalable technology. If you are going to sell optimism abroad then sell it at home too and stay on message.

8. How do you know when the market is recovering? You will need to get some of your people busy on creating and maintaining the A/D Line of the NSE All share. Each day deduct the number of stocks gaining from stock shedding value and graph the resultant values. This will show clearly when the broad market begins to recover.

Technically, the market is in base formation right now with small gains being matched by exits/loss capping. Traditionally, base formation is followed by a sharp and sustained movement to the up or downside. You can estimate this by looking carefully at the volume on up days and the volume on down days. The whole idea is to cancel out the noise being generated by the overall index to see where recovery is likely to begin from.

The other option to these suggestions is to do nothing and hope for the best. While hope might be a laudable trait it is certainly not an advised business strategy. We believe that the market is transiting from high volatility/high gain frontier market status to a more sustained emerging market growth type of market. Such transitions are always painful but unavoidable,” the experts submitted.

Investors Accuse Stanbic-IBTC, Chapel Hill Of Fraud In Starcom Private Placement

A row is in the brew in the community of investors, especially, among those that bought into the private placement of Starcomms Plc last year. At the centre of the uproar are two issuing houses to the shares of Starcomms Plc, Chapel Hill Denham and Stanbic-IBTC.

Mr. Adebayo, one of the investors that bought the private placement of Starcomms Plc observed in a fit of frustration that it is very evident that “Starcomms Plc Private Placement” has become the epitome of “fraud.”

“The Placement of 4.95 billion shares, which opened and closed on 3rd June 2008 at a price of N13:00 appeared so attractive to investors at that time as it was over-subscribed,” Adebayo recalled.

Apparently angered at the down-turn of the investment, Adebayo explained that: “The projection in the placement memorandum says that the company will declare a loss of N197 million at the end of 2008 financial year end. Unfortunately, the company declared a loss after tax of N1.014 billion in the second quarter and N2.149 billion in the just released third quarter result.”

Starcomms Plc was listed at N13.56 on Monday, 14th July, 2008, between then and now, the price of the share had slid to a low of N3.86.

“In fact, the price dropped consistently to N7.46 less than two months after listing,” Adebayo opined. “The question to ask now is during that period, who was selling since most investors that bought shares during the private placement still had certificates that were unverified. Could it have been the original owners dumping on new investors? Can someone please explain why the variance between the forecast and the actual result declared is so staggering? Was money being laundered? What happened to the proceeds of the placement? How much expansion has the company embarked upon since the placement?” Adebayo queried.

Another investor frontally accused the two issuing houses to Starcomms placement, StanbicIBTC and Chapel Hill Denham, a capital market operator that was recently selected as one of the market makers for the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Concerned investors argued that the two issuing houses lent their brand names to be exploited by Starcomms to defraud them.

“The placement was actually successful because Starcomms Plc leveraged on the good name and credibility of Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc and Chapel Hill Advisory Partners. But looking at the whole situation closely, it seems there is more to what we can see. It’s so obvious that Starcomms’ goal from the word go was to defraud the public,” an investor submitted.

“Another question begging for an answer is the role of the two issuing houses in this? Or did Lababidi/Starcomms Plc (Chief Maan Labadidi is the Chairman of the board of Starcomms Plc) act alone?” Adebayo asked. While trying to establish a connection and possible connivance to defraud investors, Adebayo questioned the appointment of Mr. Wale Edun, Chairman of the board of Chapel Hill as a non-Executive Director of Starcommc Plc.

“I want to question the connection between the sudden appointment of the Chairman of Chapel Hill Advisory (Mr. Wale Edun) as a non-Executive Director of Starcomms Plc? Have the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) been asking any questions? How have the professional parties to the placement been able to comply with post-listing compliance requirements? Why are the regulatory bodies keeping mute about this great injustice to investors?” Adebayo queried.

Giving further revelations of the intentions of the Chairman of Starcomms to approach the capital market to raise funds for another company that he has interest in, Adebayo said:

“We hear that the same Lababidi now wants to bring another company to the market (Supreme Flourmill Ltd); this only shows that this individual thinks we are all fools in Nigeria. Please beware of this offer,” Adebayo warned other investors.

Commenting on what investment in Starcomms had turned to, Mr. Ajisafe, another investor opined:

“This is a serious matter and I have decided to sensitise everyone on my list thereto. This is, no doubt, a huge fraud and I am of the opinion that the SEC and NSE should stand indicted in the whole affair! Also, the two issuing houses, I believe, have an explanation to make to unsuspecting investors because investors relied on the strength of their analyses to buy the Starcomms offer. This is shameful and I submit that the matter be investigated and all those found to be culpable be treated in line with the IST sanctions. They are no better than Madoff! Moreover, investors should be wary of issues by the concerned issuing houses (Chapel Hill and StanbicIBTC),” Ajisafe submitted.

Another investor said of the suspicion of collaboration to rip investors on the Starcomms’ private placement.

“It is amazing what our corporate gurus are doing to stay on top of the ladder, gone were the days when our industrialists gave to charity, now our so called industrialists have board meetings and make strategies on how to use their companies to defraud the masses. We are all talking about Madoff but oblivious to the presence of individuals perpetrating worse atrocities right here in Nigeria. We all know that hedge funds are not regulated, and that probably explains why they are able to get away with all they do. How do we justify or indeed explain the flagrant act of fraud against the public in a regulated market? Starcomms came into the market to raise capital, many unsuspecting investors rushed at it, expecting high returns on their investments; it is a pity that it is now a different story entirely. It is obvious that being a politician is not the only way to “rush” up the ladder of wealth; the capital market is an untapped goldmine to fraudulently enrich people who are influential in the business and financial sectors, thanks to our Indian “friend.”

In a statement made available to Fortune&Class Weekly by officials of Chapel Hill Denham, one of the issuing houses to the Starcomms private placement, the issuing house noted that “several investors never read the PPM or all the documentation made available at the time of the placement and many bought through brokers and friends, who were among those invited and never actually saw any documentation and never understood that it was sold as a growth stock, which would make a loss in 2008 (albeit, a smaller loss than we expect to see for 2008), a profit in 2009 and pay dividend in 2010.”

Chapel Hill Denham further asserted in the statement that, “What essentially has happened is that a completely unforeseen heavy subsidy led competition by Visafone and Telkom Multilinks, has meant Starcomms spending about N2 billion more on subsidies than was projected. Essentially, a line with a handset costs about $45 each and it was being sold at N10 each. Starcomms board and management felt that it did not yet have the scale from a subscriber perspective at 1.2million gross subscribers, to stay out of this battle for subscribers.”

The statement further explained that Starcomms had over the years to over 2.5 million gross subscribers, higher than the business plan but at a hefty cost.

“This subscriber’s base will be beneficial this year and beyond, as you can imagine that over two million subscribers spending about $15 per month should generate revenue of about $350 million in 2009. This is not a business in distress by any circumstances,” the Chapel Hill Denham statement observed.

The management of Chapel Hill Denham also explained that contrary to the rumour being spread, the founders, the Lababidis actually increased their holding during the private placement, spending about $17million directly and indirectly, through their other businesses.

“The only shareholders who sold during the placement were the two private equity firms, Actis and ECP, for whom the funds they invested from had come to the end of their life and had to return the money to their investors and partners. All of these were disclosed to investors in the private placement,” the statement noted.

No official of Stanbic-IBTC was available for comment.

How to become a golf director

You don’t have to be a professional golfer to become a golf director, but you must love the game and be a reasonably good player with at least five years’ teaching experience and 10 years in golf operations in a senior management position. However, if your main aim is to play the game, don’t go into management as it doesn’t leave you much time for playing.

You must have good communication skills, and enjoy mixing with people at all social levels.

Golf is a fast-growing industry and many new careers are being created, in addition to traditional professional golfers.

Golf tourism and other related aspects are booming and golf professionals can make a good living. Other golf careers include green keepers, who take care of the courses, and golf fitters, who deal with equipment.

Qualifications needed: You should have a tertiary sport management qualification as an advantage. A PGA qualification is beneficial but not essential. It involves a three-year apprenticeship served under another golf professional or director.

Expected earnings: Earnings vary enormously, depending on your experience and reputation, and which club you are working at.

What does your job entail? Oversee all the golf-related activities at the club and ensure members and visitors get maximum satisfaction.

A golf director’s job has evolved over the years from someone who teaches at a club to being more like that of a business person. Merchandising and retail sales, monthly forecasts, and budgeting are all part of the package.

You are also personally involved with many golfers and visitors who make use of the club’s facilities throughout the year. Some of the questions they ask are about the length of the course and details of tournaments, which the club hosts. They want to know which players will be taking part and like to discuss the merits and problems of the famous players’ games.

Average work day: The average work day for a golf director is 10 to 12 hours, sometime starting at 5.30am and going all the way through to evening functions.

First thing in the morning you have to ensure all the staff are at their posts, check the schedule for the day and see if there are any players who may need special attention. Make sure the shop is open and that all the merchandise is displayed as it ought to be.

Best part of the job: You will enjoy meeting so many different people and working at a magnificent golf course.

Worst part of the job: The hours are long and often working when most people are taking time off. That is part and parcel of any hospitality industry job, though, and you do get used to it.

What other dimension to the job? There are two kinds of golf professionals – the ones who play the game and the ones who manage the courses and clubs. You can opt for any of the two

Will you be paid enough? Yes, this is a well-paid job, depending on which course you work at.

Travel opportunities? Yes, golf is an international sport.

Eight business technology trends to watch

Eight emerging trends are transforming many markets and businesses. Executives should learn to shape the outcome rather than just react to it.

JAMES MANYIKA IS A DIRECTOR AND KARA SPRAGUE IS A CONSULTANT IN MCKINSEY’S SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE; ROGER ROBERTS IS A PRINCIPAL IN THE SILICON VALLEY OFFICE.

Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. Through our work and research, we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

Managing relationships

1. Distributing cocreation. The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. Today, in the high-technology, consumer product, and automotive sectors, among others, companies routinely involve customers, suppliers, small specialist businesses, and independent contractors in the creation of new products. Outsiders offer insights that help shape product development, but companies typically control the innovation process. Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders-cocreationin essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

Information goods such as software and editorial content are ripe for this kind of decentralized innovation; the Linux operating system, for example, was developed over the Internet by a network of specialist.

But companies can also create physical goods in this way. Loncin, a leading Chinese motorcycle manufacturer, sets broad specifications for products and then lets its suppliers work with one another to design the components, make sure everything fits together, and reduce costs. In the past, Loncin didn’t make extensive use of information technology to manage the supplier communityan approach reflecting business realities in China and in this specific industrial market. But recent advances in open-standards-based computing (for example, computer-aided-design programs that work well with other kinds of software) are making it easier to cocreate physical goods for more complex value chains in competitive markets.

If this approach to innovation becomes broadly accepted, the impact on companies and industries could be substantial. We estimate, for instance, that in the US economy alone roughly 12 percent of all labor activity could be transformed by more distributed and networked forms of innovation from reducing the amount of legal and administrative activity that intellectual property involves to restructuring or eliminating some traditional R&D work.

Companies pursuing this trend will have less control over innovation and the intellectual property that goes with it, however. They will also have to compete for the attention and time of the best and most capable contributors.

2. Using consumers as innovators. Consumers also cocreate with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance, could be viewed as a service or product created by its distributed customers. But the differences between the way companies cocreate with partners, on the one hand, and with customers, on the other, are so marked that the consumer side is really a separate trend. These differences include the nature and range of the interactions, the economics of making them work, and the management challenges associated with them.

As the Internet has evolved, an evolution prompted in part by new Web 2.0 technologist has become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Consumers increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organizations of all kinds. Companies can tap this new mood of customer engagement for their economic benefit.

OhmyNews, for instance, is a popular South Korean online newspaper written by upwards of 60,000 contributing “citizen reporters.” It has quickly become one of South Korea’s most influential media outlets, with around 700,000 site visits a day. Another company that goes out of its way to engage customers, the online clothing store Threadless, asks people to submit new designs for T-shirts. Each week, hundreds of participants propose ideas and the community at large votes for its favorites. The top four to six designs are printed on shirts and sold in the store; the winners receive a combination of cash prizes and store credit. In September 2007 Threadless opened its first physical retail operation, in Chicago.

Companies that involve customers in design, testing, marketing (such as viral marketing), and the after-sales process get better insights into customer needs and behavior and may be able to cut the cost of acquiring customers, engender greater loyalty, and speed up development cycles. But a company open to allowing customers to help it innovate must ensure that it isn’t unduly influenced by information gleaned from a vocal minority. It must also be wary of focusing on the immediate rather than longer-range needs of customers and be careful to avoid raising and then failing to meet their expectations.

3. Tapping into a world of talent. As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence. Much as technology permits them to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks.

Top talent for a range of activities from finance to marketing and IT to operationscan be found anywhere. The best person for a task may be a free agent in India or an employee of a small company in Italy rather than someone who works for a global business services provider. Software and Internet technologies are making it easier and less costly for companies to integrate and manage the work of an expanding number of outsiders, and this development opens up many contracting options for managers of corporate functions.

The implications of shifting more work to freelancers are interesting. For one thing, new talent-deployment models could emerge. TopCoder, a company that has created a network of software developers, may represent one such model. TopCoder gives organizations that want to have software developed for them access to its talent pool. Customers explain the kind of software they want and offer prizes to the developers who do the best job creating itan approach that costs less than employing experienced engineers. Furthermore, changes in the nature of labor relationships could lead to new pricing models that would shift payment schemes from time and materials to compen-sation for results.

This trend should gather steam in sectors such as software, health care delivery, professional services, and real estate, where companies can easily segment work into discrete tasks for independent contractors and then reaggregate it. As companies move in this direction, they will need to understand the value of their human capital more fully and manage different classes of contributors accordingly. They will also have to build capabilities to engage talent globally or contract with talent aggregators that specialize in providing such services. Competitive advantage will shift to companies that can master the art of breaking down and recomposing tasks.

4. Extracting more value from interactions. Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities. As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total US employment, up from 40 percent today. Europe and Japan will experience similar changes in the composition of their workforces.

The application of technology has reduced differences among the productivity of transformational and transactional employees, but huge inconsistencies persist in the productivity of high-value tacit ones. Improving it is more about increasing their effectivenessfor instance, by focusing them on interactions that create value and ensuring that they have the right information and contextthan about efficiency. Technology tools that promote tacit interactions, such as wikis, virtual team environments, and videoconferencing, may become no less ubiquitous than computers are now. As companies learn to use these tools, they will develop managerial innovationssmarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactionsthat will be difficult for their rivals to replicate. Companies in sectors such as health care and banking are already moving down this road.

As companies improve the productivity of these workers, it will be necessary to couple investments in technologies with the right combination of incentives and organizational values to drive their adoption and use by employees. There is still substantial room for automating transactional activities, and the payoff can typically be realized much more quickly and measured much more clearly than the payoff from investments to make tacit work more effective. Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging but critical for managers.

Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding the frontiers of automation. Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and HR; product and customer databases; and Web sites. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What’s more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.

During the late 1990s FedEx and UPS linked data flowing through their internal tracking systems to the Internet no trivial task at the time to let customers track packages from their Web sites, with no human intervention required on the part of either company. By leveraging and linking systems to automate processes for answering inquiries from customers, both dramatically reduced the cost of serving them while increasing their satisfaction and loyalty. More recently, Carrefour, Metro, Wal-Mart Stores, and other large retailers have adopted (and asked suppliers to adopt) digital-tagging technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID), and integrated them with other supply chain systems in order to automate the supply chain and inventory management further. The rate of adoption to date disappoints the advocates of these technologies, but as the price of digital tags falls they could very well reduce the costs of managing distribution and increase revenues by helping companies to manage supply more effectively.

Companies still have substantial headroom to automate many repetitive tasks that aren’t yet mediated by computersparticularly in sectors and regions where IT marches at a slower paceand to interlink “islands of automation” and so give managers and customers the ability to do new things. Automation is a good investment if it not only lowers costs but also helps users to get what they want more quickly and easily, though it may not be a good idea if it gives them unpleasant experiences. The trick is to strike the right balance between raising margins and making customers happy.

6. Unbundling production from delivery. Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently by disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components, measuring and metering the use of each, and billing for that use in ever-smaller increments cost effectively. Information and communications technologies handle the tracking and metering critical to the new models and make it possible to have effective allocation and capacity-planning systems.

Amazon.com, for example, has expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services. It also gives independent software developers opportunities to buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don’t have to buy their own. Mobile virtual-network operators, another example of this trend, provide wireless services without investing in a network infrastructure. At the most basic level of unbundled production, 80 percent of all companies responding to a recent survey on Web trends say they are investing in Web services and related technologies. Although the applications vary, many are using these technologies to offer other companies suppliers, customers, and other ecosystem participants access to parts of their IT architectures through standard protocols.1

Unbundling works in the physical world too. Today you can buy fractional time on a jet, in a high-end sports car, or even for designer handbags. Unbundling is attractive from the supply side because it lets asset-intensive businesses factories, warehouses, truck fleets, office buildings, data centers, networks, and so onraise their utilization rates and therefore their returns on invested capital. On the demand side, unbundling offers access to resources and assets that might otherwise require a large fixed investment or significant scale to achieve competitive marginal costs. For companies and entrepreneurs seeking capacity (or variable additional capacity), unbundling makes it possible to gain access to assets quickly, to scale up businesses yet keep their balance sheets asset light, and to use attractive consumption and contracting models that are easier on their income statements.

Companies that make their assets available for internal and external use will need to manage conflicts if demand exceeds supply. A competitive advantage through scale may be hard to maintain when many players, large and small, have equal access to resources at low marginal costs.

Leveraging information in new ways

7. Putting more science into management. Just as the Internet and productivity tools extend the reach of and provide leverage to desk-based workers, technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From “ideagoras” (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches, ubiquitous standards-based technologies promote aggregation, processing, and decision making based on the use of growing pools of rich data.

Leading players are exploiting this information explosion with a diverse set of management techniques. Google fosters innovation through an internal market: employees submit ideas, and other employees decide if an idea is worth pursuing or if they would be willing to work on it full-time. Intel integrates a “prediction market” with regular short-term forecasting processes to build more accurate and less volatile estimates of demand. The cement manufacturer Cemex optimizes loads and routes by combining complex analytics with a wireless tracking and communications network for its trucks.

The amount of information and a manager’s ability to use it have increased explosively not only for internal processes but also for the engagement of customers. The more a company knows about them, the better able it is to create offerings they want, to target them with messages that get a response, and to extract the value that an offering gives them. The holy grail of deep customer insightmore granular segmentation, low-cost experimentation, and mass customizationbecomes increasingly accessible through technological innovations in data collection and processing and in manufacturing.

Examples are emerging across a wide range of industries. Amazon.com stands at the forefront of advanced customer segmentation. Its recommendation engine correlates the purchase histories of each individual customer with those of others who made similar purchases to come up with suggestions for things that he or she might buy. Although the jury is still out on the true value of recommendation engines, the techniques seem to be paying off: CleverSet, a pure-play recommendation-engine provider, claims that the 75 online retailers using the engine are averaging a 22 percent increase in revenue per visitor.2 Meanwhile, toll road operators are beginning to segment drivers and charge them differential prices based on static conditions (such as time of day) and dynamic ones (traffic). Technology is also dramatically bringing down the costs of experimentation and giving creative leaders opportunities to think like scientists by constructing and analyzing alternatives. The financial-services concern Capital One conducts hundreds of experiments daily to determine the appropriate mix of products it should direct to specific customer profiles. Similarly, Harrah’s casinos mine customer data to target promotions and drive exemplary customer service.

Given the vast resources going into storing and processing information today, it’s hard to believe that we are only at an early stage in this trend. Yet we are. The quality and quantity of information available to any business will continue to grow explosively as the costs of monitoring and managing processes fall.

Leaders should get out ahead of this trend to ensure that information makes organizations more rather than less effective. Information is often power; broadening access and increasing transparency will inevitably influence organizational politics and power structures. Environments that celebrate making choices on a factual basis must beware of analysis paralysis.

8. Making businesses from information. Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities.

Frequent contributors to what economists call market imperfections include information asymmetries and the frequent inability of decision makers to get all the relevant data about new market opportunities, potential acquisitions, pricing differences among suppliers, and other business situations. These imperfections often allow middlemen and players with more and better information to extract higher rents by aggregating and creating businesses around it. The Internet has brought greater transparency to many markets, from airline tickets to stocks, but many other sectors need similar illumination. Real estate is one of them. In a sector where agencies have thrived by keeping buyers and sellers partly in the dark, new sites have popped up to shine “a light up into the dark reaches of the supply curve,” as Rich Barton, the founder of Zillow (a portal for real-estate information), puts it. Barton, the former leader of the e-travel site Expedia, has been down this road before.

Moreover, the aggregation of data through the digitization of processes and activities may create by-products, or “exhaust data,” that companies can exploit for profit. A retailer with digital cameras to prevent shoplifting, for example, could also analyze the shopping patterns and traffic flows of customers through its stores and use these insights to improve its layout or the placement of promotional displays. It might also sell the data to its vendors so that they could use real observations of consumer behavior to reshape their merchan-dising approaches.

Another kind of information business plays a pure aggregation and visualization role, scouring the Web to assemble data on particular topics. Many business-to-consumer shopping sites and business-to-business product directories operate in this fashion. But that sword can cut both ways; today’s aggregators, for instance, may themselves be aggregated tomorrow. Companies relying on information-based market imperfections need to assess the impact of the new transparency levels that are continually opening up in today’s information economy.

Conclusion

Creative leaders can use a broad spectrum of new, technology-enabled options to craft their strategies. These trends are best seen as emerging patterns that can be applied in a wide variety of businesses. Executives should reflect on which patterns may start to reshape their markets and industries nextand on whether they have opportunities to catalyze change and shape the outcome rather than merely react to it.

The tragedy of the Okada generation

The most important resource to a nation is the human capital. This is because with it other resources can be harnessed for growth and development with ease. This is why most countries the world over strive to put in place policies that will have their citizens achieve goals in life through education in the first instance, with such other opportunities that will guarantee professionalism in a chosen careers. In some cases, the state puts a tab on their growth and progress, particularly the young ones, who, in most cases, form the largest part of the population from among whom leaders emerge to administer the country in the near future.

The importance of youths made them command reasonable attention to discerning minds so much so that both governments and non-govermental organizations, world institutions like UNESCO, including those institutions that we sometimes view with suspicion and disdain as the IMF and the World Bank, gladly make provisions for the development and education of this segment of the population. Even the scripture backed this position with the Lord himself decreeing that we should not despise the children “for the kingdom of God is for such like ones.”

It is arguable that beyond the politically expedient rhetoric, this country has no plan for her youths. This is evident in the education sector that has gone comatose with no signs of something concrete and positive happening in that sector so soon. Neither is there alternative to having some semblance of what will enable our active sector of the population contribute to our development process.

In all areas of human index, this country has progressively failed to measure up, while yearly we always come up with policies that will see to it that our youth, who are supposed to be the hope of our tomorrow, are further pushed down the rung of the ladder of poverty and deprivation. If we are not increasing prices of very essential items that will ensure that few factories gasping for breath are finished up and worsen the unemployment situation, as was the case with Obasanjo of the better forgotten era, we will be engaging in bizarre activities on the very day of the new year thus ensuring that Nigerians begin the new year on a sad and confusing note. It is Nigerian.

At the start of 2009, we all woke up to be confronted by a new decree from The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), compelling ‘Okada Riders’ and their passengers to wear crash helmet by way of guaranteeing safety of the head in case of accident. And the Lagos state authorities had since latched on this to collect the revenue it believes is due it, asking operators of Okada to come and procure it from the state at a cheap rate upon presentation of a tax receipt. Smart idea.

While not against the FRSC intentions, and particularly, not against Lagos State for collecting its taxes, something that must be done by any one who earns an income, I am worried about our legitimizing the use of Okada as a means of commercial transport with all the health and social implications. I am also wondering if the use of Okada is allowed in our carriage laws as one for commercial purpose.

What I can not understand is the decision to reduce the value of our youths who struggled to go through hell that our higher institutions represent to graduates only to be condemned to Okada riding. Worst still is the fact that the state is not thinking of how best to engage these young vibrant ‘hands productively other than to expose their lives to avoidable danger as in riding Okada along with all the health implications.

Often we promote policies that help run other economies to our own disadvantage as in the rush for crash-helmet. While the manufacturers in Asian countries are smiling to the bank with money being milked from Nigeria, our factories are groaning under very unfriendly and hash economic environment as a result of the nation’s inability to get its bearing right. It seems we have chosen to remain an import dependent country and remain a dumping ground perpetually.

Nothing seems to work here. Not when the presidency has given up on NEPA by budgeting for generators for 2009, an amount that looks very scandalous. The states and local governments are yet to make public their provisions for energy power for 2009.

The fact that some of our citizens are dead on account of inhaling fumes from the generating sets imported from our new found friends in Asia does not worry our President nor did he see it as a motivating factor to compel to act on PHCN. No.

We must continue groping endlessly in search of an Eldorado that we did not plan for in 2020, a mere 11 years away.