admin
Gatsha Mazithulela
IN the last 12 part series of this column, I explored many issues pertaining to the industrialisation, de-industrialisation, re-industrialisation of Bulawayo and everything in-between that can be described in this family of big words. The point was made and there is now a crusade that has clearly overtaken what I was writing about and I consider that a good result. Now let’s move on to Zimbabwean industry in general.
Whilst taking a break from writing, and instead, reading how the response to industrialisation is shaping up, I began to worry about a few missing vitally-important key words in documents produced by industry bodies. I even attended the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) congress in Bulawayo and waited for these key words to emerge but alas, they were scarce.
The few key words or terms that I was waiting for were; research and development, intellectual property, patents, new product development, human capital development, the knowledge-based economy and other terms that are ubiquitous whenever industry bodies, across the world, meet to discuss how to become more competitive. Again, I was left clutching my pen to no avail as speaker after speaker dwelled on the same issues that we hear of everyday — lack of finance, lack of water, cheap imports, the Chinese, the Brazilians, the South Africans, the Indians, hyper-inflation.
At the risk of falling asleep, I kept up with these speakers because they do have genuine complaints. I was waiting for the punch line that the captains of industry would collectively develop but was somewhat disappointed when the resolutions looked like a collection of newspaper articles rather than the outside-the-box thoughts of chief executive officers. As the leader of one local manufacturing giant put it; “most CEOs have no time to be imaginative and to innovate as they are too busy fighting fires and avoiding liquidation every day”.
I empathise completely but I also wonder what happens when Cabinet Ministers look at a list of resolutions that does not give those exciting new directions to pursue but is a rehash of all the things taught in the MBA classes on macro-economic intervention. I felt quite sorry for Minister of Industry and Commerce, Cde Mike Bimha sitting at the CZI congress, receiving cleverly-worded insults for problems that he is also looking for solutions to — and nothing of the thought leadership that some of us were expecting. Where were those innovative ideas, even as we are looking at the liquidator?
I will therefore dedicate quite a number of articles to describing what other think-tanks come up with when they meet and how national strategies hence formed are aligned to a common purpose of seeking national competitiveness. This competitiveness is derived from creation of competitive positions and not only macro-economic interventions designed to block others from operating in your country.
Love them or hate them, the United States National Academy of Sciences (2007), authored a paper called “Rising above the gathering storm”, The United Kingdom think tank, the Sainsbury report “The Race to the ToP (2007) and the Canadian cabinet issued a strategy, “Mobilising science and technology to Canada’s advantage” (2007). What was so important about 2007 for these countries to all work on new road maps? With hindsight, we now know that all their economies were about to crash and they needed innovation to return and create new industrial advantages. In all cases, one may draw a common theme in that they had been out competed by emerging economies of Brazil, Russia and China; the Asian Tigers and even countries like Cuba in some industries during the decade prior to 2007.
So what had happened in those emerging economies to shake the think tanks of the economic powerhouses? Yes, there had been macro-economic policies that boosted industry but there had also been a boom in research and development, intellectual property management, patents, new product development, human capital development — in order to get a ticket into the knowledge-based economy. Remember those key words earlier?
All these countries also had clear road maps on how to enter this new economy and their private company strategies are littered with all the key words listed above. I can understand the need for local industry to have some breathing space and moratoria on all sorts of issues causing their closure but without forward-looking policies embracing what modern industry is doing, do they have a chance? If I am wrong, somebody must please show me where they have spoken using the keywords above, the language of modern industry.
Frustrated with the resolutions of several think-tanks in our local industry, I have tried to see whether there is any better luck in finding new directions from the side of Government. One would expect governments to be more conservative than private companies when it comes to pursuing new ideas and this seems to be true except in Zimbabwe.
The Zanu-PF manifesto is a mini-business plan for every sector of industry and it does not mince its words. It even has all these key words that are so desperately missing in the plans of our think-tanks. The accompanying government policy document, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation is equally loaded with a completely different point of departure from what resolutions I have seen for both CZI and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.
The surprising thing is that both organisations were represented in the drafting of Government policy but their own proposed ways forward are not in alignment with Government’s bold new direction. In the past, we have complained about lack of policy but now that we have a policy, we seem to be busy creating policy contradictions or ignoring the policy altogether.
The race to the top requires alignment of business strategy with national policy. If such alignment is not there, it quickly turns into the race to the bottom. Ask industry and commerce of the bigger economies what happened in 2008, partly as a result of policy incongruence between business and Government.
In the next few weeks, Dr Gatsha Mazithulela’s column will be about these issues in several articles called “the Race to the Top or the Race to the Bottom”. The global knowledge-based economy will be described and examples drawn into the Zimbabwean context. Concepts like value addition will be explored in terms wider than processing of raw materials but into issues of new product development, intellectual property management and creation of new industries. The writer is a respected scientist, with significant international experience. He can be contacted on [email protected] or 0773 227 561.
Bongani Ndlovu