Ask Bill Gates and he’ll tell you, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Unusual, right? Precisely my point: post-Covid, with evolving technology and the very informed consumer, businesses must work unusually.
In business, often you’ll hear those senior in the game condescendingly quip, “welcome. Here, the elevator to success is broken; we all use the staircase.” True, staircase is the usual, but today, we are talking business unusual.
The Inaugural Business Ecosystems Summit, organised by The IMC People in partnership with the Lake Region Economic Bloc, is set to make minced meat of this ‘conventional truth’. The forum is set to provide business leaders, SMEs and start-ups with fresh and well-informed perspectives on important dynamics that are disrupting “business as usual.”
While change is nothing new: the speed, scale, and impact of a variety of fundamental shifts in globalisation, technology and societal expectations — are undeniably transforming the business landscape today.
This forum aims to bring together the business community to learn, network and grow as they navigate this new terrain and shape the future. Accepted, in periods of disruption, uncertainty and challenge are inevitable.
However, these times often also uncover new opportunities.Addressing both risks and potential rewards calls for intentionality-indecisions and actions alike. Uncertainty should not be denied or ignored-instead, it should be mastered, and grounded in both a deep understanding of the changes afoot and their potential consequences.
Business ecosystems are a network of interlinked organisations. These organisations dynamically interact with each other both through competition and cooperation to support and grow their operations.
An ecosystem here is built up of suppliers, distributors, consumers, regulators, process, products and competitors, each providing unique value to the whole. Why should they come together, you may ask? The primary objective is to foster collaboration and innovation among the various players in the ecosystem to achieve sustainable growth and competitiveness.
In cognition therefore, of the value that these ecosystems have in delivering value for all players, this Summit is the medical room for precision surgery. To evaluate and re-evaluate how these ecosystems are created and operated. The process has already begun, but there is an opportunity to accelerate and target specific lessons and innovations arrived at in the post-pandemic period. This is to be achieved here where multiple players converge to achieve this collective advancement.
Moreover, post this precision surgery, Kenyan organisations will ably join this new disruption post-learning how to create ecosystems based on similarities such as sectors, missions, goals, objectives, products and services, sharing ideas and networking. This will in turn set the pace for the new way to do business and for the first time have a disruptive initiative, supported by the Kenyan Government.
Eventually, we also hope to have critically zoomed-in on this transition that continues to have considerable implications for society, the economy, and businesses everywhere: the continued rise of ‘business ecosystems’.
Driven particularly by digitisation, connectivity and new modes of collaboration, important core structures of the industrial economy are quickly and dramatically reshaping, as many long-standing boundaries blur and dissolve. The “art of the possible” is expanding; enabling new approaches to serious societal challenges, and new, often platform-based, business models.
Kenya as a country still ranks as the economic giant of East Africa and a part of Africa’s Business Innovation quadrangle that consists of: Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt. We have to continue this legacy by joining in the new and ensuring our businesses are not only surviving, but sustainably thriving too.
The digital era as mentioned, has opened doors for businesses to trade and network with players-within and beyond. The government also continues to implement a wide range of pro-business reforms, focusing on digitisng of all Business Registration
Services, passing of the Start-Up Bill 2021 to encourage the rise of MSMEs, increasing access to electricity through the last mile, protection of minority investors, and even the inclusivity rule in the tendering processes.
All these, show the need for businesses to continue being equipped and be at par. Key to note, LREB, the official organising partner, has already conducted a county investment appraisal.
It is this appraisal that this Summit will be using to identify key areas needing specific investments per county. So, let’s make it a date: September 1, 2023, Brunch at Ciala Resort, Dinner at Sarova.
Welcome to the Inaugural Business Ecosystems.
Consultant, PR & marketing Business Ecosystems Summit