Business culture critical to empowerment drive

which economic growth may be realised.
It may not be enough just to transfer 51 percent shares of a company to the majority while at the same time not transferring the business culture of a company to the indigenous people.
What many economic experts mean by business culture is the ability to understand what running any company or activity that brings a return on investment.
There are many instances where the failure of a business has been attributed to poor management.
What may be the cause of the non-performance of a company may be due to lack of understanding of what a business is all about.
If business culture is about a return on investment, then many parastatals lack business culture attributes.
Take Air Zimbabwe, for example, it is not the fault of the board of directors nor management that the planes are not flying but the fact that whoever set up the company did not realise that the return on investment was very critical for the success of the airline.
Yes, there was investment on new aircraft some years ago but the ratio of workers to one aircraft could not sustain the return on investment.
It has been reported that Air Zimbabwe has about 150 workers to one aircraft when the world average is about 80 employees to one aircraft.
From these figures, there could never be a return on investment with such a bloated workforce.
In short, there was no business culture that could promote profit making which in turn could sustain the airline.
Another example was that of Zupco. If this state-owned bus company had a business culture, there would never have been commuter omnibuses all over  country. Also if the rural bus companies had any business culture, many well known bus owners would not have taken their business with them to their grave.
It is not enough to own a business 100 percent whether you are black, or white or Asian but that the business must be run on profitable terms.
Many believed that for a business to be profitable, the workers had to be underpaid while the owners live a luxury life.
Those that follow a credible business culture see to it that the company’s profits are ploughed back to expand the business and that loans, which are very critical in running a business, have to be serviced regularly.
Such businesses thrive while worker morale continues to be on the high and with that environment productivity continues to rise and so does the return on investment. Is enough being done to inculcate business culture at school, college or university levels?
This is the most important aspect of indigenisation and empowerment which many wrongly construe, may be for political reasons, as a way to just grab shares from foreign-owned companies.
There are companies and businesses that are owned by locals which are failing because they do not follow business culture principles.
Instead of correcting what is wrong at present we are rushing headlong to add more problems without pausing to reflect on why there is no economic growth in the present companies owned by the Government and local individuals.
Another aspect that has contributed to lack of economic development or business growth has been the propensity of our business leaders or owners to shun viable partnerships to pool resources together.
While the Government is promoting indigenisation and empowerment policies, it should also promote the business culture.
It is not just owning or running companies or parastatals that constitute a business but any economic activity whether selling second-hand clothes, vegetables, making doorframes or building houses.
Even those engaged in crop farming or animal husbandry are all involved in business defined by the desire to make money from their investment.
The bottom line in any business culture is to make a profit, which is a return on investment.
A lesson which must be learned is that of Malaysia that used taxes to buy back businesses owned by the British and Chinese to take ownership of the economy but also went out of its way to train its own people to acquire a business culture.
This is the route Zimbabwe must take. To invest in businesses, the country is giving to its own people not just to take shares without investing in the same businesses and training its people to acquire a business culture.