Alpha & Omega Part II: Dearth of corporate leadership skills?

 Bullish Thoughts is worried…Yes, really worried. Only last week he was pontificating about how “excited” he was to have come across  an Alpha & Omega Dairies product in Chivhu in a country where Harare is closer to Mazowe.

Then he observed that when the Alpha & Omega General Manager, a Mr Nhari, when given the ideal opportunity to pontificate about how Alpha & Omega is going to transform the FMCG sector, he starts with a bucket-load of political insinuations.

To put it into perspective, this is a guy who has the abnormal advantage because his bosses/ shareholders “can” get free press coverage without even asking for it.

He gets his maiden interview with the press…at least as far as Bullish Thoughts is concerned. The guy opens his mouth and starts blurting stuff like “…contrary to public opinion, Alpha & Omega is professionally run…it is run by a competent board…it will perform despite the political affiliations of its shareholders…blah blah blah…”

Firstly Bullish Thoughts has never seen any negative press about Alpha & Omega besides the pun that Nestle Zimbabwe was the Project Manager.

Bullish Thoughts, who has a serious weakness for Dairy Products (cows’ that is…not that being interested in our other halves’ is a bad idea), was lauding Gushungo Holdings for value addition and coming up with a product quite at par with the market and now an executive forgets that he is not the shareholder.

Bullish Thoughts says to Mr Nhari (or hopes someone will tell him) that Alpha & Omega has the abnormal marketing advantage and he has to exploit it and get as much shelf space as possible in leading outlets like OK Zimbabwe, TM Supermarkets, SPAR & Pick n Pay.

Most people would be willing to try out the Alpha & Omega brand because they are guaranteed there is no use of GMOs as the cows are from Gushungo Farm.

Everyone knows who the owners of Alpha & Omega are and we all expect the plant to be kitted with the most economic and efficient equipment because it’s a modern establishment.

Seriously, what was Mr Nhari insinuating about ZANU PF and the quality of milk products at Alpha & Omega?

Bullish Thoughts can only say to all business leaders and managers (like Mr Nhari…) that people go into business to make money. No shareholders want a useless excuse…That’s why you were hired in the first place, too chart a new path and leave a trail.

Telecel…You gotta love the cheekiness

Bullish Thoughts has always loved Telecel even when it was blue. Their adverts are always top notch and with serious creativity. They should really have a really good Ad Agency.

However, it is what Telecel put together after the “once was” useful Net*One decided to dishonor its interconnection debts. While the Inspired Network  was fighting with NetOne, Telecel decided to put an advert: “Come to the network that connects you across all networks. So go ahead and tell someone”. Ain’t that just interesting.

Bullish Thoughts did write last year about competitors exploiting your public weakness. You all should remember the “No New Sim Card, No Bank Account & Connect to All Networks” by-line when Econet launched EcoCash last year while NetOne was asking subscribers to get a new sim card to get the same service.

On another note, does anyone know anyone who uses NetOne besides civil servants?

Bullish Thoughts was also quite intrigued by NetOne executive who took a populist decision and left everyone on post paid billing while Econet Wireless migrated everyone to prepaid. Now that they are paying for it, they are complaining that Econet Wireless made the business move.

Also did anyone notice that NetOne was not disputing it owed money to Econet Wireless but quantum. Out of interest, why does NetOne not pay that which it thinks it is owing Econet Wireless and then negotiate on the difference.

The minorities need confidence in the regulator & markets…

Securities Commission has been talking a lot about monitoring the markets especialy listed companies. Bullish Thoughts would be glad if SEC can evaluate if Turnall is being charged fair interest rates by the parent company.

Its finance bill for 1HY2012 was ridiculous and quite prejudicial to minorities in the construction company. Confirmation that any lending-borrowings are arms’ length and they the company is allowed to borrow elsewhere given the relatedness of the parties is crucial for investor confidence.

Capital Bank…New baby on the block?

Bullish Thoughts is disappointed that Capital Bank (formerly ReNaissance Merchant Bank) chose to parade its website during the launch (www.capitalbankcorporation.co.zw) on 24 August 2012 knowing fully it was not functional (if it existed at all).

Online presence is the modern way of getting information and in real-time too. By Sunday, Capital Bank was not existent even on Google. Bullish Thoughts hopes this will be rectified soon.

That aside, Bullish Thoughts was quite inspired by the talk given by Capital Bank Chairman, Dr Joseph Kanyekanye. It was quite refreshing and one can only hope that Capital Bank emulates other great African banking comeback stories. The classic one is that of Equity Bank of Kenya. In 1994, few gave a dime for Equity Bank’s chances. It had $262k deposits, $107k loans, 27 employees, $393k losses against capital of $35k so the bank was technically insolvent to the tune of $357k. Today Equity Bank has a turnover of $2.3bn and nearly 7,000 employees.