ZNCC should focus on commercial services research

ZNCC argued that the survey has been necessitated by lack of depth on economic data concerning industry at the present moment.
ZNCC’s move will be a waste of time and resources, for reasons which shall be discussed, and it is incumbent for the chamber to channel its resources to other areas of economic research which have not yet been tapped, like a survey on the state of the services sector, for example.

We already have competitive organisations which are conducting regular and in-depth researches on the industry. We have the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industry which has been conducting its Annual State of the Manufacturing Sector Survey, since 1994.
CZI has been in existence for nine decades and is empowered by its constitution to collect, disseminate, or make available statistics and other information on any matter concerned with, or affecting industry and active business. The fact that CZI has been conducting industrial studies for the past seventeen years, using the best international practices for manufacturing research, and that the findings of those studies have been used by both national and international stakeholders is a true testimony that their studies are credible and in-depth. It should also be noted that CZI is the official representative body of the industry, and the biggest membership based organisation in the country, further qualifying it to undertake industrial researches.

We also have the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat), an organisation which currently conducts about seven different studies on the industry, namely: Census of Industrial Production, Business Tendency Survey, Items Produced Survey, Materials Used Survey, Quarterly Employment Enquiry, Value of Output Survey and Value of Sales Survey.

Zimstat is a corporate body which was established through an Act of Parliament. Zimstat’s mission is to provide timely, accurate, reliable and relevant statistics for evidence based policy and decision-making. The agency uses qualified, competent, motivated and professional staff and state-of-the-art technology.
Against the above background, it would be unreasonable for ZNCC to repeat what is already being done by other competitive bodies.

Is ZNCC hoping to come up with better quality statistics than those being already regularly published by Zimstat and CZI? As a chamber of commerce, ZNCC should focus more on commercial services studies, concerned with the transfer or distribution of commodities from those who produce them to those who will use them.

There are many questions which business wants answers on, about the impact of commercial services such as transportation and warehousing, communication, information, banking, finance and insurance, real estate and rental and leasing, educational services, advertising, inter alia, on their operations. These are real commercial issues which traditionally lie within the scope of a chamber of commerce. It therefore defies logic why ZNCC would want to undertake an industrial survey, when it has not yet sufficed the traditional sectors within its scope.

The proposed timing of ZNCC’s envisaged industrial survey, August, is the same month when CZI will be in the field to conduct the same survey, which it has been conducting for the past seventeen years. Industrialists will be confused to see many questionnaires from different bodies asking the same questions. These surveys are normally conducted through postal and personal surveys. There is a very low response rate associated with postal surveys, usually a 20-25 percent return of questionnaires; and personal surveys consume industrialists’ important time. This means that if more and more questionnaires continue to accumulate in the industry, from different organisations, there are chances of fatigue and apathy on the part of respondents and a further compromise on the response rate. The fact that most industrialists are members of CZI somehow implies that they would be more comfortable in answering questionnaires from CZI, or Zimstat, which is a Government agency.

If ZNCC is keen to obtain further data concerning the industry, which does not exist at the moment, why not have an omnibus survey with CZI and Zimstat? This will avoid confusing and boring the respondents with many long questionnaires to complete, which seek to achieve the same purpose. During my flight to attend a business conference in Victoria Falls last year, I had an opportunity to chat with one of the senior officials from Zimstat, who also supported the idea of piggy backings.

The Government, through the Industrial Development Policy, pledged to liaise closely with Apex organisations, chambers of commerce and industry and trade bodies in order to set up and sustain market intelligence network which will provide a continuous feedback on the status of the industry and proposals on the types and levels of interventions required. Such a market intelligence network can function if each of these bodies is guided by its traditional and core activities, and if there is a coherent scope on the undertaking of each. Further to the Government’s good gesture of setting up and sustaining a market intelligence network, there is need to make it a matter of law that every company should complete and return the questionnaires, from recognised bodies, within the given timeframes. Countries like America, which have come to realise the importance of information, have done that.