I was struck by a certain woman’s ingenuity a few days ago. In the estate where I was staying with a friend in Nairobi, one evening a woman came, parked her car, opened its boot and started displaying her wares.

This woman decided to come and sell her chicken broilers to the estate dwellers right at their main gate when her usual customers failed to place more orders yet she had already slaughtered some chicken.

Of course she was not going to throw them away, but had to find a way of selling them and that is when the idea to sell her chicken door to door in the estates was born. I went and bought two and took home to my host, but was impressed and kept on thinking about this lady for almost three days.

Now, this is what we call business ingenuity. If one avenue of getting your daily income is blocked, then a business person with right senses will always think of another strategy on how to conduct their business. The most important change to hit the business world in the last few decades has been the need to be more broad thinking in one’s approach to problem solving. Business has become global, much more complex and interconnected and solutions to problems should reflect this.

While I was travelling to Mombasa by bus three weeks ago, this particular bus company that I had booked, decided to introduce a different and classy bus for people who can afford, and truly it was an air bus as the name suggested. As much as the fare is twice as much the normal fare for the other buses, those who can afford to spend on their comfort book this bus.

This way the company’s revenue through this one bus is always double-meaning it can take care of itself and the company will still record some profit. I also saw a nephew of a friend who after college two years ago, is yet to get a job. This fellow decided that instead of sitting at home and waiting for his aunt to provide, he decided to sell fresh juice in the estate where they live. Now he makes a profit of almost sixty dollars a day and as he puts it, he will not look for a white collar job.

With the harsh economic times with the credit crunch still eating us slowly by slowly and the rising cost of living, for a business to survive one has to actively think outside the box to come up with unique ideas to enable them stay in business.

This requires that both employers and employees think multi-dimensionally, seeing the relationships between various aspects of a problem; and knowing how to blend and integrate these constraints together into an acceptable solution. This is the time to sell ice to the Eskimos!

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