Chronicle EditorHebert Zharare Deputy News Editor
Some companies in Zimbabwe, mainly parastatals, have an organisational culture and managerial structures that discourage innovation.
The puzzle of why Zimbabwe is among countries failing to attract Foreign Direct Investment in the world has many answers, some of them, however, not convincing.
Those who read economics textbooks proffer reasons such as high country risk due to political uncertainty and corruption, among others, why savvy global investors do not pour in billions into Zimbabwe’s economy.
Countries that have been at war have seen rich global investors pouring billions into their economies and they have risen from the rubble of after war effects.
Notable examples are Japan, Germany, Mozambique and Sudan.
However, problems in Zimbabwe, which is not at war, appear to be worsening because there is no job security for those still employed as official figures say 10 000 people were fired on three months’ notice, while unofficial figures put them at 25 000.
There is a serious cash squeeze and fear abounds that even the informal sector may also suffer the consequences of economic challenges being faced if no immediate solutions are found.
It is against this backdrop that lack of innovative and entrepreneurial management and not political uncertainty may be the cause of failure by many companies to attract global investors.
The economic environment Zimbabwe finds itself operating in needs managers of parastatals, quasi Government companies and private companies to think outside the box and wash away the sanctions mantra.
Like the Cuban example, sanctions may go on for 40 or 50 years, so the question is do our managers expect us to wait until all the countries have removed the embargoes for them to start reviving their companies?
In other words those blaming the sanctions are telling us the companies are on auto-pilot, as such can never implement their own business strategies for their survival.
With or without the illegal sanctions, the time to revive Zimbabwe’s economy is now and not tomorrow. Those managers who think companies cannot revive their fortunes without firing workers have no place in future Zimbabwe.
The hallmark of a leader is the ability to come up with home-grown solutions to ensure the survival of the company under such difficult circumstances, not to fire hapless and innocent people who are not part of decisions that led to poor performance of the company.
The problems with many managers is they do not self-introspect, whether the knowledge they have is still compatible with the latest global challenges and in the case of Zimbabwe, they are quick to hide behind political problems.
This article argues that it’s lack of innovation and entrepreneurship at national level, lack of entrepreneurial skills at company management level, antiquated or obsolete equipment, the absence of a culture, norms and values of innovation at organisational level, among other reasons, that has seen some investors shunning investment in local firms.
Most managers, mainly parastatal managers, have been in leadership positions for over 30 years and a majority of them are now suffering from ignoratia factata.
In as much as political uncertainty may dent the performance of an economy, why not support national policies such as the land reform programme and indigenisation and economic empowerment policies with resources to influence home-grown solutions?
For example, instead of importing maize worth $1 billion, why not support farmers to the same amount so that they grow the food locally through irrigation instead of exporting the jobs to other countries?
It needs more than three months for maize bought from countries like Brazil to arrive in Zimbabwe, time almost taken to grow winter maize and harvest it.
This therefore calls for innovative and entrepreneurial policy makers who see things differently every time and are in a position to guide other department heads to have the same thinking that extricate the country from the challenges it faces.
An academic, Roberts, defines innovation as the successful commercial implementation and exploitation of a new idea or innovation. Innovation is the process of taking new ideas effectively and profitably to satisfy consumers, thereby creating wealth for the investors, jobs and value for customers.
Failure to embrace technologies and lack of entrepreneurial skills by leadership in national Government have serious consequences for the economy, not sanctions only.
For starters, some people in Cabinet who deliberate on Government policies, do not appreciate that being innovative and entrepreneurial may be the panacea to the country’s economic and social quagmire.
Many think that entrepreneurship is selling small items on the streets, yet it means multi-billion dollar businesses.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, which is responsible for ensuring food security in the country, has failed to embrace innovation and new technologies that could have maybe ensured the country would never experience food deficit.
In as much as Zimbabwe has said no to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), more products continue to flood the open market and reports say GMO products are finding their way into the country.
Government has to institute research and take parts that are useful to the country and discard those that are a threat to the country’s food security.
Some companies in Zimbabwe, mainly parastatals, have an organisational culture and managerial structures that discourage innovation. Innovative managers should ensure sufficient budgets are allocated and that strategy is aligned with innovation strategies that attract investors.
However, organisational and managerial culture of companies such as the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO), National Railways of Zimbabwe, Cold Storage Company, among others, have business models that scare away investors.
State companies are sitting on huge business opportunities and what is needed is for them to present their proposals to parent ministers so that they are given borrowing powers from international banks that offer low interests on loans.
Due to NRZ management’s failure to embrace technologies, or even enter into joint ventures with hi-tech industries from countries such as Japan and China, non-innovative management allowed the company’s railway lines and wagons to decay and the firm is now a pale shadow of itself.
Organisations with management that lacks innovation do not think of shifting the scope of the business when they start seeing market share shrinking.
Lack of innovative managers at companies such as clothing manufacturing concern, David Whitehead Pvt, led to the firm failing to replace antiquated equipment that in turn caused low capacity utilisation, resulting in the closure of the company.
As early as the 1990s, poor prices of cotton on the international market were already manifest and indications are that management was supposed to innovate, either by investing in new machinery to process the synthetic materials that were now being used to make garments in different parts of the world.
The changing landscape of business today, especially for the high-technology and innovative firms, is characterised by how these businesses pursue entrepreneurial activities in the way they source, produce and develop ideas, skills, technologies, intermediary products and services as part of a collaborative ecosystem often made up of networked centres of excellence.
Online Reporter