15/12/2015
Pause:
Linking Africa directly to the Middle East and Europe.
This week, one of the subsidiaries of Econet Global, a company called Liquid Telecom, announced that it's building a new undersea cable which will run along the East African coast, connecting Africa to the Middle East and Europe.
The company has issued an international tender for companies that specialise in the construction of such systems to make bids. Once the bids come in, they will be evaluated and it’s hoped the winner will start building before the end of 2016. The entire project will take up to two years to complete.
Once finished, the cable will carry data traffic (movies, telephone calls, Internet traffic such as this post) between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
This project is one of the most ambitious ever undertaken by an Econet company. It's been years in planning, as well as negotiations with regulators, financial and technical partners. Whilst it's not the first undersea cable to be built along that route, it does have some unique features. First of all, it’s been designed to the latest fibre optic technology and is therefore much faster than any cable coming into Africa in terms of data speed and capacity. It also connects ports along the East African coast that were previously left out by other cables.
For me personally, seeing this project being launched takes me back to when we first started Liquid Telecom 15 years ago. At the time, we did not imagine that one day it would become one of Africa’s largest telecoms companies. We were simply trying to deal with a "need for better connectivity" to sea cables for landlocked countries like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Southern DRC, and Lesotho. This led us to build a fibre network that crisscrosses some 15 countries, connecting them together. In the process, we ended up with the largest terrestrial fibre system in Africa.
As I've said before, having a wonderful vision to do something is not enough. You must be able to attract men and women prepared to join you to execute the vision. Your team must be highly skilled in many different disciplines, highly motivated, and entrepreneurial themselves. Some key people must also be experienced and seasoned managers who know how to organise others, as well as capital, to get the job done.
Recruiting such people is not easy, and is probably the greatest challenge any entrepreneur ever faces. As I've said many times before, the most important battle in the world today takes place over skilled and talented people.
Getting something like this done is not about one person. I may be the face of my organisation, but it's not about me alone. Bringing this project to this stage is the work of dozens of people at all levels in our organisation. By the time it's completed in two years, thousands of others will have been involved. Building a business out of it will require many others.
I'm very proud of the team that has developed this project. The CEO of Liquid Telecom is Nic Rudnick, a Zimbabwean who has been with me for 20 years. His management and technical team include experts from more than a dozen countries. They are passionate about Africa, and its place in the global economy.
This project will ultimately create thousands of jobs in Africa, and also wealth for many, many African nations including those that are landlocked.
Lessons:
# As an entrepreneur, you must recognise early in your business career that you need to develop the skill to attract and recruit the most talented people that you can find. I have spoken about this many times before. In the end it’s the most important job that you ever have to do on a continuous basis.
# Complex projects like this will be become increasingly easy for you to do, but you must first muster the ability to do small projects very well, quickly and efficiently.
The End.
