Amazon, bolstered by boosted sales amid the coronavirus pandemic, is hiring another 100,000 people in the U.S. and Canada to stay on top of demand, the e-commerce giant <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/operations/creating-more-job-opportunities-in-operations" target="_blank">announced</a> on Monday.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



Full and part-time positions have opened up across 100 new operations sites opening this month, which include “fulfillment centers, delivery stations, sortation centers,” among other sites.



It comes as the company has already announced tens of thousands of jobs this year alone, with 100,000 in March and 75,000 in April, while earlier this month, Amazon opened up&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/job-creation-and-investment/amazon-announces-career-day-2020" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">33,000 jobs</a>&nbsp;in its corporate and tech divisions.



The company’s vice president of global customer fulfillment, Alicia Boler Davis, added in an interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-workers/amazon-to-hire-100000-more-workers-in-its-latest-job-spree-this-year-idUKKBN2650SR" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reuters</a>&nbsp;that the company will introduce automation in its new buildings, although the technology is designed to work with employees.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY BACKGROUND</h2>



As the coronavirus pandemic has seen everyday life ground to a standstill, Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has prospered from serving homebound shoppers with the last few months marking the best in its 26-year history. In July, Amazon posted record second-quarter earnings of $5.2 billion, with sales up 40% over last year to nearly $90 billion, although it saw a 13% fall in revenue from its physical stores. The company’s hiring spree over the past year reflects its need to keep up with the surge in demand from homebound shoppers. But the company and CEO Jeff Bezos have come under fire from existing and former employees, who allege the company failed to adequately protect warehouse workers from the health and economic risks of Covid-19.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BIG NUMBER</h2>



560,000. That’s how many people Amazon employs worldwide, according to the company’s<a href="https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/working-at-amazon/our-people" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&nbsp;blog</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TANGENT</h2>



Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos topped Forbes’ list of 400 richest Americans for the third year in a row, with a net worth of $183.8 billion as of Monday morning. Earlier this year, Bezos, who holds an 11.2% stake in Amazon, became the first person to surpass a net worth of more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/08/26/worlds-richest-billionaire-jeff-bezos-first-200-billion/?utm_source=TWITTER&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=3629826204&amp;utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesMainTwitter#13b38a024db7">$200 billion</a>&nbsp;late last month.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FURTHER READING</h2>



<a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/operations/creating-more-job-opportunities-in-operations" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creating more job opportunities in operations</a>&nbsp;(Amazon)



-By Isabel Togoh, Forbes Staff

Amazon Unveils Its First Smartphone

Amazon Is Hiring A Further 100,000 People To Keep Up With Pandemic-Induced Demand

The aim for one of the world&#8217;s leading in logistics and supply-chain management companies is to develop innovative leaders.
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Bonolo Masilo began her work career at CHEP, a world leader in logistics and supply-chain management. Within six years, she was in a boardroom in London, presenting a proposal to the international leadership of the company.
She’d risen to become an innovation leader, had built a network of contacts that spanned the globe and been identified as one of her organisation’s brightest young talents.
Bonolo has been recognised as a precocious talent from the outset. CHEP started on this journey with her when they awarded her a full bursary for her operations-management studies at the University of Johannesburg, after which she joined the company in 2011 as a graduate trainee.
By 2015, she had risen in the organisation to become an operations supervisor, which kickstarted an interesting journey for her.
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“I was probably the first CHEP female supervisor in the country,” says Bonolo. “It’s a male-dominated industry and you need to work a little harder than your peers to be recognised. But it does help you grow, and I emerged from the process stronger as a person and as a professional.”
Enhancing her growing reputation as a future star in her area was Bonolo’s selection for the company’s Bambanani inclusion and diversity project. This groundbreaking program saw the company develop a course that allowed each person to uncover their unconscious biases and address these, in order to make the organisation grow its people and its revenue. She was involved in facilitating 60 workshops across sub-Saharan Africa and develop a great deal from that.
The impact she made on the lives of her colleagues through Bambanani saw Bonolo selected for the CHEP talent development programme (TDP). This was a gilt-edged opportunity to work on a strategic project as part of a global team.
“I was the only staff member from South Africa chosen for the programme,” says Bonolo. “I met so many people, and got to grow my network in the sector, travelling to Spain, France and the UK.”
Bonolo says her involvement in the programme was a highlight of her career. 
“I really appreciate CHEP’s commitment to my development and that of everyone in the business,” she says. “To me it is clear why they’re seen as an employer of choice, and have been recognised by organisations like the Top Employers Institute for their exceptional employee offerings.”
Having blazed trails in her industry as a woman and a young person, Bonolo is now seeing her dedication bear fruit. She sees transformation rapidly gaining momentum in her sector, as more women find operations roles.
Bonolo says one of the keys to transformation is to build support networks with other women in the company and the industry. “We need each other. It’s good to have someone to talk to for advice and solidarity. It’s exciting to be making a real difference.”
She sees her future with CHEP, perhaps one day as an Operations manager. “I’ve had great mentorship from women in senior positions and I’m developing my skills, so I can get to the next level. I completed my BTech last year, and I might go for my masters next year. There are so many opportunities in our company.”
She insists that women can continue to make strides into previously male-dominated areas of business. “It’s not as difficult as it may seem. If you’re passionate about what you do, anything is possible.”
&nbsp;
Article provided by CHEP.

CHEP_LogoTreatment_2015_0507

Developing Future Supply Chain Leaders

For Continental Tyre, it is critical for its employees to know and understand how wealth is created and distributed.
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By Genevieve Jozaffe-Naidoo, Training Management and Organisational Development (TMOD) Manager
&nbsp;
Care is a verb at Continental Tyre South Africa, which is why the company has consistently been named a Top Employer in South Africa.
It is critical for all employees to know and understand how wealth is created and distributed within the organisation.
Equally, every employee needs to appreciate their individual contribution towards common goals. To this end, our leadership team has established line-of-sight for each employee. 
Growth and profitability can only be achieved through shared purpose and values (Trust, Passion to Win, For One Another and Freedom to Act), coupled with employees’ talents, motivation and willingness to learn.
Our values unify how we engage and challenge our actions, results, successes and opportunities. Trust and transparency talk to just some of the lived values of our leadership team – sacrificing short-term gains for long-term growth. The leadership team have committed their time, efforts and minds being of service down the line to create “one Continental”.
Over the past few years, there has been significant investment in building our people capability. Hosting development programmes aimed at enhancing critical skills was just one of the interventions we undertook.
2018 has certainly challenged our business. This year – in the spirit of building capability – business sustainability and humanising the scoreboard has been our priority. Political and economic uncertainty, both locally and globally, has created added pressure to deliver affordable, quality products consistently. These challenges have brought us full circle to our values.
Our people have responded well to these challenging times. Dialogues and joint action planning define our culture, with various platforms accommodating multi-faceted conversations. We are motivated to change our lived experiences by creating alliance and value, striving always to be an attractive and progressive employer.
Participating in the Top Employer awards has been of tremendous use in raising our awareness on policy, process and practice. Additionally, it has added value to our brand. Continental Tyre South Africa’s 70-year presence in South Africa is evidence of our leadership and learning agility. Our organisation is fully geared toward shaping our future in motion.
OUR PEOPLE, OUR CULTURE, OUR FUTURE.

Tire Manufacture As Continental AG Focuses On Profit Amid Growth Outside Car Parts

Continental Tyre’s Values Create Value

Sanlam&#8217;s approach to its employees is the same as its approach to its clients, to enable them to live their best possible life.
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 &#8211; Content supplied by Sanlam

Africas-Leaders-in-HR_Sanlam_Page11

Making Work Rewarding For Generations To Come

Dimension Data turns employee careers into worthwhile experiences with tools, technology and now robotics. 
Seventy two percent of our workforce today is made up of millennials. A generation looking to government, as well as to corporates to solve societal problems. Overwhelmed employees need work that inspires them and enables them to make a difference in society.
To be a Top Employer and to attract and retain our talent and that of the future, means we need to create an environment built on empathy, wellbeing, one that provides coaching and mentoring, where careers are transformed into experiences.
For too long we’ve had robotic expectations of human performance. It’s about time we hand over the mundane tasks to robots, so we can focus on work that inspires us. A successful organisation of the future must become a data-led social enterprise, treating employees fairly, transparently and in an unbiased manner – says Dimension Data Middle East and Africa HR Executive Michaela Voller.
Voller says they need to reimagine how they will operate and transform Dimension Data to be fit for the future, and have begun their journey of transformation. They have adopted a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) methodology to allow them to scale lean and agile work practices, and are moving towards agile workspaces to support this. ‘Our aim is to provide a more efficient service to our clients through this collaborative approach’.
We recently launched a new way of working through our global HRIS platform – Workday, continues Voller. We needed to improve the employee experience with tools that provide real-time transparent information, and enable employees to manage their own careers. Our employees can set performance objectives and get feedback on their progress from various peers at any time. They can in turn ‘give feedback’ and recognise their peers for great work. They can also showcase their careers by sharing their career history, competencies and aspirations, and can map their learning journey through our integrated learning platform, making them more accessible for promotional opportunities.
We also launched a new on-boarding experience – continues Voller. We decided to digitise induction as part of our broader digitisation journey, through a mobile application to ensure a social experience to on boarding. By digitising the knowledge transfer on the platform, we’ve managed to create time and space for human connections through conversations.
Dimension Data is also integrating robotics into their organisation. As one example, our bot ‘Pippa’ screens thousands of CV’s, cutting out the bias nature of candidate selection currently performed by HR departments – explains Voller.
These are massive mind set shifts and we are encouraging and empowering our people to consider these changes and make this a success in our business. Our transformation journey is not nearly over, as we look forward to further exciting challenges ahead.
In our world today, change after all is the only thing we can be sure of.
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&#8211; By Jenni Burgum, Dimension Data.

Michaela-forbes

Transforming For The Future

Unemployment is one of Africa’s biggest headaches. According to the World Bank, in the next 10 years, 600 million new jobs &#8211; that&#8217;s about half the population of Africa &#8211; are needed to keep the planet working and happy.
The International Labour Organization estimates that the number of unemployed youths in sub-Saharan Africa stands at 11.6 million. Another study, by the African Centre for Economic Transformation, claims that almost half of the 10 million graduates churned out every year from more than 668 universities in Africa do not get jobs. That means millions of young, restive and discontent Africans are educated well enough to know what they are missing out on. The unintended consequence of this is many of the youngest and brightest are looking for more than just jobs.
“With the rise in graduate unemployment, more and more graduates are reassessing their career options and looking for more entrepreneurial career paths,” says Franklin Cudjoe, President and Founder of the IMANI Center for Policy and Education.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/11/03/lessons-ideas-100-greatest-living-minds/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Lessons And Ideas By The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds</a>
The dynamics of the employment game are changing fast, according to Cudjoe.
“We have several things that young people are looking for when they graduate from university these days. For example, Generation Y graduates are generally less motivated by money, and more focused on making an impact as well as having greater independence in their work,” he says.
As a result, there has been an upsurge in the number of start-ups across Africa. According to FORBES, African tech start-ups raised $129 million in funding in 2016, resulting in a 16.8% increase in the number of successfully funded start-ups from 2015. A 2016 Disrupt African Tech Start-ups Funding report shows that South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya remain the three most popular investment destinations on the continent, with over 80% of secured funds.
“Jumia has raised over $200 million, iROKOtv another $16 million and Konga $38 million, and the number of success stories just keeps rising. This year Andela closed another round of funding which saw investment from Mark Zuckerberg. So, given the current challenging economic climate, it seems entrepreneurship is the way to go for many young people,” says Richmond Quarshie, Founder of Goldsmiths Capital, a private equity firm in Ghana.
For Stephen Emenike Kamalu, a 23-year-old graduate from Madonna University in Rivers State, Nigeria, and an Associate Tax Analyst for American multinational conglomerate General Electric (GE) in Nigeria, both entrepreneurship and gainful employment can be beneficial for millennials.
“For me I think the most important thing for young people is finding your path. So if your path is aligned with having a career, then that is what you have to do. You have to build yourself along that path because you need to have self-fulfilment and for those who feel they have to do their own thing, then that is what they should also do,” he says.
“Employment is along my career path. I plan to have a professional career so that is in line with the path I have chosen for myself and I wanted to get the necessary skills and knowledge to take me along that path and take me to the next level. I am doing both and I can balance it because I feel once I get my experience in my nine-to-five I can also start a side business.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/12/20/developer-quit-job-build-app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Developer Who Quit His Job To Build An App</a>
His opinion conflicts with that of Chuks Anyaduba, Co-Founder of TOG Media.
“I started my own company about four years ago after I left university, so I would say I know a thing or two about entrepreneurship, but in my opinion traditional employment might be a better path for many young people. Running your own business might lead to more money, greater freedom and a chance to follow your passion, but employment provides invaluable experience in a safe environment. You get to learn on the job without every day being a battle to keep your company afloat,” he says.
Anyaduba believes the allure of doing what you like as an entrepreneur does not take into account the value of a multi-discipline experience.
“Most entrepreneurs start a business in things they have a passion for. If the person likes music, they start an entertainment business, and if someone is a fitness fanatic, they open a gym, but to get the business off the ground most entrepreneurs spend a majority of time selling and marketing which leaves no room to learn other skills. In employment, you get to try different roles and different sectors and delegate to those who are good at certain jobs to excel,” says Anyaduba.
Fredrick Aghuno is a 22-year-old multimedia designer, popular for creating wearable art, 3D backdrops, luxury art and papier-mâché. He is the founder of Dricky Stickman, a company he started after university last year. His opinion about employment is marred by his father’s experience.
“My dad did a nine-to-five for years and when he retired the company still owed him around N75 million ($210,000). Entrepreneurship is what is going to move this nation forward. I believe if people my age are able to find a vocation you can really boost the economy and drive growth,” he says.
Aghuno’s passion for art began in London where he learned graffiti from the age of 12. With the help of his fashion designer brother, Frank Aghuno of fashion brand Fruche, he launched his creative line to merge art with fashion.
“I wanted to experiment for a while so I thought how can I merge graffiti with the things I love. I decided to try graffiti on clothes because nobody could tell me I was defacing my clothes. I initially didn’t want to sell. The plan was to just do it for myself and take pictures for social media but I got my first order from another designer and from then more orders started coming in,” says Aghuno.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/12/14/situation-forced-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: &#8216;Situation Forced Me To Be An Entepreneur&#8217;</a>
Despite dreaming of becoming a professional football player, Aghuno’s goal is to expand his fashion business.
As more and more students come to the unsettling realization that they aren’t guaranteed a job after graduation, those who are innovative are creating new opportunities for themselves.
“In today’s world, you can’t rely on anything or anyone to make you successful. You have to be accountable for your own career and create your own path,” says Jeffrey Manu, Founder of Manu Equity, a start-up based in Silicon Valley.
“Hundreds of colleges offer entrepreneurship courses and employers are starting to understand the importance of that type of education. More employers are actually looking for students with entrepreneurship experience when hiring simply because students who have an entrepreneurial mindset have what it takes to thrive in an extremely competitive environment,” says Manu.
The statistics are also stacked in favor of entrepreneurship.
“When you look at most of our most respected entrepreneurs of our time, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and Travis Kalanick are all college dropouts who have gone on to become billionaires. Why would anyone not want to become an entrepreneur?” asks Quarshie.
This is the big question. In the face of growing unemployment, millennials are changing their approach to the world of work. The changes that are disrupting traditional business models are the tip of the iceberg and if the next generation wishes to succeed in the new world, they will need to carve a new path and just maybe say goodbye to the nine-to-five model.

Entrepreneurs Born Or Made?

Many people are living in silent desperation, hoping to achieve something better from their careers. They go to work, going through the same routine day in, day out, yearning to become entrepreneurs.
I think most established companies will be surprised by how many of their employees want to resign to start their own thing.
Unsurprisingly the key motivator for this is a need to make more money. Another reason that drives many successful entrepreneurs to embark on this journey is an unquenched need to come up with something better than what is currently in the market, or identifying a niche they can exploit better than most.
Adrian Gore, the Founder of Discovery Holdings, jumped ship because of an innovative product he had in mind, and look at what Discovery is today.
However, be careful of the fallacy that making your own money is simple. Forex trading is a good example – many lose thousands of dollars in their attempt to create an additional income with this market. They are attracted by the lifestyle these traders show off on Instagram and YouTube – the majority of which are fake – and burn their fingers trying to replicate the supposed success.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/09/19/be-prudent-when-purchasing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Be Prudent When Purchasing</a>
For people around the world there are generally three great regrets in life. The education they did or didn&#8217;t get, the people they marry and the careers they find themselves in. Regarding careers, many are constantly looking for a way out. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel talks about the conundrum of a job at a Wall Street firm: while people outside want to get in, those inside want to get out.
Let me address the differentiation between being self-employed and being a high impact entrepreneur. Being self-employed is where your business cannot exist without you, like a doctor running a practice. True entrepreneurs put systems and structures in place so the business will operate with or without them.
The same thing working professionals set out to get, is often the same thing that stops them from starting their own business – money. Other hurdles include the fear of losing a stable income, the uncertainty of what kind of business to start, and a lack of confidence in themselves to pull it off. Only the brave jump ship; and they stick with it in  tough times and periods of abundance.
The solution for companies is to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit within their organization. New ideas shouldn’t be seen as a threat to bosses; innovation does not mean that colleagues are gunning for your position in the company. New ideas need to be debated. Those that are rational and viable should be explored rather than suppressed – therefore the concept of being an intrapreneur with your current employer comes with the advantage of having many resources to fall back on.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/07/05/timing-is-everything/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Timing Is Everything</a>
Entrepreneurship should not be considered a side hustle. I agree with the notion that it&#8217;s ideal to jump ship once your business starts generating an income that can sustain your monthly expenses, because you don&#8217;t want to ask for your job back, with your shoulders slumped and head down.
Anyone going into entrepreneurship should understand there is lack of sympathy in business; there are no pity parties in this game. You can&#8217;t claim that life has done you wrong; no one is buying that kind of nonsense. Don’t try to get people to feel sorry for you – this is not a talk show.
If you want something better, go and get it. But be prepared to work hard for it. &#8211; Written by Paul Mashegoane

Jumping The Corporate Ship

The year was 1980. Ramachandran ‘Ram’ Ottapathu and his classmates would frequently boycott college and take to the streets holding ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ placards, appealing for the release of the jailed anti-apartheid hero. Mandela’s fight was their fight too, and his freedom, their freedom.
Except that this street protest was not in South Africa, in fact not anywhere in Africa, but in Kerala, 4,200 miles from Johannesburg.
Kerala, that leafy green state in the south of India, famously known in tourism brochures and puff travel pieces as ‘God’s own country’, was where Ottapathu, the man who would one day become a retail king in Africa, grew up. His home is in Ollur in Kerala’s Thrissur district.
Ollur, a small town with quaint little churches, is known for its entrepreneurial energy and commercial bustle. It boasts ubiquitous saw mills, side shops selling rolled gold ornaments, and factories making endless wooden packing cases.
It is said that during the First World War, it was here in Ollur that the wooden packing cases were crafted, for military use. The locals are so enterprising and the town, so filled with entrepreneurs that if a young man left Ollur for a job overseas, he was brushed off as useless, never to return.
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But not Ottapathu, the now famous ‘O’ of Ollur, who changed this narrative for good. Known to his neighbors as ‘Kannan’, an endearing name in Malayalam (language spoken in Kerala), even now, when he left Ollur for Botswana in 1992, in time, he also took Ollur with him.
It would seem that Ottapathu, the CEO of Choppies, Botswana’s biggest retailer, has employed almost half of Ollur.
More than 500 qualified men and women in his hometown have made the crossover to Gaborone, he says.
“Earlier, they didn’t know what I was doing in Africa,” says Ottapathu. “It was a distant place.”
Even before he arrived on African shores, Africa was on his mind.
In 1980, when Zimbabwe gained independence, a young Ottapathu featured the country on the cover of his college magazine. He wrote the words: “You must be loyal to your past, otherwise, you will go back to your past again and again.”
The Africa affinity was in his destiny, somehow, by default.
“My friends and I used to closely observe what was going on in Africa, because of the struggles in those days,” Ottapathu tells me, a fellow Keralite, in chaste Malayalam, when we meet at his plush duplex apartment at The Regent in Johannesburg on one of his many visits to the city from Gaborone.
While in college, studying for a commerce degree, he admits he was unabashedly leftist, and with his friends, always searching for a cause célèbre. For the uninitiated, communism features heavily in Kerala’s political history.
“At the age of 20, if you are not a communist, you are not a human being,” chuckles Ottapathu. “There are a lot of qualities you possess when you are an ideologist. It’s always helpful going forward.”
Evenings in Thrissur as a student were spent with friends by the busy town square, ironically called ‘The Round’, near the Vadakkumnathan Kshetram (a famous Shiva temple in Kerala), devouring the left-leaning Kerala Kaumudi and Deshabhimani publications and discussing the politics of the day. They also played cricket.
“We would always be on the look-out for a theme [to espouse]… We used to have a sort of defiance to everything, we had totally rebellious thinking at the time,” says Ottapathu.
“I tell South Africans the number of days I have spent on the streets in Kerala demanding the release of Nelson Mandela is much more than what an average South African would have done. I must have boycotted more than 100 academic days [to the cause] in the five years of my college life.”
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However, that life, and his thinking, changed when Ottapathu enrolled for his articleship training as part of his chartered accountancy course.
For one, the hours were very demanding. Whilst in college he enjoyed the freedom of bunking classes, he found it difficult to sit for hours hunched over accounting books. He quit in a week. A close friend forced him to return, saying “you don’t have a choice, if you don’t become a professional, your life will be doomed”. Ottapathu is grateful he took his advice and returned to focus on his career. In three years, he passed his chartered accountancy exams in the very first attempt, and “there was no looking back”.
The first son of five children, Ottapathu was born to “a working class family”. His father was a handloom weaver and his mother a housewife who did odd part-time jobs at a construction company. The family was deplorably poor, and from a young age, there was pressure on Ottapathu to make money, so he undertook various part-time accounting jobs.
“We suffered a lot. We were never able to make ends meet. The family had three full meals only about once a year,” says Ottapathu.
“My aim was to get a job, it didn’t matter what job, to earn any income, and take care of the family. For me, everything revolves around family. There is nothing beyond giving a decent living to one’s parents and siblings.”
Ottapathu toiled to lift the family out of poverty, marrying off his sisters, finding jobs for his brother and cousins in the years that followed. His first decent job was in Kochi, a metropolis in Kerala, as a chartered accountant with Apollo Tyres. Soon, he got promoted and transferred to Baroda in the Indian state of Gujarat, further north. It was around this time that the first chapter of his Africa story was written.
While on holiday in Kerala, it was a chance meeting with the managing director of a medical company he visited that launched his career in a completely different geography.
“I had gone there to meet my cousin, and the managing director, seeing me, asked what I was doing and said he had a brother who owned an accounting firm in Botswana and was looking for qualified accountants and if I would like to go. He asked me to send him my CV, which I did and I promptly forgot all about it.”
Ottapathu returned to his regular nine-to-five job in Baroda. The envelope that arrived soon after containing a visa and work permit to Botswana completely took him by surprise. At the time, all he knew about Botswana was it was an African country, and that it had “a lot of diamonds and elephants”.
“I knew it was one elephant for every 50 people,” he says.
On December 18, 1992, Ottapathu left his wife Jalaja and boarded the plane from Mumbai to Gaborone via Nairobi and Harare. On the Air Zimbabwe flight to Gaborone from Harare, his co-passenger was the son of the then Indian High Commissioner of Botswana. His prophetic words still ring in Ottapathu’s ears.
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“I was feeling very gloomy leaving my family. But he told me ‘don’t be sad, you are an accountant, and you are going to paradise, you will be a multi-millionaire one day, because that is the opportunity Botswana offers’,” recalls Ottapathu, who arrived in Gaborone with $20 in his pocket, all that was left after giving away $20 to the immigration officer in Nairobi.
Ottapathu joined the Mazars accounting firm on a dour December day. His first assignment was handling the ailing finances of Choppies’ fledgling predecessor, the Wayside supermarket, in Lobatse, in southeastern Botswana, roughly 70 kilometers from the capital Gaborone and close to the South African border.
To Ottapathu, it was the middle of nowhere, far from the bustling temple precincts of his hometown in Kerala.
The company had huge financial issues. Founded by Farouk Ismail of the Chopdat family (of Gujarati origin) in 1986, the Wayside supermarket was largely a shopping destination for Zambians and Zimbabweans not allowed access to South Africa during apartheid. There were regular train services that terminated in Lobatse, where they would buy goods such as watches, radios and sewing machines, and return.
“When apartheid ended, the train services stopped and the business just collapsed,” says Ottapathu. “But the one good thing about it all was that I could experiment. Anything we attempted was an improvement. The business slowly started turning around.”
By 1997, things were looking better, much better. Ottapathu had managed to steer the company out of its financial quagmire. In 1999, the company opened its first superstore in Gaborone West, which still exists. Ottapathu was appointed CEO in 2000.
“It opened our eyes to the potential of the business,” he says.
But the real turnaround was yet to come, in 2002, when Choppies’ first hyperstore opened in Gaborone.
“That store was the biggest success. It gave us an address and identity. It is still one of the biggest trading stores turnover-wise, in Botswana, doing almost BWP200 million (about $18 million) a year,” says Ottapathu.
The Choppies model was providing high-quality retail products at good value to the lower and middle LSM in smaller towns, through acquisitions of smaller franchises, but also effecting Botswana’s switch from informal to formal retail.
In Botswana, 20% of Choppies’ revenue is from its own branded products, about 50 of them, including sugar, flour, rice, juice, maize and cooking oil.
“In 2004, when the first devaluation of the pula came, all the [informal] Indian traders got a shock. So that gave us an opportunity to buy out a lot of stores from them at very good prices. They were running franchises. In 2003, we were operating Friendly Grocers, OK Foods and Spar. In 2003, we started doing well, so they wanted us to buy more from them, and started putting pressure, so we said ‘we are going alone, you can take your franchise’. That’s when the turnaround happened. That’s when we changed the name to Choppies [after the Chopdat founders].”
That’s not all. Between 2002 and 2007, the company “grew seven times”.
“We have never since had any financial issues. When we started talking to the banks for finance, and projected our financials in 2003, that we were going to have a BWP1 billion ($89 million) turnover, the bank manager would tease me saying ‘you are not normal’. He said ‘even bigger South African companies won’t get half of that, so where will you get it’? And we achieved it in 2004-2005.”
Festus Mogae, the former president of Botswana, was appointed Choppies’ chairman in 2008.
The company’s turnover in 2015 was BWP6 billion ($533 million).
Today, Choppies runs 170 stores across Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. West Africa is not being considered for the moment, but Choppies is entering new and underserved markets in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia; even Rwanda is on the cards. It is on course to roll out 200 stores by the end of 2016. The company is growing at 25% every year, and Ottapathu says Choppies is cash-plus.
“We need to grow at 50% to get to 200 stores, and we can see it,” he says.
Listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange in 2012, Choppies’ secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Africa’s biggest stock exchange, from May 2015, is doing well. Choppies is expecting to eventually get “$700 million that will be put into the Africa expansion”.
Choppies entered South Africa in 2008 with a distribution center in Rustenburg, located strategically on the transport route to Botswana. It currently operates more than 60 stores in the country, and that number is growing every month. In an intensely competitive retail environment, with majors such as Shoprite and Pick n Pay, Choppies targets Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns, and says it’s doing extremely well in Limpopo, North West province, northern Free State and Mpumalanga.
“We have been competing with South Africa for a long time. Our market share is over 36 percent. There is no other African retailer with that kind of market share in any market,” says Ottapathu, who became a shareholder in 1999, and currently owns 20% of the company.
And his personal net worth, considering he came to Africa with $20 in his pocket?
“I haven’t counted,” he laughs. “I normally don’t.”
Prod him further, and he reluctantly says it could be $300 million.
At heart, he is a simple man who has not forgotten the poverty, pain and hunger that defined his youth.
He says he wears suits only when he meets Botswana president Ian Khama, and displays few trappings of wealth, although he owns two private planes, a Beechcraft and Embraer, parked at Lanseria airport when in Johannesburg.
“It’s quicker connecting to Africa that way,” he says.
It may seem that Ottapathu’s destiny was a foregone conclusion to many. Misty-eyed, he recalls the words of his mother’s sister, an aunt he truly loved, who had no children and passed away before he made that first trip to Africa. His greatest regret to this day is she didn’t live to see him successful.
“She used to like me very much, and often told me, the way you are growing up, you will even one day own a plane, and I would laugh. My regret is I couldn’t look after her.”
Ottapathu lost his father in 2002, but is grateful both his parents saw his success, visiting him several times in Botswana. His 80-year-old mother lives in his family home in Kerala.
He says the true value of wealth is beyond money, it’s enjoying what you do, and never losing focus. After he first arrived in Africa, it took him four years to visit Kerala &#8211; he was that involved in his work. From 1992 to 2003, he says he may have visited India only for 30 days in all.
“I don’t have any aim to achieve so much wealth. I would rather have ambitions relating to the business. My immediate aim for Choppies is to get a billion-dollar turnover. And increase the number of employees from 11,000 to 25,000,” says Ottapathu.
He is known to be a shrewd businessman, never mincing words, but his enterprise and clean reputation have won him admirers on the continent.
“The most remarkable thing about him is the sort of speed and ease with which he moved from working for this accounting agency to taking the opportunity to turn entrepreneurial; the ease with which he saw how parochial we tend to be in big businesses in South Africa and by extension in Botswana, that the approach is local, and he saw that was the niche, in the process explaining how he managed to quickly move into new markets. That sort of global outlook makes him a true citizen of the world,” says Luke Spiropoulos, who met Ottapathu three times as part of his master’s degree research on the migration and mobility of Indian communities in Southern Africa, with the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa and University of the Witwatersrand.
“When he came here, he didn’t have a lot of options at the time but his professional advantage over the others seems to be a particularly sharp knowledge of tertiary education in India, by bringing people in with high-end qualifications. He has a good feel for the human resources market in India,” says Spiropoulos.
Ottapathu says his humble upbringing shaped his belief-systems.
“I am a strong believer in karma. I always say my two hands are my God. Whatever I do the right way, I always get it back. Being a knowledge worker, you use your brain and your hands.”
And not for him ephemeral success.
“Have a long-term view. Don’t look at fortune created overnight. It’s a long-term process rather than an accident,” says Ottapathu.
This is the advice he constantly gives his 23-year-old son Balram, a finance and economics graduate from Wharton, currently studying in Princeton in the United States. His daughter, Bhagyasree, is only 10.
Will his son take to retail like him?
“My father didn’t give me anything,” says Ottapathu. “So he must decide what he wants to be. Sachin Tendulkar [Indian cricketer] said about his son, ‘I can put cricket into his brain, but not into his heart’. Likewise, it has to come from his heart. Eventually, he may take to retail consultancy.”
And the future of Africa?
The future of retail, he says, is smaller stores, given that “hypermarkets are shrinking around the world”.
“The politics is what is putting Africa behind. At Choppies, we try to be neutral, and not align with anything, and work with official channels. Africa is certainly open for business. The growth opportunities here are much better. One day, companies like Walmart will do much better; it will start flexing its muscles. But it will be good for retail in general.”
Will he ever take Choppies to India, just like M.A. Yousuf Ali, the Dubai-based billionaire from his hometown in Kerala, did? Ali opened the gargantuan LuLu Mall in Kerala after a slew of hypermarket-successes across the Middle East.
No, says Ottapathu.
“Currently, we have better returns for our capital here in Africa. We don’t want to lose focus on what we are doing here, if we start doing things in many places.”
But he just might forge the Africa-Kerala connection on celluloid though.
“I have been approached to produce films. I just may. If it happens, the movie will be shot in Kerala and Botswana, linking both countries.”
You just cannot take Africa out of him.
“Africa is an addiction,” concludes Ottapathu. “I don’t even want my dead body to go out.”

“Africa Is  An Addiction  I Don’t Even Want My Dead Body To Go Out”

In the United States, 60% of the country’s employment is said to be created by family-owned businesses, though Ted Clark, the executive director at the Northeastern University Center for Family Business, believes this to be an exaggerated estimate. Despite this, family businesses are significant to job-creation, which is why it is important to understand some of the risks that come with them.
From the golden arches of our local McDonald’s, to the swiveling rims and the muscular lines of the latest BMW, we see some of the manifestations of enduring and pioneering multi-generational family businesses. But, the road to success if often paved with threatening challenges and temporary misfortune. Pitfalls such as financial turmoil, hostile takeovers, fraudulent misdemeanors and corporate scandals often plague family businesses.
Most family businesses dislike the idea of incorporating a formal structure to their business as it grows. Such structures would imply tedious forms of communication that may be placed under scrutiny by non-members of the family. Despite this, such a structure would ensure better organization, the avoidance of miscommunication, more profitability and clearer job tasks. One of the reasons many small family businesses lack structure is because they were founded without a business plan. Maintaining conflicts of interest is another tricky aspect of a family business, especially if it operates with a human resources department. Most family-business consultancies recommend that there be no direct lines of communication between relatives.
Family dynamics and business structure do not necessarily work together. In most cases, disagreements in family business stems from an overlap between family dynamics and the structure and policies of the company. Unresolved issues in a family tend to spill over into the business environment, which may stagnate the growth of, or even the continued existence of, the business. Other causes may be the lack of definitive roles that each member is required to respect. Crossing the boundaries of one’s role and assuming unsolicited authority over areas of the family business may prove detrimental to relationships within the business and unproductive to employees. Another common problem is the lack of transparency for non-family employees regarding payment structure, decision-making and career progression.
According to a report, publically-listed family businesses were found to have performed better than non-family businesses during the recessions in 2001 and 2008. Many family businesses fail to make it to the second generation owing to unresolvable family disputes, resisting or ignoring change, poor succession planning and failing to adapt to the latest business and market trends. What may have worked for the founder of the business, may be damaging for the loyal successor. On the other hand, contrasting and conflicting views on how the business must be run is a common cause of failure. Like in any company, a clear and shared vision is required to ensure that all members are working effectively towards the same goal.
The big N-word that most family businesses hate being associated with is nepotism. This is a word that usually sits at the tip of the tongue of a disgruntled employee who may have been sidestepped for a promotion that was given to a less experienced family member.
In some cases, working in a family-owned business may mean limiting your sights to positions that will never lead you to the coveted position of CEO or chairman, often reserved for the company’s blue bloods. It may be in the best interest of some family businesses take a page from the family that founded the LEGO Group. The company chose to ensure the longevity of their business by promoting the first non-family member to head their eponymous toy dynasty in 2004.
While many family businesses come with their complications, it is important that these issues are discussed openly between family and non-family members to ensure the health and growth of a business that intends to grow beyond the first or second generation.

Perils Of the  Family Business

The Walmart/Massmart transaction unleashed fierce public debate. Fears about the ‘Walmart effect’ were everywhere: falling prices killing local suppliers, job losses and a squeeze on the unions.
Grant Pattison, the former CEO of Massmart, did not see it coming.
“In none of the scenarios did we identify that, one, government would take a negative view; two, that they would take that negative view through the competition authorities.”
When it came to employment issues, Pattison did not foresee obstacles because retrenchments were not on the cards and he had assured government and organized labor that the company would continue to meet its obligations under South Africa’s labor laws. He does not think he could have done anything differently.
The Competition Commissioner, Tembinkosi Bonakele, who was deputy at the time of the transaction, has a different view. In a dissertation submitted to the University of Pretoria, he argues that the companies’ stakeholder management was poor in the run-up to the transaction. He places much of the blame on Walmart, for not having a clear communications strategy and relying too heavily on Massmart. At the competition hearings, Walmart was adamant that it left key decisions to Massmart, and would not be drawn into questions about its reputation in the United States.
Massmart encountered more hurdles. After the Competition Tribunal had cleared the merger, with conditions, the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) took the matter to the Competition Appeal Court. In South African law, the authorities are required to examine the effect that a merger has on employment, often placing a cap on merger-related retrenchments. The appeal court imposed stricter conditions on the transaction; including the reinstatement of workers that Massmart had retrenched before Walmart’s announcement of the deal.
The implementation of this condition is contested. At the time of writing, Massmart and the union differed on whether the order to reinstate workers had been fulfilled.
On the other side of the coin, in the last three years, Massmart pushed ahead with expanding its grocery shops at the lower end of the market and increased fresh produce. It also bought shops such as The Fruitspot, a fresh produce processor, and Rhino Cash &amp; Carry, a small grocery store chain.
At the Tribunal, Massmart estimated that store expansion between 2011 and 2013 would create 6,403 jobs. The company claims 7,795 additional jobs were created in that time.
What of those hopes and fears, debated so passionately before competition adjudicators?
Firstly, price. Massmart’s annual reports indicate that estimated product inflation within the group is below consumer inflation, but this was so even before the transaction. There have been no dramatic price reductions, though Massmart’s entry into grocery retail with Cambridge Food has shaken up the lower end of the market. Levels of unionization remain the same as before. The number of employees with medical benefits are reported to have increased from 41% in 2010 to 54% in 2013. The average monthly minimum wage has increased from  $201 in 2009 to  $253 in 2013, in line with consumer inflation, though poorer employees are likely to have struggled to make ends meet. The flexible workforce has increased from 33% to 38%.
Secondly, trepidation. The big fear was that South African suppliers would be forced out by Walmart’s clout. Pattison says that this pressure had already been dealt with in the early 2000s. South African retailers know their way around China, Malaysia and Vietnam and are better at this than Americans; who have had the luxury of being courted by manufacturers from those countries.
Guided by two reports from economists, the Competition Appeal Court ordered Walmart-controlled Massmart to form a fund to help suppliers. One report, produced by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and James Hodge, had argued that any amount short of $47 million will almost surely fail. The court ordered the creation of a $22 million fund to limit the risks of the transaction.
The fund offers loans, grants, technical support and training. More than $1.5 million has been spent on farmers. Since 2012, smallholders have sold around $700,000 of food. It is reported that 645 seasonal jobs have been created by farmers. Less than $94,000 of the $9.1 million has been granted to manufacturers.
While a lot of the angst over the Walmart/Massmart deal has been lifted, there is still a long way to go before everyone is happy.

What Were We Worried About?

Struggle songs pierced the air to the sound of marching feet. Protestors jabbed sticks and steel poles to the skies.
One of them was petrol attendant, Thabo Moloedi, who makes the 80km journey from Sasolburg to Johannesburg along the N1 every day. He says tolls will hit millions like him in the pocket.
“Let’s ban them all,” he says.
Roads are the artery of every country and in Africa they are like gold dust. South Africa has spent R20 billion ($2.6 billion) on 185km of spanking new highways that would be welcome from Harare to Cairo.
The problem is now the government wants the people to pay for them. That will mean motorists forking out R14.2 billion ($1.85 billion) day by day. Every time motorists drive up or down the N1, N3, N12 R21, near Johannesburg, from April 30, they will  have to pay 30c for every kilometre calculated by sensors in huge overhead gantries. Those who buy a so called e-tag will pay directly from their bank account —those who don’t will be sent a more expensive bill through the post. If you don’t play ball, you could be prosecuted and new laws are on the way to cover this.
The plan has led to months of grumbling and accusations that the car-driving class is being used as a cash cow. It has also sparked one of the biggest protests seen in democratic South Africa. The Gauteng province protest was one of 34 across the country, which called on more than two million union members. Tens of thousands marched in Johannesburg alone.
“Tolls are a big burden and are going to fuel inflation,” says Lesiba Seshoka, the national spokesperson for the National Union of Mineworkers—the most powerful union in the land.
“We are still a developing country yet government is subjecting us to pay tolls. Whose pockets are going to be filled with this money?” says Dikshi Patel, a 45-year-old worker in the airline industry.
“The government has put the cart before the horse on this issue. A reliable, affordable and safe transport system should be a priority. If you start with the e-tolling system without ensuring that people can move freely from one place to another, you are disadvantaging these people, says Zingiswa Losi, the second deputy president of Cosatu the country’s trade union federation.
The South African Road Agency Limited (Sanral) is building through borrowing on local capital markets. It claims that if roads were funded purely by tax, citizens would still be waiting for their smooth highways.  Sanral calls the e-tag a “user fee” and denies it is double taxation for those who already pay car tax and fuel levy. During his annual budget speech, in Cape Town, on February 22, Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, assigned R5.8 billion to Sanral to help pay for the roads. This money allowed Sanral to cut toll fees from 60c to 30c per kilometre for cars in a bid to silence the howl of outrage. It appears to have failed.
Gordhan defended the cost of the toll roads saying they will ease traffic congestion. “Users benefit through lower vehicle operating costs, time savings and improved safety,” he says.
South Africans will also have to dig deeper to pay an increase in the general fuel levy on petrol and diesel, which will rise by 20c a liter on April 4. The money will go to pay for the new highways and motorists are not happy about that either.

Tag: employment

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