Project failures: Adopt new business culture
AFEW days ago a video of a prominent and recently refurbished supermarket in Harare whose roof was leaking heavily as employees tried to salvage groceries, was doing the rounds on social media.
This was quite tragic
Did the roof succumb to the heavy downpour because of the intensity and frequency of the rains over the last few weeks or it was just work by the contractor.
Social media comments were quite brutal about the levels of mediocrity that has crept into some of our production systems.
On one WhatsApp group, it was concluded that it must have been a result of poor work.
“Recently renovated imagine. Maengineers ngaasadaro varume (these engineers should do better),” read one of the comments.
There are loads of examples that can be given of incidents in which shoddy work has resulted in the collapse or disintegration of that which would’ve been deemed solid and recently built or refurbished.
Steelworks and roofing are generally not known to last just a few weeks or months, but for decades if not centuries.
It thus raises serious questions when a roof of such a structure collapses or leaks heavily soon after installation.
It is most unfortunate and hard to believe that potholes have emerged on recently reconstructed roads. What a short lifespan!
Again, questions are being raised as to the quality of materials and human resources some contractors use or even their capacity in the first instance to resurface the roads.
Businesses, big or small should develop a culture of giving the best possible services or goods to their clients.
Work should only be given to those that can do it well, while those that apply for tenders should be honest about their capacity.
Of course, everyone desires to win tenders and make as much profit as they can but this should be done in the professional way possible.
Bribing one’s way to win a tender usually has a telling effect at the end of the day.
Furthermore, using cheap material to cut costs and make more profits is not helpful either. This has a way of betraying the contractor at some point resulting in them being blacklisted.
Of course, there are instances where the greasing of palms could get the same contractor more deals. This is not peculiar to Zimbabwe, but it happens in other parts of the globe too.
Also, the phenomenon of giving a tender to the least priced is usually not the best. They may even be the least capable too, hence compromising the quality of results produced.
In the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, procurement is a $4,2 trillion business, accounting for 12 percent of the GDP.
However, the OECD foreign bribery report of 2014 showed that more than half of the cases happened to obtain a public procurement contract.
The majority were in construction, extractive, transportation and storage and information and communication sectors.
Furthermore, between 10 percent and 30
percent of investment in publicly funded construction projects lost is lost through mismanagement.
In South Africa, at least R233 billion was lost to what they term wasteful spending in 2016.
In fact, more than 40 percent of funds meant for procurement of goods and services are eaten up by inflated prices from suppliers.
In Zimbabwe, millions of dollars are lost annually through similar avenues as corruption and bribery take their toll in the awarding of tenders and project implementation.
Total annual expenditure to meet Africa’s infrastructure investment needs stands at about $1 trillion a year, with Sadc alone requiring about $500 billion on top of upgrading of existing domestic projects. However, a significant portion of these amounts is lost through project failures.
Some pillars of procurement and project implementation such as value for money, ethical and fair dealings and accountability and transparency are not adhered to in many instances.
One researcher feels customers are complicit in some cases.
“Customers often contribute to problem by assessing suppliers based on price not cost, where cost would include durability, after-sales service etc,” he says.
“Some products are even engineered to fail, so the customer can pay for subsequent “repairs”. Even giant global firms do this.”
Another breed of people and firms that masquerade as serious businessmen and entities are those that prioritise self-aggrandisement ahead of delivery.
Where one would use contract funds to buy the latest SUV or some such personal acquisition and use the change to undertake the project for which they were paid for in the first instance.
It is common cause that small and largely indigenous businesses are perceived as being
unprofessional, unethical and unhinged, sacrificing deliverables on the altar of a high standard of living they would not ordinarily afford.
This damages their reputation, but more so affects development.
It is unfortunate that, as alluded to earlier, such behaviour compromises the quality of their work.
In Zimbabwe, a number of buildings and other projects have been abandoned and lie half-done or barely exist largely because funds were misallocated.
Standard business practice would demand that work be done and luxuries come later and at a pace the business or individual can afford, without compromising quality of service.
It was, therefore logical for most people concluded that the leaking roof was a result of a “museyamwa” way of doing business.
The quest for a significant lifestyle change right on the first contract seems to outweigh the need for professionalism, hence the poor jobs such as the leaking roof or the potholed recently resurfaced roads.
Discounts offered to entice clients also lead to short-cuts that then compromise the quality and damages a company’s reputation.
But these are issues that serious economies must graduate from if progress must be made in such a country as ours.
In his research on project failures, Emmanuel Marabuka posits that:
“More so, the project planners must also include the knowledge areas which is a collection of processes and knowledge areas generally accepted as best practice within the project management discipline (Project Smart 2012)
Project Integration Management. This process coordinates the other areas to work together throughout the project. It consist of Project Scope Management which is a
set of processes used to ensure that the project includes all of the requirements and no new requirements are added in a way that could harm the project; Time Management which involves processes which ensure that the project is completed on schedule; Cost Management which involves processes which ensure that the project is completed on budget; Quality Management which; ensures that the project meets its requirements, or does what it is expected to do; Human Resource Management which includes all of the processes used to develop, manage and put the project team together; Communication Management determines what information is needed, how that information will be sent and managed, and how project performance will be reported; Risk Management involves identifying, managing and controlling risk of a project; Procurement Management is the group of processes used to acquire the materials and services needed to complete the project.”
The solution to these challenges lies in the enactment of punitive laws and regulations that discourage such forms of corruption and incompetence.
Where capacity is a challenge, small businesses can form synergies while funding mechanisms such as the factoring finance option where a business can obtain immediate capital based on a future income attributable to a particular amount due or a business invoice or based on what the company is owed by its customers based on sales made on credit.
Such strategies ensure a business has enough financial stamina to successfully implement a project.
A new business culture that ensures honesty, transparency and accountability will significantly reduce the huge amount lost in project failures.
There won’t be leaking roofs of potholes on new roads.
In God I Trust!