Why organisations need investors to get passionate about their vision

Last week, Safaricom PLC hosted its inaugural hybrid investors day under the theme, “driving purpose-led growth”. A day fully dedicated to engaging with representatives of our investment community and sharing our vision and management plans with them.

We felt it was important to take them through our plans for the year, given the economic environment the company has been operating in since the Coronavirus pandemic.

Led by our CEO, Dr. Peter Ndegwa C.B.S , we shared our vision and strategic opportunities around key business areas including sustainable business and social impact, financial services, big data, technology, and enterprise business opportunities for both private and public sector as well as updates on the Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia PLC business. It was satisfactory to see the investors resonating with our plans and vision as a result of a deeper understanding of our business.

In today's highly competitive business landscape, a compelling business vision and strategy is not enough. You must also be able to articulate that vision and strategy in a way that resonates with key stakeholders, such as investors, analysts and regulators. Most importantly you must show your stakeholders evidence of clear execution of the strategy.?

Having the confidence of these key stakeholders is a critical component for the growth and success of any business. When investors are confident about a company's ability to deliver results, they are more likely to invest in your organization by buying more shares.??

Investors are often looking for opportunities that offer strong potential for growth and a clear path to sustainable social and economic gains. Therefore, by communicating our vision and demonstrating how our business model can achieve sustainable growth, we got a chance to boost investor confidence in our ability to deliver strong returns.

Besides providing an opportunity for high level peer-to-peer conversations and networking opportunities in a non-commercial environment, investor forums also provide a chance to find out more about the company's vision, growth prospects and its sustainable business practices.

It was exciting to see them participate in our hands-on experiential demonstrations that showcased different products across all the business segments and brought to life key innovations.?

We got the opportunity to demonstrate our strategy for achieving our vision of transforming into a technology-led company by 2025.?

In the last year, we witnessed a 220% increase in tech talent. We have 34 fully agile units right now, making 36% of Safaricom fully agile.

Diversity and inclusivity in our workforce is a critical component in ensuring future ready talent for our vision. In that regard, we have ensured 40% representation of female employees at senior management level and aim to have 3% of our staff being People with Disabilities (PWDs) by end of 2023.

Sharing all these insights with the investor community and partners enabled them to understand the potential long-term value of their investments and consequently made them more willing to partner in pursuit of shared goals. More importantly, we were also able to demonstrate the connection between our vision and our purpose to transform lives by connecting people to people, people to opportunities and people to information through technology.

Away from the common notion that investors are only good for financial resource mobilisation, the truth is that they can be valuable strategic partners who provide access to industry networks, expertise and guidance. These ensure organizations are able to achieve their goals more effectively.?

Partnerships are key drivers of growth for any business. Whether it’s a small start-up or a large corporation, forging key collaborations can help create new opportunities, expand market reach, and drive innovation.?

Partnerships can take many forms. It could be a strategic alliance between two companies for a particular project; a joint venture to develop a new product, or a formal partnership between two businesses on shared resources, knowledge and expertise. Whatever the form, the key objective is to find a business partner or an investor who shares your vision and values, and is dedicated to helping you achieve your goals.

For instance, Safaricom has been able to scale the business and achieve significant growth by forming strategic partnerships with a diverse group of local and international stakeholders. These partnerships sometimes require the involvement of stakeholders in the organisation's strategic decision-making processes in order to gain from their knowledge and skill set.

In the long run, gaining the confidence of investors and forming strategic partnerships helps a business secure solid capital investment and brand recognition, which can lead to increased sales and market share growth. Additionally, when investors are confident about a company's strategy and vision, they are more likely to invest in product development and employee retention initiatives, and support expansion into new growth areas among other goals.

Your goal should be to get investors as passionate about your business as you are.?

The article was first published in The Business Daily on 23rd February 2023.