SHONA 2020 REFLECTIONS

The COVID-19 Pandemic took everyone by surprise and forced a lot of restructuring and rethinking of strategies for many, both on a business and personal level. SHONA is no exception to this. 

However, the pandemic and the effects it had on businesses and the economy coincided with big changes that were already in the works at SHONA. While they had had a number of success stories after working with entrepreneurs in the region, they also realized that there was a disconnect between the product they were providing and the evolving needs of their customers. Therefore, in the second half of 2019, the team decided to carry out in-depth research on the Business Development landscape in East Africa, interviewing both entrepreneurs and experts in the space. 

SHONA used the findings from this research and the lessons learned from their experience working with East African businesses for the last 6 years to revise its model. This is by far the biggest change they have made in the year 2020 and they are excited to share this with you. 

SHONA used the findings from this research and the lessons learned from their experience working with East African businesses for the last 6 years to revise its model.

Like we can all agree, 2020 brought with it a new set of unprecedented challenges. As the team looks ahead to continued growth in 2021, it would be remiss not to pause and reflect on the key lessons learned as well as the impact these challenges had on the organization’s way of work. 

The advent of the pandemic and the measures put in place to curb its spread had a direct impact on businesses, specifically, Small and Medium Business (SMEs), which are SHONA’s primary target customers. As a result of this, the global and regional business environment they had based their assumptions on and expected to operate in was different. This is a situation most businesses found themselves in, regardless of stage and market. They therefore had to tweak and adapt a few of their plans – for example, move away from in-person to full-time virtual training. They also had to shift to remote working and find ways to maintain team culture virtually and remain productive.  

Looking back at the end of a very long and eventful year, Joachim and Ivan, SHONA’s co-founders, reflect on some of the biggest lessons learned and how these have impacted the organization’s plans for 2021.

Biggest Lessons from 2020

The importance of risk management.

One of the biggest takeaways from the year was the importance of taking risk management seriously. 

“With a strong risk management framework in place,” said Ivan, “We would have been able to react faster to the shocks that happened as a result of the pandemic and the effect it had on our business. While we had previously done some work on it, we had not taken it as seriously as we ought to have.”

The need to continue staying relevant as an organization.

SHONA has grown a lot as an organization over the past 6 years and impacted a number of businesses across East Africa. The team was confident (maybe too confident even) about what they were doing. However, this year was very humbling as they realized that they still had a lot of learning to do, specifically around their customers. Before the pandemic hit, they were working on reiterating their model in order to stay relevant to their customers. The COVID-19 Pandemic accelerated many of these inevitable changes. Some of these changes included changes to who the target customers were, how services were delivered and even changes to the team. 

“One of our biggest questions throughout the year has been how to continue staying relevant to the businesses we serve while building our own internal resilience in the process,” Joachim said.

Change management is important.

Ivan pointed out that this concept didn’t feel as relevant before. 

“However, with many unplanned changes happening to our way of work and to the team this year, we realized the importance of change management and are still trying to learn more about this to-date,” he said.

People are everything. 

As an organization that values its people, this value was tested greatly in 2020. They had to figure out how to make decisions during a crisis that served the people but also ensured the survival of SHONA as an organization. 

“How do we ensure that our people feel secure, sane and protected in the middle of a global health crisis?” Joachim said, “At the start of COVID-19 in Uganda, we were faced with difficult decisions, like the question whether we should lay off everyone in order to stretch our then-limited runway.” 

However, while this solution may have ensured the expenses would be cut down, it wouldn’t serve the people that are an intricate part of making the company what it is. 

Keeping our people at the center of the decisions we made ensured that we remembered that SHONA is not just an organization but it is the people.

“We opted for the solution that would enable our people to navigate a difficult time. While there is seldom a perfect solution to a challenge, especially in a crisis, keeping our people at the center of the decisions we made ensured that we remembered that SHONA is not just an organization but it is the people.”

We can change as fast as we want. 

The environment for creating and launching this revised model was difficult because it coincided with a global pandemic that took its toll on both individuals and businesses alike. At the start of the year, Joachim says they thought they would run the different programs and activities planned in-person, but that was not to be the case. 

“We run all our programs virtually, something we thought we would do in about 2 or 3 years in the future,” he said, “Many of the changes we saw within the company were inevitable, but were accelerated by the situation caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic.” 

This situation also brought to light certain realities about the way they worked as an organization that needed to be addressed. 

“For example, we learned that we previously were taking too long to make decisions,” Joachim said, “The pandemic and its effects forced us to approach our work and the decisions that needed to be made with a new type of urgency that in turn made us a lot more efficient. We have continued with this approach to our work to-date.”

New SHONA Business Model

Toward the end of 2019, while creating their 2020-2022 strategy, the team realised that there was a problem with the product-market fit with the SHONA Growth program. While they had made changes to tweak the design and experience of the program throughout the years, they had not paid attention to understanding the evolution of their customer and market, and whether the organization was still serving their needs. 

As a result of this, in the last quarter of 2019, the team carried out extensive research on the Business Development Ecosystem in East Africa. 

“We learned from 459 entrepreneurs and businesses, reviewed data from 1,839 SMEs, reviewed 80 documents and reports, conducted an external and internal evaluation, and interviewed 15 sector experts. We also deeply reviewed our previous programs,” Joachim said, “We learned a lot from this exercise and shall be launching a series of reports for everyone’s benefit. Keep an eye out for these in the next year.”

Service Offering: The team learned that entrepreneurs have different needs at different times. Over the course of 2020, SHONA refined its service offerings to fully focus on providing one-on-one consulting services to businesses. These consulting services will be provided by SHONA Experts, who are individuals with practical and real world industry and subject matter expertise.

Customers: They also learned that early stage businesses need money as a matter of urgency. Everything else is secondary to this need, including the expertise and resources SHONA was providing. In addition to this, early stage businesses are not able to pay for these services. They therefore realized that they were not resourced to meet the primary needs of the customers they had been trying to serve. They did a lot of work to zero down on a customer segment they were better placed to serve. 

SHONA refined its service offerings to focus on providing one-on-one Consulting services to businesses

From this exercise, SHONA’s revised target clients are;

While SHONA is doubling down its focus on the Ugandan market in 2021, Joachim and Ivan point out that they are not closing the doors to the rest of the region and will continue being an East African organization.

SHONA’s main commodity remains industry & subject matter expertise and the organization intends to continue leveraging this for the benefit of the entrepreneurs they work with. 

“For example, if you are a business in Agriculture with barriers to growth, we offer the expertise necessary to overcome these barriers,” Ivan said, “These could range from operational or strategic challenges to more day-to-day barriers on how to get your products and services to your customers.”

Biggest 2020 Wins

Ivan and Joachim are proud of the clarity they have about SHONA’s work as they conclude 2020 and start 2021. While there are still a few questions to be answered, there is a clear direction on where the organization is going.

The year brought with it a lot of uncertainty for individuals, businesses and economies alike. The two co-founders are immensely proud of the team’s ability to maintain clarity at each stage of SHONA’s evolution, especially in the midst of all this uncertainty. They are also proud of the fact that despite the many distractions that came as a result of being in the middle of a global pandemic, the team was able to maintain its focus on the entrepreneurs. 

“While the survival of our business and that of our team was important, it was also very important to us to support our businesses through a difficult year and remain relevant to meeting their needs,” Ivan said. 

SHONA therefore continued running business training (albeit virtually) as well as high touch one-on-one consulting engagements.

Onward and Upwards 

When asked where they saw themselves at this time next year, they both responded optimistically, excited about the continued growth of the organization.

“I see us maintaining traction and continuing to build out our revised model to our clients,” Ivan said, “We dedicated 2020 to gaining traction on this model, by the end of 2021, we want to have hit our targets, stabilized the model and filled all the major gaps in our team.”

Ivan added that they also planned on continuing this trend of being more client-focused in their approach.

As they look ahead at 2021, Joachim and Ivan are proud of the strides the organization has taken to get to where it is. They are excited to continue building the revised model, expanding to new customer segments and ultimately, continuously meeting the needs of the businesses they serve. 

Take the lessons learned from your experience in 2020 and approach 2021 with renewed hope!

“While this year has been challenging for many businesses and individuals alike, we urge you to take the lessons learned from your experience and approach 2021 with renewed hope,” Joachim said.

Happy Holidays to you all, and here’s to a prosperous and productive 2021!

Written by Liz Karungi

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