Customers key to business continuity

when the licence is valid.
Some idealists even went further to argue about methods of reducing counterfeit licences.
It was, however, agreed that licensing boat drivers will improve the quality of the sport by reducing accidents and improving navigation skills.

Types of licences
The two common types of licences required for one to drive a motor vehicle are provisional and permanent licences.
A provisional licence is temporary pending issuing of the permanent one. This implies that a provisional licence has a shorter working lifespan.

On the other hand, there are many licences one needs to obtain to operate a business.
One would require a licence from a local authority to operate a business in either an urban or rural environment.

In addition, one might also require a licence from the regulating ministry or statutory commission such as the Securities Commission, Factory Inspectorate and Health Council of Zimbabwe.
Most of these licences only last for a year. In a way the type of licences issued by licensing authorities are provisional licences pending the issuing of a licence from a higher authority.

The need to renew these licences is dependent on whether customers are still continuing to support your business.
Should customers decide not to frequent your business then the need to renew the licences might not be there.
In South Africa, the nickname for a person who only manages to close one good deal throughout their life is “A one-tender man or woman”.
This is similar to a person who just gets a provisional licence and fails to get a proper licence or a business that manages to get an operating licence once and fails to renew it in the following years.

Sustainable licences
In our local cultures we have a saying “kudya chemungozva kubata mwana”. This idiom implies that for a visitor to build a strong beneficial relationship with a breastfeeding mother that culminates in getting food from her, one must show affection to her child by holding it.
Three interesting conditions are explored by this idiom. One being both the breastfeeding mother and the visitor are interdependent.

There is a principle of reciprocation occurring here. A small well-meaning gesture of affection can be rewarded with substantial return in the form of food.
One can develop effective rapport with a customer if one undertakes to understand what really matters to his customer at different stages of their life.
Should one be good at playing with the woman’s child they manage to eat very often at her place.

However, as the child grows one will have to change method of interaction with the child for one to continue enjoying the benefits of patronage.
Failure to come up with creative methods of interacting with growing the child will affect the validity of one’s licence to eat from the woman’s pot.
The biggest challenge for most business people is thinking that they will enjoy customer’s loyalty consistently by pleasing the mother by holding her baby even if the baby is now a teenager.

They fail to contextualise “kubata mwana” (holding the baby). A teenager might need a hug as opposed to being held like a baby.
Alternatively at this stage in life the mother might be more interested in someone who can arrange for a suitable soul mate for her child. In addition to this, she might also be looking for someone to give her company.

As managers try to satisfy the needs of their customers most of them restrict their thoughts and strategies to the provision of the primary product (the one which the customer directly purchases).

However, as the product nears maturity there will be lots of imitations to compete with your products.
The puzzle at this stage is how one can extend their product lifecycle to retain their licence.
The new way of thinking is that products lifecycle can also be extended by investing in creative sustainable social investment programmes with the community.

The community we are living in is facing real challenges from the following: Aids pandemic and the resultant social dislocations, improving access to medical facilities for the social disadvantaged communities. Increase in malnutrition, squatter problems, lack of capacity building for SMEs, lack of adequate recreational facilities for the youth and elderly, combating veld fires and their resultant destruction, and many others.

These and many other physical, economic and emotional challenges require sustainable interventions by the corporate world.
Companies like individuals can fake the “breastfeeding mother” scenario by holding the child for one day and be rewarded with a fake licence.
However, if the individual or company does not like the baby, it might be difficult to sustain the relationship.

Failure to live up to the value system might result in the detection of the “fake” licence and as such consumers will act appropriately.
Most companies pay lip service to social responsibility programmes in Zimbabwe.
They tend to pay attention to them when their bank accounts are fat and discontinue them at the slightest change in company’s fortunes.

The people championing these programmes in most cases do not believe in the long-term usefulness of these programmes.
They are used as publicity campaigns for glory seeking companies.
Companies are therefore being urged to find a social challenge, which they can relate to or totally believe in and twin the challenge together with their marketing strategies to grow their business.

Most companies want customers to support them through repeat purchases but they are not willing to go the extra mile to please the same customers.
They want to be granted licences based on past performance, which is not always feasible.
May I take this opportunity to remind companies that the licence to operate sustainably is obtained from the customers only.

It is up to the company to continually build on the rapport created by “holding the child” by investing in social investment programmes that can assist in unlocking further goodwill from the existing and new customers.
Social investment programmes help companies to create platforms, which helps in unlocking further value from your customers.

Gone are the days when companies just rely on basic product offerings and hope to realise full potential from their offerings.