Category: Business Daily

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few,” said Shunryu Suzuki.

Don’t read this if –you are expert in luxuriating in a warm comfortable bubble bath of sameness.

Why is it that managers are taught to differentiate, yet they don’t? Are you running stuck in the same spot? Can a blue ocean approach capture customers you never knew existed? Is it naïve to think that one just push a button and, AI — part fad, part trend — can replace the hard work of critical thinking? Paradox is, the more companies compete, the more they look the same. When one scratches below the surface of Kenya’s crowded banking, insurance, hotel and hospitality, and professional services sectors, it’s very hard to tell one organisation from another.

With over abundant consumer choices and superfluous apps, upgrades and add-ons and features, brands and product offerings have become nearly identical as the efforts to outdo each other have pushed them into a dizzying herd of indistinct options.

Stuck in the soap opera of season 1, episode 1

Imagine watching a captivating popular drama series, talking about a season 1 episode, when the rest of the world is in season 7.

Why are we continually playing a game of catch up? Can one shift from playing the part of the dumb ‘wanna be’ all knowing make believe expert? Helps to avoid preconceptions when addressing a business issue, similar to how a true beginner would approach things.

Having a beginners mindset allows for more possibilities, creativity, and a deeper understanding — by letting go of what one already knows, being open to new blue ocean perspectives and experiences.

Blue ocean strategy

Want to launch a successful business? Is it possible to avoid wasting time on competing for market share? Ideal is to focus on creating new value, expanding the current market space.

If you can create new value, you will find yourself in a highly profitable ‘Blue Ocean’ where the competition is irrelevant. This is the thinking of W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, first published in their 2005 book: Blue Ocean Strategy.

If two people are sitting by the side of the road selling tomatoes, do you join them as the third tomato seller? That’s the temptation. Competing — thinking that one can be just a little bit different, drop the price slightly, give one away free, offer juicy ripe tomatoes, or sit closer to the matatu stop. That’s the easy conventional thinking, the default programming on how to do business.

Blue ocean strategy asks: How can you create value by addressing the needs, problems that customers face? And, go after ‘non-customers’ that others have not thought of. Market leaders like, for example, Tesla, South West Airlines, Ikea, and Cirque du Soleil all followed a blue ocean approach, attracting customers who the competition could not reach.

Even the money transfer platform, M-Pesa, the financial backbone of the Kenyan economy is an example of a blue ocean style approach. In 2024, 59 percent of the Kenya’s gross domestic product flowed through the phone app in your pocket, that has a 90 percent market share.

Four steps to value innovation

Value innovation is at the core of blue ocean strategy. Aim is to create an innovative new product at a remarkably low price. First step in value innovation is selecting your target audience.

Instead of focusing on ‘regular’ customers within your desired market – the existing customers everyone else is competing for — focus on the customers on the edge of your market. These are the infrequent buyers and customers in adjacent market spaces, who either avoid your shop, or who have never heard of your market.

First step is to have a beginner’s mind and see differently. Focus on the needs, the problems faced by your potential consumers.

Next step in value innovation is to look at the typical business model in your market and ask four questions: 1) What processes can we eliminate? In other words, what adds cost, but really isn’t required? 2) What standards can we reduce? 3) In contrast, what quality benchmarks can be raised? 4) What ways of doing things, in systems and processes, can we incorporate from adjacent sectors – industries to create a new experience? Here one takes best practices that ‘Wow’ customers from outside of the conventional ‘business as usual’ space.

Coming up with a blue ocean strategy is tough. It requires solid facts and figures analysis, and big injection of ‘out of the box’ creative thinking. But the rewards are considerable, if you can create your own market, no one else is in.

The law of hype

Perhaps one should pray your competitors stick with the hype — all the meaningless fluff — with words like: transformation, future ready, AI- enabled and high stakes leadership. Notice that when things are going well, a company doesn’t need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you’re in trouble.

‘No one can predict the future, not even a sophisticated reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The only revolutions you can predict are the ones that have already started.

Over the years, the greatest hype has been for those developments that promise to single-handedly change an entire industry. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of sneak up on you,’ advised Al Ries and Jack Trout.

Avoid the path well trodden, have a beginner’s mind and break some rules.

Harvard Business School professor, Youngme Moon talks about those to watch out for: ‘In field after field, past experiences have taught us, that the ones to pay attention to, are the ones who understand the rules so well that they understand the urgency to break them.’

The reality of energy poverty facing Kenya, just like the rest of the countries in Africa, is with us. The government seems intentional in pushing the realisation of energy sovereignty, as seen in the focus of 2025 Mashujaa Day themed Transforming Lives Through Sustainable Energy Solutions’ in Kitui.

In addition to focusing on improving sector policies, better management, and opening up the sector, the government is making efforts to mobilise resources and investors to grow the industry. Key policy and administrative actions noted that it’s possible to achieve this through reducing the costs of renewable energy technologies, making it the most viable energy source.

Kenya is highly endowed with several energy sources, including geothermal, solar, wind and hydrological sources, which, if harnessed through government policies, private sector investment and private-public partnerships, will end citizens’ struggle to access clean energy.

The energy sector continues to be highly regulated, closed and left to public agencies, and little information, including through the media, is circulated to enhance understanding, regulation and opportunities that would allow other players to invest and create mass demand for energy by citizens. This has been very frustrating for private players/investors.

The government master plan for the energy sector notes that, given its position on the Equator (4.5° South and 5° North), Kenya is endowed with very high solar resources, among the highest 10 of sub-Saharan African countries.

For this reason, the government is keen on the development and use of renewable energy sources, including solar, which are widely available for power generation in Kenya, in addition to being socially, economically and environmentally friendly.

The focus on the energy sector by the government is not an isolated act, for a few years ago, President William Ruto addressed the issue, noting that Kenya is on a transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2030 and affirmed his commitment to the same.

He acknowledged that access to clean and improved cooking solutions as a contribution to Kenyans’ efforts towards adapting to climate change resilience remains a challenge because of financing. Improved cooking technologies also reduce the amount of time women and girls spend collecting fuel, allowing them to pursue education, training and economic activities.

In addition to the fact that high efficiency cooking stoves lead to even larger benefits in time and energy saving, it also contributes to reduction of emissions.

He particularly noted that the clean cooking sector requires urgent attention, because its continued neglect will frustrate the country’s efforts towards dealing with pollution, improved health through decreased disease burden and mitigate adverse effects of climate change.

Among the challenges hindering access to energy in Kenya is the inability to apply new innovations and technological adaptations enhance production and distribution, reluctance by the sector to open to more players, poor marketing and inadequate financial investments.

However, the most overriding challenge to Kenyans realising the benefits in the sector is lack of information on using clean energy, available energy options, health and economic advantages on using clean energy, which limits demand and reliance on single traditional energy source, and limits investment in the sector.

Knowledge and public awareness are critical in the revolution that is needed to deal with energy poverty in the country, as this will create demand, create a market and attract investors in the sector.

Public awareness and access to information on the policies, procedures and opportunities is critical for opening the sector, interesting investors to the sector and allowing reaping the benefits in the sector.

The media is a critical player in this endeavor, and the framing and setting agenda on the sector on eradicating the challenges in the sector.

Availability of information, on specific costs, resource allocations and legislative frameworks through public databases and official websites, media space and related are very vital.

This kind of transparency builds public trust and facilitates foreign and domestic investments by reducing the friction caused by information scarcity.

In most cases the factors limiting access to cleaner and more efficient energy supply are not primarily of a technical/engineering nature – inventing more products will on its own make little difference but public mobilisation, information on advantages that come with use of clean energy, push for enabling policy environment for increased investment among others.

The media has a substantive role to play if Kenyans will solve the challenges in the energy sector. Besides and at basic level, informing and educating people about the nature of the sector is a necessary requisite for participation in the decision-making process on issues affecting the local communities.

For the media to effectively play its public education, agenda setting roles, a more in-depth approach to coverage of the renewable energy sector should be used. This will require that the media changes its framing on adoption of renewable energy as a public interest issue, offer possible solutions to challenges in the sector and help the country focus citizens on use of renewable energy.

It’s desirable that media prioritise critical information and stories on opportunities in the energy sector and inform local communities and the citizenry at large on potential impacts of such activities.

The government has made it clear in several policy statements including in the Vision 2030 that it is committed to ensuring access to clean energy a key priority.

Use of clean cooking technologies will reduce the country’s annual disease burden attributable to Household Air Pollution from 49 per cent (21,560) to 20 percent.

The government plans to double the maximum compensation to policyholders of collapsed insurance companies to Sh500,000 per claim in a move to shield customers from losses.

The National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) for 2025-28, which has been prepared by key State players in the financial sector, including the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) and Central Bank of Kenya, says raising the ceiling from the current Sh250,000 will help promote stability.

Employees of the Kenya Industrial Property Industry (Kipi) have been barred from registering or revoking trademarks, patents, and industrial designs without the express approval of the agency’s board of directors.

The Ministry of Investments, Trade, and Industry said it had been notified that staff of Kipi are processing and registering trademarks, patents, and industrial designs without involving the board or its technical committee.

‘Every artist was first an amateur.’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We love to celebrate creativity when it shines on a stage or hangs in a gallery, but rarely do we speak of the nights when it had to pay the rent.

A fresh court battle has erupted between artistes, the Kenya Copyright Board (Kecobo), and the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK), over alleged mismanagement of funds collected from music and art consumers in the form of royalties.

Central to the ongoing dispute initiated by musicians Justus Ngemu and Saul Esikuri is the alleged loss of Sh56 million at MCSK. This amount had allegedly been received as royalties for artistes and musicians.

The windfall returns of 2024 from Treasury bills, government bonds, and money market funds appears to have ended. With yields drifting lower, investors are being forced to rethink how they position their portfolios.

Naomi Atera, a corporate finance analyst at Rock Advisors, says this means leaning into riskier asset classes, particularly equities listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Make Money, a podcast series, hosted by Kepha Muiruri, from Business Daily Africa unravels ways to be financially savvy. Get practical tips and advice on how to increase your income, build wealth, and achieve financial freedom in Kenya. Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned investor, we’ve got something for everyone.

The value of bonds traded at the Nairobi securities Exchange (NSE) grew 73.5 percent to Sh2.03 trillion in the nine months to September, highlighting increased participation in the segment by retail investors.

This marks the first time that the turnover in bonds has touched the Sh2 trillion mark in a calendar year, with the market now surpassing the 2024 full year trades total of Sh1.54 trillion, which was a record annual total for the segment.

Rwanda’s national carrier, RwandAir, has launched a new Zanzibar-Mombasa route, hoping to tap the coastal tourism boom to grow its fortunes.

The airline will operate the new route four times weekly, linking its Kigali hub with two of East Africa’s most sought-after leisure destinations. The flights will be served by a Boeing 737 aircraft, marking RwandAir’s return to Mombasa after a six-year pause.

The expansion is part of RwandAir’s strategy to establish Kigali as a competitive regional hub that rivals Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, and Addis Ababa in connecting East Africa to global travel and trade corridors. ‘Returning to Mombasa and introducing Zanzibar is another step forward in our ambitious growth journey,’ said Yvonne Makolo, RwandAir’s CEO.

She added that the route will expand opportunities for both leisure travellers and regional commerce.

Zanzibar and Mombasa are among the region’s most popular coastal destinations, which draw in international visitors annually. Zanzibar, in particular, has seen a tourism recovery that has attracted investors in high-end hospitality, luxury villas, and beach resorts that cater for European, Middle East, and intra-African travellers.

Additionally, Mombasa has historically been Kenya’s gateway to the Indian Ocean as a tourist hotspot and a logistics hub through the port of Mombasa. However, it has been forced to reinvent itself amid rising competition from Zanzibar’s more aggressively marketed resort economy.

The airline’s new route will face competition from Kenya Airways (KQ) and Jambojet, which already have a strong presence on the coastal routes.

KQ currently flies daily between Nairobi and Zanzibar, with frequencies reaching 13 flights per week, including some days that have double services. Jambojet, KQ’s low-cost subsidiary, launched the Mombasa-Zanzibar route in July 2024. It began with four flights per week and has since expanded to as many as six per week, with the airline targeting daily flights during peak holiday seasons.

Other airlines include Precision Air and Air Tanzania, which have dominated the local Tanzania routes, while Ethiopian Airlines has also used Addis Ababa as a connecting hub for Zanzibar-bound travellers.

The coastal leisure market is proving resilient even amid global economic headwinds, with Zanzibar recording a steady rise in arrivals from Europe and the Gulf states. Airlines are banking on the sustained demand for short-haul regional tourism that has been fuelled by a rising African middle class and intra-African travel spurred by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Three-quarters of companies registered for corporate income tax (CIT) did not pay taxes on earnings in the year to June, pointing to deepening losses and tax avoidance.

Fresh data from the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) shows that 156,232 out of 618,201 firms on the corporate tax register paid up their fair share to the taxman, reflecting a compliance rate of 25.2 percent.