Bank Licensing: Minimum Capital Requirements

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I will like to evolve UpNaira into an even richer forum

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Food Business inspiration

"With more than 6,500 locations across the country, Taco Bell is one of the top fast-food chains in the U.S. " - CNBC

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onboard

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When the supervisor is an algorithm

"The battle to beat the quota also transformed a monotonous, soul-crushing job into an exciting outlet for workers to exercise their creativity, speed and skill. Workers attached notions of status and prestige to their output, and the game presented them with a series of choices throughout the day, affording them a sense of relative autonomy and control. It tapped into a worker’s desire for self-determination and self-expression. Then, it directed that desire towards the production of profit for their employer."  in HIGH SCORE, LOW PAY: WHY THE GIG ECONOMY LOVES GAMIFICATION (cool essay)

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#allwell

“The person you report to at work can be more important to your health than your family doctor.” - in McKinsey Insights 

As working people spend more of their waking time on the job than anywhere else, employers are in a unique position to be a good influence on health & general #wellbeing. Interesting insights from @McKinsey & @neuroleadership https://t.co/O4YfuqSqbt #wellness

— Jessica Mills (@JessMillsMHR) November 5, 2018

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The art and science of #wellbeing at #work https://t.co/20Olr3FORR via @McKinsey #wellness #HR #workplace pic.twitter.com/Jn0TQvbzKF

— Amr Heikal (@Heikal_Amr) July 19, 2016

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Nothing new in the #news - The American presidency is still rubbish and the Nigerian presidency is still nonsense. #DumpTrump and #FireBuhari

“I have been unable to secure an appointment to see you despite very many attempts” Kachikwu to PMB . Disturbing letter pic.twitter.com/Dau4Qp9oL5

— Sadiq Mahmoud (@SMahmoud) October 3, 2017

This letter is too long for Buhari to read sha. Someone will just summarize it and say, "Kachikwu is only greeting you sir." https://t.co/GpDpjal54e

— Chidi Okereke (@Chydee) October 3, 2017

It is impossible for a professional to function effectively under a Govt of Nepotism and Kachikwu is yet another proof of this truth. pic.twitter.com/DysetN8m34

— Demola Olarewaju (@DemolaRewaju) October 3, 2017

My attention has been drawn to the fact that $26B scandal is rocking NNPC under Baba Buhari

As Kachikwu seeks a Transfer move to Wailers FC

— Ebube D Statesman (@akaebube) October 3, 2017

Biggest tragedy here is that Kachikwu is from Oil-rich N'Delta while the person humiliating him & the one he's appealing to are Northerners

— Mr Stanley Nwabia (@MrStanleyNwabia) October 3, 2017

Kachikwu a 5%er actually expects Baru a 97%er to get his approval before awarding contracts or making appointments in NNPC? 😂🤣

— Babasola Kuti (@SKSolaKuti) October 3, 2017

Everytime I see another respected professional being rolled around in the APC Govt mud, I remember this tweet and smh

It’s Kachikwu’s turn. https://t.co/8oxTtRiNXb

— Demola Olarewaju (@DemolaRewaju) October 3, 2017

Kachikwu Accuses NNPC GMD of Awarding $26billion Contracts Without Due Process.

A Diezanian under Buhari shocking!!! 😒😒😒 pic.twitter.com/EiWBLwOCGt

— Adetutu Balogun (@Tutsy22) October 3, 2017

Kachikwu says Baru humiliates and undermines him and awards contracts in NNPC without his knowledge or approval in a letter to Buhari.

— Jackson Ude (@jacksonpbn) October 3, 2017

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Back to school, Digital-style

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What is poverty?

This clip always makes me cry.   

But can we end poverty, quickly, throughout the world? 

Yes.  If we focus.

April 2014: The BBC's Michelle Fleury talks to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim about attempts to reduce extreme poverty.  Click to watch, and to see the original article.
Economic growth is "not enough" to end global poverty, the World Bank has said.
It has urged developing countries to allocate more resources to their extreme poor, including through bigger welfare programmes.
The bank, which last year set itself the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030, said such measures would increase productivity and growth.
But the impact on poverty of growth alone has its limits, the bank said.
"Even if all countries grow at the same rates as over the past 20 years, and if the income distribution remains unchanged, world poverty will only fall by 10% by 2030, from 17.7% in 2010," said World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.
"This is simply not enough, and we need a laser-like focus on making growth more inclusive and targeting more programmes to assist the poor directly if we're going to end extreme poverty."
 To achieve its 2030 target, the bank estimates the extreme poor - those earning less than $1.25 (74p) a day - will have to decrease by 50 million people each year until 2030.
That is the equivalent of a million people each week for the next 16 years.
"This will be extraordinarily difficult, but I believe we can do it," said Mr Kim, at the start of the bank's spring meeting.
"This can be the generation that ends extreme poverty."
The highest levels of extreme poverty are in Africa, the World Bank said.
The country with the biggest extreme poverty is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 88% of the population is below the poverty line.
It is followed by Liberia, where 84% of people are in extreme poverty, and Burundi and Madagascar, where the figure is 81%.

Obituary: 'Kunle Olaifa 1980-2014

Until his passing one week ago in a car accident, Mr. 'Kunle Olaifa was the Head of Human Resources, West Africa, for a large multinational company.

A dedicated HR professional, Kunle built many careers.  He of course built a stellar career for himself, with stints at Adecco HR Consulting, GE Energy, and Triangle Nigeria, as well as Career Solutions Africa and Samsung.

He was an alumnus of the University of Ilorin and Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Abeokuta.  He was also an AIESECer, an associate fellow of NLI - the Nigeria Leadership Initiative, and a thought-leader and frequent speaker on human resources at various fora including the Leadership Academies at DayStar Christian Center. 

But we remember him most for being a pillar of several communities, a leader, one who was very intelligent, visionary, concerned, engaged, funny, and kind.  In plain language, he was a good friend, inspiring mentor, and a father figure to many.  He was married with children.

I will post below a few of the writings of Kunle that I can find on the internet, and hope you join his family, friends, and associates, as we all pay our respects to a fellow who lived an exemplary life.  

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How the leading Chinese Telecommunications Companies acquire innovation capability

By EKPUNOBI Victor, UWHUMVAKPOR Uvie Larry, and CHIMEZIE Clifford C.

How did Huawei, ZTE, and all the other well-known telecomms companies achieve what they did?  We will consider the companies along four dimensions: company aspiration, marketing, innovation, and management. 

Introduction: ABOUT HUAWEI

Huawei is a Chinese multinational networking and telecommunications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It is the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world, having overtaken Ericsson in 2012.

Huawei was founded in 1988 by ex-military officer Ren Zhengfei and formed as a private company owned by its employees. Its core missions are building telecommunications networks; providing operational and consulting services and equipment to enterprises inside and outside of China; and manufacturing communications devices for the consumer market. Huawei has over 140,000 employees, around 46% of whom are engaged in research and development (R&D). It has 20 R&D institutes in countries including China, the United States,  Germany, Sweden, Ireland, India,Russia, and Turkey,  and in 2011 invested around US$3.74 billion in R&D.

In 2010, Huawei recorded profit of 23.8 billion CNY (3.7 billion USD). Its products and services have been deployed in more than 140 countries and it currently serves 45 of the world's 50 largest telecoms operators.

Introduction: ABOUT ZTE

ZTE Corporation (formerly Zhongxing Telecommunication Equipment Corporation) is a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and systems company headquartered in Shenzhen, China. It is the world's fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer measured by 2012 unit sales^[2] and the world's fifth-largest telecoms equipment maker measured by 2011 revenues (after Ericsson,Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks).^[3]

ZTE's core products are wireless, exchange, access, optical transmission and data telecommunications gear; mobile phones;^[4] and telecommunications software.^[5] It also offers products that provide value-added services,^[6] such as video on demand and streaming media.^[7] ZTE primarily sells products under its own name but it is also an OEM, manufacturing some products which retail under other brand names.^[8]

ZTE was founded in 1985 by a group of state-owned enterprises associated with China's Ministry of Aerospace.

1.    Aspiration level

 Aspiration level is a soft index which is difficult to measure—not like revenue or investment level which can be expressed clearly by numbers.

Huawei’s aspiration level leads the pack.  This company has invested heavily in research and development, as seen in the high number of patent applications – number 1 in 2009.  Ren Zhenfei, founder of Huawei, expects that Huawei’s development in future can go beyond the dependence on single competition element including technology, talent and capital; no longer rely on blind low-cost production. He expects Huawei to become a business organization with high effectiveness, and eventually grows into an international enterprise.

By comparison, ZTE’s culture is pragmatic, controllable, invisible and tangible. Like Huawei, ZTE’s investment to R&D is also about 10%, but they are more cautious about entering new areas.  Before an obvious market potential is visible, they are extremely cautious to present to market, and every further step has to be verified by visible market potential. We conclude it has a moderate aspiration level, which is also heavily rooted in the company’s history and culture.

At Datang, the high aspiration level is fulfilled through the government’s financial support, not though market. Quite a large part of the research funding of Datang is from the central government’s budget. This kind of aspiration level is not sustainable, because it is sustained largely by external funding support.

Eastcom suffers from lack of sufficient aspiration level. From the very beginning, it was an OEM factory and more than ten years later it is still an OEM factory. Even employees at the company despise its overwhelming interest in making money and shortage of pursuit of core competency.

When UTstar gained sudden ascendancy, many people envied its success.  But it declined just as fast, and many think it’s because it failed to build core competency and core product. This opportunism, coupled with a disordered management, led to its short-term success story. 

2.    Marketing Capability

Marketing capability simply means market judgment.

Huawei and ZTE go together on this one. They are both very good at marketing, in fact they are overwhelmingly skilled. We know that Huawei and ZTE are persistent in R&D investment, but they are also very careful in investing in R&D: every decision has to be verified by market demand, confirmed by market potential. The typical example is their strategy of “encircled cities from countryside”.

Around the early 1990s, the two companies perceived that although the Chinese mobile market was mostly occupied by multinationals, these big companies had no time to take care rural market and marginal region. Just because these niche markets were ignored by the big competitors, or more exactly were despised as lower end market by the MNC, Huawei and ZTE decided to develop self-owned product to meet the demand for rural telephony and marginal network. The breakthrough started from these niche markets and then based on the small breakthrough, they nibbled the rest market little by little.

With regard to the two companies Eastcom and UTstar, we have to admire their excellent market view. Eastcom was a very small telecom equipment manufacture before the early of 1990s, but they’re aware the tendency when technology evolves from fixed line to mobile, and grasped the opportunity by first working as OEM and agent for Motorola.

3.    Learning And Innovation

Learning and innovation are very crucial in all telecommunication industries, and depend heavily on R&D i.e. Research and Development. All companies willing to make progress always have a group of people or a department working on the research and development. The future of the company might not be certain with the absence of R&D.

The R&D in telecommunications can be divided into three layers. The first is the physical layer of research; they are the basic algorithm research which can make revolutionary change in telecom industry. The second layer is the software development, for example chip design. The third layer is the application development.

The latter two layers demand large amount of brain labor to test many changes of software. Whereas the high cost of R&D labour in developed countries limits their activities, Huawei takes advantage of the abundant labor resource, continuously investing in the second and third layers of development by sustained testing and adjustment, and finally realizing technology improvement again and again. 

Huawei’s hi-tech enterprise is termed “knowledge-labor intensive” by the Chinese.  Knowledge-labor refers to that labor who grasps professional knowledge. The strategy fully takes advantage of the human resource of high-tech industry in China, while also avoiding the most challenging technologies, since one has to admit that the current Chinese research level still cannot overcome the core technology.

Generally speaking, the observation and discussion with Huawei and ZTE tell me that their catch-up in technology learning is totally relying on their own development. The most common method is that they import foreign technology or product, then deploy large amount of engineers to imitate and modify. This is called “technology-borrower.”

Management capability

Management capability is heavily correlated with innovation capability. Successful R&D is absolutely not simply adding up talent and capital, neither is it an issue that can be solved by FDI. An effective and sustainable R&D demands continuous catch-up in technology, from the beginning it requires an accurate market sense, then it is going to involve an organization’s comprehensive decision making capability, finally follow-up project management and logistics management are also necessary.  Conversely, poor management will eventually neglect talent and waste capital.

Huawei learns a lot from western countries.  From 1992, Ren visited companies in the US, European countries and Japan, including Alcatel, Siemens and other leading companies. After visiting Hughs, IBM, Bell Innovations and HP in 1997, he proposed a reform plan after deliberate consideration. The proposal laid foundation for Huawei’s global operation strategy. The proposal presented by Ren was not based on the “Chinese way”, but “integrating global resource into Huawei’s network” based on global perspective.

From 1998, Huawei decided to focus on IBM as its learning model and strategic partner in the path to become an international enterprise. Huawei firstly defined its transformation from telecom equipment manufacturer to telecom total solution provider and service provider, in order to fully take advantage of full scale products line.

In the following five years, Huawei invited 50 IBM management consultants to work on the Huawei project in order to improve internal management and business procedure, by investment 50 million USD. In addition, Huawei set up a 300-employee management engineering department to handle implementation of IBM’s recommendations.

 ZTE: There are many studies about Huawei’s management, but few about ZTE. One of the reasons is that Huawei’s “wolf” culture is certainly attention-grabbing, but the “golden mean” of bull culture from ZTE is much less attractive.

Most of the ZTE employees who have been working for them are still with them since the past ten years. ZTE always steadily occupies and expands in the market. In 2000, when IT industry was suffering winter, ZTE kept it as another high speed year; from 2001 to 2003, when other Chinese companies including Huawei tried to freeze hiring or even laid off many people, ZTE still kept hiring many new employees. This shows a very high management capability.

Huawei and ZTE are quite successful when facing management transformation.  Huawei applies the western system which manages people by a regulation and proceeding. ZTE follows a Chinese Confucianism management model to manage people by relationship and bond. Both of these two systems make it possible to motivate all the people in the company to work for the enterprise by combined efforts, but not get collapse for their own interest.  Both have created a management system which is supported or accepted by most of their employees.

From the case of UTstar, we find that although they bought a handful of foreign companies, they failed to transform the external knowledge into their core competency. Companies like UTstar remained on the surface in their adoption of various technologies; they did not manage to absorb and make these purchased technologies their own. It is not because of wisdom or foolishness of the company, it is because of the management quality.

Eastcom expected FDI could bring technology improvement, and reaped tragic results. 

All those other companies, like Dragon, Huawei, and ZTE, that ever acquired core technologies mostly depended on self development.  These companies started when the Chinese market just opened, in the background of limited information and knowledge from foreign countries, they depended on their own capability and university resources to develop their own technology.

Based on the 2011 paper:  A COMPARISON STUDY OF THE CHINESE TELECOM INDUSTRY, by Hui Yan, Aalborg University, Denmark. 

The three authors are undergraduate students in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Bells University of Technology.  They studied Hui Yan’s paper and prepared this summary under my supervision  for the course CEN 302: Introduction to ICT.  - Tosin Otitoju

ICT IN CHINA: Aspiration and Innovation in Chinese telecoms companies

By IGBERAESE J. Abumere, DOSUNMU Ayomide, CHINAGOROM Y. Chinonyerem, and OLULOLA Oluwasefunmi Tolulope

INTRODUCTION

The Chinese telecom companies are recognized as the most innovative industry in China.  Besides Huawei, there was also the emergence of other telecom companies such as Datang, Great Dragon, ZTE among others.

We have many questions about the emergence of these Chinese telecom industries.  The most important question is: why did Huawei and ZTE emerge as the leading telecom companies in

China rather than other companies with strong backgrounds and higher starting point like Datang and Great Dragon.  One reason is what the author calls Aspiration Level. 

ASPIRATION LEVEL

Company	Aspiration Level	Description	Result
Huawei	Wolf	Military style, high survival pressure, accurate eyesight, high efficiency	Purpose to be the first class enterprise
ZTE	Bull	State owned background, but learnt to be pragmatic in the south business environment.	Purpose to overtake Huawei
Datang	Half academic, half business	Financed by the government to do R&D for a long while	Purpose to do standardisation
Dragon	Firework	Originally with high aspiration level, but cannot follow further constrained by system problem.	Almost disappeared
Eastcom	Businessman	From the beginning, it aimed to earn money	Tried to upgrade but eventually still ends up with OEM.

Aspiration level is a soft index which is difficult to measure unlike sales revenue and even investment level which can be expressed clearly by numbers. Aspiration level is an index which is difficult to measure but heavily influences the company’s employees, like an invisible power.

A company’s aspiration level can be reflected in a company’s ultimate goal---through analysis of a company’s ultimate goal, we can preliminarily identify the tone of the company’s culture. Obviously, Huawei has been recognized as the “wolf company” in the industry for a long while, it means a company with high aspiration level to be innovative and creative. 

Further, the aspiration level reflects in how entrepreneurial the company remains. Huawei has kept investing research and development - up to 10% of its total revenue - for many years.  In 2009, Huawei became the No.1 patent applicant (it was No.2 in 2010.)

Huawei’s high aspiration level may be related to the founder’s thoughts of Huawei and the background of the company.  Huawei is typical grass-roots company without any government or state background, it all developed by its own efforts. The founder Ren Zhenfei was an army man for many years, possessing soldier’s qualities – a strict, high pressure, persistent personality. As the spiritual leader of Huawei, Ren’s personality has largely influenced the culture of the company.  

LEARNING AND INNOVATIVE CAPABILITY

Innovation is both a process and a product. It is

• the organizational and social processes that produce innovation, such as individual creativity, organizational structure, environmental context, and social and economic factors

• an outcome that manifests itself in new products, product features, and production methods

Huawei employed the open innovation method (the use of purposive flows and outflows of

knowledge to accelerate internal innovation and expand markets for external use of innovation

respectively)

Innovative capacity and marketing capacity complement to each other. In fact, marketing capacity divorced from learning and innovative capability could only bring temporary resplendence.  A company without capable marketing capability cannot raise sufficient resource to support learning and innovation.

Huawei and ZTE are persistent in R&D investment, but they are also very careful in investing

in R&D: every decision has to be verified by market demand, confirmed by market potential.

Huawei’s catch-up in technology learning totally relies on their own development. The most common method is that they import foreign technology or product, then deploy large amount of engineers to imitate and modify. This is called technology-borrower. When Mr. Ren was invited to give a talk after visiting couple of hi-tech companies, he said something meaningful: “Founder has technology but no management; Lenovo has management but no technology; Huawei has neither technology nor management.”   

Many audiences thought that it was a humble comment from Mr. Ren. However, from Ren’s point of view, the real “core technology” should “create opportunity and lead consumption”, which is quite different from Huawei’s “seek and grasp opportunity” technology.  

Generally speaking, usually the Chinese enterprise can only notice an opportunity after it emerges from potential stage, if they can make correct decision and grasp the opportunity then they can get success.   Huawei is a successful example of this.   However those leading MNC are conducting another method by “creating opportunity and leading consumption” relying on their R&D to create opportunity.  Thus Huawei is defined as a “late comer” in the market: for late comer, it is to seek and grasp opportunity; for forerunner it is to create opportunity and lead consumption. Ren’s point is that Huawei’s technology which can only ”seek and grasp opportunity” is not the true technology, only the “creating opportunity and leading consumption” can be defined as true technology .

Technology innovation is fundamentally based on innovation talent, while talent used is heavily

relevant to capital and culture. Where can Huawei acquire these talents? Most of their employees are directly hired from university. For example, Huawei hired directly from campus less than 2000 graduates from 2002 to 2008. In the year of 2009 it reached 6000. This is called “circling talents” strategy. For example, Huawei claimed that they would hire all the engineering master graduates of the top 10 in the class from top universities.

Major source: A COMPARISON STUDY OF THE CHINESE TELECOM INDUSTRY,  published 2011.  By Hui Yan, Aalborg University, Denmark. 

The four authors are undergraduate students in the College of Engineering at Bells University of Technology, Ogun State, Nigeria.  They prepared this paper under my supervision for the course CEN 302: Introduction to ICT. 

Process thinking

I once worked in a place where things would often go wrong, and the question on the boss's lips would be "Who...?" as in "who did this?" "who was in charge of this..." so that the person would be in trouble and presumably the problem would go away.  

Engineering processes

As an engineer, I found this to be the most puzzling thing.  Why waste your time on such an irrelevant question as "who"?
Because the more important thing should be maybe "what" happened, and then "why" it happened, and then "why" that happened, and in that case you find yourself with the "root cause" which you can fix (along with the team, the who's that run the process) and then hopefully that issue would not crop up again.

Good engineers are lazy

 Along with the inclination to abuse the "stupid employees" was this baffling habit of designing stupid processes, ones that put a great deal of strain on the boss and the people, and that relied more on hard work than on intelligence, and still produced a high error rate in the results.
I think the missing knowledge was of something called Process Thinking.  Process thinking is important.  It will make you calmer, and make your work many times easier and your results a lot better.

Individual and society

So too in my country in Africa, we think relationships are key to everything.  In the name of basic relationships (what does my wife or my father think of me is the familiar question) we have institutionalized actions that harm self and harm the larger population too.
We think in small groups (I better pass my neighbour, God give me promotion) but ignore the self (does this make ME happy, can I sleep at night?) and ignore the whole too (is this the right thing to do, does it hurt somebody else?)
This mindset is understandable because we've come so recently from small worlds - small village, small ethnicity, small clan - but in the current world we all see that it doesn't produce very good outcomes.  Individuals are frustrated and the country is poor.  Working harder may not solve the problem.  Defeating your neighbour, "feeling rich", getting promoted, "achieving success" may not be the answer. 

Engineering systems

Even on the political front, have some not tried to solve our misidentified "leadership problem" by replacing people?  But we come to the realization that no, we must re-engineer systems instead.  We must fix a risk-reward system at the individual, group, and institutional level.  This is to say, we might think of a country or an economy as an abstract thing, or as an organism, or as a machine, in order to repair it. 

School for intelligence

This is why I respect a good engineering education.  It's one of those things that (hopefully) prepares you to understand systems (like the human body, the global economy, or the market for films) and processes (like the workflow at a branch office, the election of a president, the Arab spring).

a sketch of a helicopter by Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago

A decade ago, I read that engineering was "the new liberal arts" degree. Along with whatever specific facts and knowledge it might give a student, it would develop his/her critical thinking, systems understanding, process thinking, and design ability.  Then also it should broaden knowledge of the world and importantly of self.  It is a good training for an uncertain job title in an interesting life. 

Cartoon showing laziness as the mama of invention

 Links for more learning
Lazy engineers: Unusual habits of good engineers
Process Thinking: It can make you happier at work and at home
Policy analysis: The Nigerian subsidy example, The technocracy example