UBUNTU

Reading Building Competitive Advantage from Ubuntu Management lessons from South Africa; confirmed my thoughts of how amazing is the African culture, something totally different from the Western culture.

Now days adopting viewpoints, philosophies and processes from several parts of the world make companies and people more complete and competitive in the work field.

Africa offers to the world the philosphy Ubuntu, " it can be defined as the humaneness, a pervasive spirit of caring and community, harmony and hospitality, respect and responsiveness that individuals and groups display for one another"(Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Building competitive advantage from ubuntu: Management lessons from South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24)

This philosophy is very well grounded, because it not only speaks about culture, norms and values; but also takes into account beliefs, mythology; and all little details that in some countries and even organizations are forgotten.

In the African sulture there is a motto "umnu tungumntu ngabanye", that means a person is a person trhough others( Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Builgind competitive advantage from ubuntu: Management lessons froms South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24), through this phrase i will resume how important is that managers use this philosophy, ¿ why?, just because employees in organizations want to be part of it, feel like they are importasnt for superiors and for the development of the company.

When people learn about others background, behavior, thoughts and culture, everything works more easier and environment more harmonic.

The knowledge of people within a company and relationships between them not only has impact inside the company also on the outside, this philopsphy will help managers to make emplyees love their job, productivity and efficiency, synergy iin the organizations structure, hermonic work environment, better profits, etc.

Taking little pieces of other cultures and adopting to your thought and behavior, will make a better world.

Nelson Mandela the men, thath changed Africa talks about waht is ubuntu, and one thing that i really like is that ubuntu is a life style.

Image: Ubuntu festival (taken from www.growsouthafrica.com)

Video The ubuntu experience Nelson Mandela interview ( taken from www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODQ4WIDsEBQ)

" Eat great, live well, love huge"

In this week task, i had to think of a creative methapor that could be used for a Colombian organization that is trying to internationalise a new unknown product in foreign markets.


Using methapors in business led the company explore not only tha brand, but also the possibilites it has, the costumers, the values and how it can be used in different fields. A lot of companies have used not only methapors but also sticky songs for positioning the brand or just for remind costumers that they are still for them.



Music, Game of words and others create sensations that emerge brand experiences for costumers, thats why methapors can be key in costumers and employees emotions.



I came up with an excellent idea for maybe a consultant food company, so they objective of the company is to advise peope in what restaurants they could go in every ocassion, such as meetings, birthdays, fun, etc. We want to export this service to the parts of the world where there is excellent restaurants: New York, Paris, Spain, Greece, Brazil and Japan.



The methapor i want to use is " Eat great, live well, love huge", it means that if you eat healthy and yummy, you will live better and your heart will be satisfied, but at the same time expreesses the love theres is inside the organization, and how important are all the people involved in it.


With our foreign partners we can:

• Create alliances with the restaurants and make marketing strengh with mouth to mouth strategy, the objective will be that those restaruants will be in our first spots in our list and they can suggest our company.


• The posibility of a gastronomic day, with a tour by all the restaurants in the host city we want to work.


• Do an open fair where the restaurants get know each others and the costumers get to know better the restaurants also provide and suggest colombian suppliers to this restaurants.

( Image taken from www.vitadelis.com)