ALL CIRCUMSTANCES that people, companies and various organisations face during the course of their lives may be interpreted as threats or opportunities.
A threat to one firm may be an opportunity to another firm. The period of hyperinflation was for instance a serious threat to most, if not all businesses.
The only businesses that thrived during the hyperinflationary period were either very resilient or they had one foot in the formal business world and another foot in the corrupt world of underground business dealings.
In most cases a number of firms survived by mixing strategies of the two divergent worlds.
There are basically four major threats that all business organisations in the contemporary world must reckon with.
These threats are political factors, socioeconomic forces, technological factors and geographical factors. These threats do not operate in the context of business functions in isolation, but they tend to work in tandem.
When these key threats conspire they may destroy a once formidable business empire.
Political factors pose the most serious threat (or opportunity) to the functions of businesses. This is the case because firms do not operate in a vacuum, but in a potent political environment which is constantly shaping the wider legal and social environment that impinge on company operations and fortunes.
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There is no single business model which fits the broad mosaic of political dispensations or systems that exist in the modern world.
A business entity which intends to transcend its boundaries of origin in terms of its operations or subsidiaries must navigate the sometimes complicated and murky waters of politics that characterise many countries. This is especially the case in transition and emerging economies.
This means that the modern chief executive officers must not only be talented technocrats, but must be skilled diplomats with tried and tested negotiating skills in their arsenal of abilities.
Those who have tried to make business happen in most parts of Africa know that patience is not only a virtue, but it is also a formidable tool in winning the confidence of the community or communities where one wants to establish his or her operations.
Socioeconomic factors are very powerful in shaping consumer or customer perceptions, acceptable standards of doing business, what is acceptable or not in a community and future areas of growth or decline.
Since businesses are to society what branches are to a tree, it is therefore reasonable to expect those firms that contribute more to the symbiotic relationship between companies and society to enjoy more benefits in the longer term when it comes to life expectancy and profitability.
Genuine business activity is not really a sprint but a marathon. The business principle of growth by momentum in the long howl dictates that if a company wants to enjoy sustainable success, it must invest its time and resources in cultivating a long-term relationship with society.
Any business which is intent on flirting with society is bound to fail because while one may fool some people some of the time, one cannot fool all the people all the time.
The pulse of life in the modern world is governed by technological forces. The current generation is at home with technology.
Terms such as Internet, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, dot.com, and so on are synonymous with the technological life blood that drives business activity nowadays.
Technology by its nature is creative, disruptive and destructive.
It is creative in the sense that it opens new avenues and methods of doing business.
At the same time old models and approaches to doing business become obsolete.
Technology experts generally predict that as technology develops over time, business models will have shorter lives, all other things being constant.
This implies that the firms that will survive are those that are ready to embrace the often disruptive winds of technology without hesitation whenever they start blowing their way.
The world is fast becoming a global village, thanks to technology.
Through Internet platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, one can easily market amacimbi (mopane worms) from Plumtree and umwawa (an indigenous fruit) from Lupane to the Zimbabwean Diaspora that live in temperate and cold Western countries like United Kingdom, Germany or Luxembourg.
Ultimately all business entities must contend with site (geography) and situation (technology, politics, society).
The choice of site for company operations is as much a business decision as it is a geographical decision.
The importance of geography partially explains why most businesspeople experience a calling to start their companies in urban centres where there is concentration of good infrastructure and the natural physical landscape has been conquered by human settlement.
Geographical factors also explain the inter-urban migration of some corporate which has been frowned at by some economic and media commentators. Ian Ndlovu is an economics lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology.
His research interests cover business, development, economic and e-commerce issues. He writes in his personal capacity.
