#InTheEyesOfMC: ROI, ROI ROI Your Boat. The Business of Healthcare (Part 1)

Happy New Month everyone! Today's rumble shall feature this childhood song of "row (ROI), row (ROI), row (ROI) your boat. ROI essentially means Return on Investments, a key parameter that is looked at in business, especially health but we do not talk about it. Well today, we will venture into this brief introduction two-part piece given my experience running finances in youth-led organizations, especially health events.

Why are we ROI-ing

ROI is a mathematical formula for calculating how profitable investments will be. In health, ROI is very hard to equate given the human interactions involved. However, there is data provided by UK Civil Service via their 2017 Thriving at Work: a review of mental health and Employers Report. The report states that Employees in all types of employment will have “good work”, which contributes positively to their mental health, our society and our economy.

For "Good work," to take place, you need to have the capital to ensure that the basic essentials for the employer to execute their work are there, such as ensuring maternity and paternity leave for entry-level doctors who are parents, to ensure hospitals have areas to pump and store breast milk for new mothers upon conclusion of their maternity leave (more information on maternity leave in this Kenya Medical Association Young Doctors Network article by Dr Bosibori Ondari )

What is your Anchor? What is Your Brand?

For one to get ROI, entities and organizations need to know what is their anchor i.e. organizational values that steer the organization towards achieving their mission and vision. These values should not only be known not just to external partners but also to every staff member in the organization to ensure there is an alignment of purpose in attaining the organization's goals.

This means that organization leadership should plan regular check-ins with each other and with their clients to ensure the overall mission and vision are met as staff members also introspect if the work they are doing ties into all of these and not just reflect on the remuneration package alone.

Anchors play a fundamental role in developing one's brand. A brand is a product, service or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products, services or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and usually marketed.

Therefore organizations must ask themselves the key question, what is your anchor? and how does this shape your brand? and the answer must be uniquely tailored to fit the unique needs of your audience, and can be anything from the range of a one-hour presentation to a 30-second elevator pitch

Team Work Makes the Dream Work

Besides the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 on Good Health and Well Being my next best SDG is SDG 17 on Partnerships for the Goals. This is because formal or informal collaborations play a key part in ensuring businesses thrive due to the elimination of re-inventing the wheel.

However, with the rising number of coalitions, consortiums and other entities that enhance health for all through partnerships, it is important for entities to remember their brand and most especially their anchor in these partnerships so as not to lose themselves in the implementation of the partnership so as to still maintain their principal mandate of serving the community they were serving e.g if a family planning provider is in a Reproductive Health Consortium, they need to remember their principal mandate was providing these services and not get swept into other activities such as comprehensive sexuality education.

Youth Friendly Business Services

The world currently houses 1.8 billion adolescents and youth (ages 10-24); with the African continent housing the youngest population in the world, with?70% of sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 30. Unfortunately, the ease of doing business for these youth is close to non-existent (personal view) compared to other regions of the world, with many countries having more limitations in business creation and maintenance for young people than other regions of the world.

However, there is hope for the African continent, as through the African Union , the 55 member states are working towards the Agenda 2063 of "The Africa We Want," through one of its flagship projects i.e. the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The AfCFTA aims to enable the free flow of goods and services across the continent and boost the trading position of Africa in the global market by creating the world’s largest free trade area bringing together the African Union (AU) member states via the eight (8) Regional Economic Communities (RECs) to serve a population of 1.3 billion people and in the long run create a USD 3.4 trillion market.

Time will tell how soon member states will attain youth business-friendly services that enhance the establishment of youth-led, youth-run businesses on a continent that needs to create 20 million jobs annually until 2030 just to keep the current unemployment levels constant. Given that African youth entrepreneurs make up an important segment of the micro, small and medium enterprise sectors; representing 95% of all firms and generating 80% of jobs across Africa, micro, small and medium enterprises (reference). If my experience establishing Afya Hadithi Agency is anything to go by, establishing a business is like the wild west funding and documentation-wise.

That is it for this introduction section. In part two, we discuss key insights from my attendance at the?#AmChamBizSummit and a practical examples of "The Business of Healthcare." As usual, feedback is welcome on [email protected] or on LinkedIn Messaging.