‘Command Agric an innovative national programme’
Dr Dennis Magaya is one of Zimbabwe’s success stories in business and innovation. In 1994, he graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree and proceeded to get a MSc Engineering, MBA and PhD. He was a trainee engineer at AngoAmerican before joining BP as country manager South Africa and GM Southern Africa Alternative Energy Solutions at 26 years of age. In 1998 he joined Motorola Southern Africa as the regional manager responsible for Sadc countries. At just 32 years old he became executive head of strategy for Cell C in South Africa, which was built to compete with giants MTN and Vodacom as the 3rd mobile operator in SA. He held several executive positions from technology planning, operations and board of directors for Virgin Mobile South Africa until he left to run his business in 2008. He currently owns Rubiem Technologies.
IN THIS interview with The
Herald’s Leroy Dzenga, Dr Magaya bemoans lack of innovation which he argues has been the missing link, including in the implementation of Government programmes such as Zim-Asset.
LD: What have you learnt in your travels on the continent and beyond?
DM: I travelled across the world and in particular African countries. What struck me was how most vendors take advantage of Africa through over-pricing, under specification and sub-standard implementation of ICT projects.
The failure rate of ICT projects are above 80 percent. Meanwhile, the ICT consultancy companies in Africa are largely the big 4 audit firms. Most of ICT vendors and audit-cum-ICT consultancy companies fly in and out of Africa.
In fact, most flights were full of visiting business people going for a good kill to the unsuspecting and trusting African companies. I figured out the best way is for Africa to control its destiny and the critical step for me was to offer consultancy
for ICT strategy and implementation across Africa. I also figured out as Africa the most effective development tool we need is innovation.
LD: What is innovation and why is it important?
DM: Innovation is about bringing a new way of doing things that adds value and brings change on a commercial or sustainable basis.
When you look at our country Zimbabwe, the successful Command Agriculture is in itself an innovative national programme anchoring Zim-Asset. What is then required are innovative off-shoots that will make the programme sustainable in the long-run.
Innovation has several dimensions depending on the problem, solutions, tools and context. Rubiem focuses on using ICT as a tool to develop innovative solutions that transform lives. We develop innovative solutions for education, agriculture, information dissemination and economic development. We develop home grown innovation that brings Africa at par with the rest of the world in areas such as digital platforms, disruption, bid data and Internet of Things.
Africa and Zimbabwe in particular have travelled a social-economic transformation journey to undo the negative impact of colonisation.
The idea is to create space for home grown solutions which are competitive on a global stage, to empower and indigenise.
Innovation is the single most important element that should be taught at all levels of educations, ingrained in all public and private sectors and civil society.
All the current great countries and
economies that we admire today, grew to where they are because they embraced innovation as a way of life. Countries like India, Singapore, Malaysia and companies like Google, Apple, BMW, Delta, Econet and Uniliver have embraced innovation as a core strategy.
LD: How can innovation be an inclusive processes?
DM: Innovation can only be sustainable if it’s inclusive and institutionalised. We have to enable the youths in the rural villages to innovate.
For instance, we need programmes to put affordable Internet at post offices using WiFi. We need to connect ourselves to global innovation centres in India, Malaysia , China, USA and Europe. We need to teach innovation from as early as primary school and make it an examination subject.
LD: Tell us about your own business?
DM: I formed my company, Rubiem in 2007 in South Africa focusing in consultancy services. The company vision is to be a leader in life changing innovations in Africa.
Rubiem rapidly grew by signing up contracts in Malawi, Swaziland and Namibia where we build new telecommunications business offering turn-key consultancy services from an operating license to cash in the bank. As a company we have more than 30 staff members who do projects in nine different countries.
We have done work for more than 50 clients across different sectors.
Rubiem is now a group of companies with subsidiaries such as Rubiem South Africa, Rubiem Malawi, Rubiem Namibia, Rubiem Swaziland and Rubiem Tanzania.
We currently have three product lines. We focus on the ICT sector, financial services, Government, media and retail.
Firstly, we offer consultancy services for business transformation, turn-around and operations improvement. Secondly we offer innovative ICT solutions customised to deliver business challenges.
This includes digital transformation solutions and platforms, content aggregation, disruption and big data. Thirdly we offer customised training services.
We have also build more than six telecommunications business from license to cash in the bank for more than US$0,7 billion dollars worth of investment across the SADC region. The companies that we successfully launched now generate more than US$0.5 billion combined revenue. We have turned-around and transformed to profitability more than 10 top corporates ranging from telecommunications, postal services, broadcasting, health and financial services.
To date we have saved our clients in various African countries more than US$1 billion in unnecessary capital expenditure and project implementation over-runs. We have also build more than six ICT business from scratch. LD: How is your business funded? DM: Rubiem was started from my study room using salary savings. We have never been funded by any bank because the commercial banks in South Africa prefer to give loans to individuals rather than small to medium sized companies.
In fact, they rarely fund any starter-ups. The Zimbabwean banks also not keen to fund small to medium enterprises.
LD: How does your company drive innovation?
DM: At Rubiem, we breath and dream innovation.
Firstly we are not in the business of reselling imported ICT solutions, but we develop innovative solutions that talk to the needs of the local market using world-class designs and technologies. Secondly, Rubiem is designed and operates around maximising innovation delivery.
We support universities by sponsoring innovation projects. We are launching an innovation Hub to help all the youths in the both the business and technical aspects of innovation.
LD: What support does the Government give to innovation?
DM: The Ministry of ICT Postal and Courier services announced the launch of an Innovation Fund administered by POTRAZ. This lays a national foundation of innovation at least in the ICT sector.
However, the Government should do more to enable the institutionalisation of innovation across several sectors of the economy.
The mining sector, for example, developed the small scale artisanal miner industry. There is an emerging, high growth and vibrant informal market. All these are signs of innovation which must be embraced and institutionalised.
LD: What are the main challenges you face as a business person?
DM: Currently, the local industry ICT industry is driven by consumption and very little production.
In fact, of the US$1.5billion telecoms capital investment in the past 5 years, more than 80 percent were imports while the balance was local installation, trenching and rigging services. We import virtually everything in ICT and as such many companies have a bias towards foreign as opposed to locally produced ICT products and services.
LD: Where do you see ICT in Zimbabwe?
DM: The future potential is great given the global surge in ICT products and services and the critical role to the economy.
In fact, studies show that a 10 percent Internet penetration leads to a 1.5 percent growth in GDP. We have a world class ICT policy that talks to then country needs while positioning the country as a continental leader in that sector.
However, the Government has to enable an environment where the global companies from continents like Asia with a huge financial muscle don’t employ “scotched earth” tactics that wipe out the emerging ICT industry to a point where in 5 years time we may have no local industry at all. The biggest spenders of ICT are current telecommunications companies, government and big corporates.
The procurement policies do not create space for local companies that are easily muscled out even if the price and quality of the product is competitive.
It should be noted that the current ICT global giants such as Huawei grew because their countries made a conscious effort to “raise them from kids to giants” by reserving space for them in their home markets.