by William Mullally
Though there are
compelling reasons why many companies in the MENA region don't share all
of their figures, ultimately there are big benefits for doing so.
At last month’s Arabnet Digital Summit, a wonderfully successful event in my estimation, one of the more exciting moments happened when the founder of one e-commerce site called out the CEO of another while the latter sat on a panel discussing issues affecting the space. The questioner asked, pointedly, why the panelist’s company, like many others, refused to divulge its exact revenue figures. The crowd was riveted by the confrontation. When the panelist responded, he gave an equivocal answer that didn’t seem to satisfy the question-asker.
When the panel ended, the crowd was abuzz with the moment. Many I spoke to, including those who work in the same space, found it the highlight of the day, and more importantly, agreed with the questioners call for transparency.
Personally, I can understand his hesitation to share exact figures, and the hesitation of other companies in that space. If you have a private company, in this part of the world, you are under no legal or often ethical obligation to share what is indeed private information. Some of the largest and most successful companies in the region see no real benefit to divulging their exact numbers, even if those numbers are overwhelmingly positive. And culturally, this is, for the most part, accepted. This is the way things have always been done.
In the global business world, though, many have the sense that if you don’t talk about your numbers, that’s because those aren’t in fact very good. We all winced when Blackberry didn’t fully reveal the sales numbers on its new line of Blackberry 10 phones last month, as it was clear to most analysts that this meant those numbers were below expectations. Companies tend to boast loudly about success and quietly whisper when things aren’t going their way.
As a result, some view those in the still-nascent e-commerce space in the MENA region who won’t talk about their numbers as a signal of just that—things aren’t going their way. Some I spoke to at the conference said to me that they feel that these companies aren’t doing as well as they would have others believe, and as a result they feel the need to puff out their chest so future customers don’t see them as failures and move along. This is understandable—no one wants to have the whiff of failure attached to them, and in the digital space, companies go from “the next big thing” to “yesterday’s news” every day. (Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed and need to clear my head, I go visit Myspace or Google+, as they are good places to be alone.) So if the numbers are in fact bad, maybe it’s better to stay quiet than to speak up and remove all doubt.
One of the big problems with going public is the need to constantly impress shareholders on a quarterly basis, which sometimes hurts the long term. Sometimes then, it makes sense to hold your cards close to your chest in the early days, in order to work towards long-term goals rather than focusing on the short-term. But there are huge benefits to sharing numbers, too. If companies are forced to share, they are kept more honest, and this ultimately eases investment. It also allows others to learn from your success and mistakes, which is after all what makes humans so successful in the first place.
To get a bit off topic and sound a bit ridiculous for a moment (but bear with me I’m going somewhere with this): Cephalopods should really be ruling the earth. They have much more basic intellectual potential than humans do. But it is their lack of a natal stage, in which their parents teach them everything they have learned, that stops them from developing as a species. Every cephalopod born is born all alone, and must discover the world on his own having learned nothing from those that came before him. What makes humans great is that we develop, and all that we have learned throughout history is passed on to the next generation. It’s what allows us to better ourselves, and move forward. The more information sharing the better, I’d say. And if we really want to improve the e-commerce space in this region, so that it can grow to the level that it has in other parts of the world, then we’re going to have to get a lot better at sharing our information with each other, so we can figure out how exactly to make this big experiment work.
Original post : http://www.cpifinancial.net/blog/post/22277/why-we-should-all-be-sharing-our-numbers-and-the-reason-that-cephalopods-dont-rule-the-earth
At last month’s Arabnet Digital Summit, a wonderfully successful event in my estimation, one of the more exciting moments happened when the founder of one e-commerce site called out the CEO of another while the latter sat on a panel discussing issues affecting the space. The questioner asked, pointedly, why the panelist’s company, like many others, refused to divulge its exact revenue figures. The crowd was riveted by the confrontation. When the panelist responded, he gave an equivocal answer that didn’t seem to satisfy the question-asker.
When the panel ended, the crowd was abuzz with the moment. Many I spoke to, including those who work in the same space, found it the highlight of the day, and more importantly, agreed with the questioners call for transparency.
Personally, I can understand his hesitation to share exact figures, and the hesitation of other companies in that space. If you have a private company, in this part of the world, you are under no legal or often ethical obligation to share what is indeed private information. Some of the largest and most successful companies in the region see no real benefit to divulging their exact numbers, even if those numbers are overwhelmingly positive. And culturally, this is, for the most part, accepted. This is the way things have always been done.
In the global business world, though, many have the sense that if you don’t talk about your numbers, that’s because those aren’t in fact very good. We all winced when Blackberry didn’t fully reveal the sales numbers on its new line of Blackberry 10 phones last month, as it was clear to most analysts that this meant those numbers were below expectations. Companies tend to boast loudly about success and quietly whisper when things aren’t going their way.
As a result, some view those in the still-nascent e-commerce space in the MENA region who won’t talk about their numbers as a signal of just that—things aren’t going their way. Some I spoke to at the conference said to me that they feel that these companies aren’t doing as well as they would have others believe, and as a result they feel the need to puff out their chest so future customers don’t see them as failures and move along. This is understandable—no one wants to have the whiff of failure attached to them, and in the digital space, companies go from “the next big thing” to “yesterday’s news” every day. (Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed and need to clear my head, I go visit Myspace or Google+, as they are good places to be alone.) So if the numbers are in fact bad, maybe it’s better to stay quiet than to speak up and remove all doubt.
One of the big problems with going public is the need to constantly impress shareholders on a quarterly basis, which sometimes hurts the long term. Sometimes then, it makes sense to hold your cards close to your chest in the early days, in order to work towards long-term goals rather than focusing on the short-term. But there are huge benefits to sharing numbers, too. If companies are forced to share, they are kept more honest, and this ultimately eases investment. It also allows others to learn from your success and mistakes, which is after all what makes humans so successful in the first place.
To get a bit off topic and sound a bit ridiculous for a moment (but bear with me I’m going somewhere with this): Cephalopods should really be ruling the earth. They have much more basic intellectual potential than humans do. But it is their lack of a natal stage, in which their parents teach them everything they have learned, that stops them from developing as a species. Every cephalopod born is born all alone, and must discover the world on his own having learned nothing from those that came before him. What makes humans great is that we develop, and all that we have learned throughout history is passed on to the next generation. It’s what allows us to better ourselves, and move forward. The more information sharing the better, I’d say. And if we really want to improve the e-commerce space in this region, so that it can grow to the level that it has in other parts of the world, then we’re going to have to get a lot better at sharing our information with each other, so we can figure out how exactly to make this big experiment work.
Original post : http://www.cpifinancial.net/blog/post/22277/why-we-should-all-be-sharing-our-numbers-and-the-reason-that-cephalopods-dont-rule-the-earth
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