Mould your workforce into the Germany 2014 World Cup team and you are rest assured of winning the “2014 World Cup”
Godfrey Wasara
The 2014 world cup has come and gone. I would like to reflect on it from a business perspective. To us the spectators, it was a successful global event. We may take this for granted but there was a lot of behind the scenes activities to ensure the event was a success.
Brands FIFA World Cup and Brazil continue to shine.
Planning, resourcing and deploying the resources
Record numbers include $35 million to the winning team’s federation, $4 billion commercial revenue for FIFA and a $14 billion bill for Brazil. FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke had this to say “The financial success-we have it, it is done.” (AP Business). His statement is every entrepreneur’s wish.
FIFA knew exactly what sort of tournament they wanted to organize.
On the other hand, Brazil the host nation knew the exact image it wanted to portray to the world. From thereon, FIFA and Brazil started rolling out plans.
The planning process involved among other plans, financial planning. It was on the basis financial planning that the above forecasts were made.
The next step was to source for the funds. FIFA raised its $4 billion from broadcasters, sponsors, ticket sales and agencies securing the rights to sell corporate hospitality seats and licensed merchandise.
As for Brazil, the taxpayer financed the $14 billion bill.
Both FIFA and Brazil deployed the resourced funds fully aware that these funds were made available through the benevolence of other parties hence the need to exercise financial discipline in the deployment process to the satisfaction of funders.
Financial discipline here simply means using the money for what it was earmarked for.
Such also happens in business. You need to know exactly what you want to provide to the consuming public, raise the necessary capital and deploy the capital in a way such that you meet your objectives and goals.
Without proper planning and financial discipline this will never be achieved.
Shared vision, corporate/government social responsibility and prioritisation
The $14 billion borne by the Brazilian taxpayer was meant for building and renovating 12 stadiums, upgrading federal, state and city infrastructure and providing security for the visitors.
The taxpayer cried foul. The money would rather be used towards better schools, hospitals and accommodation. As a result, there was unrest in Brazil.
In my opinion, the unrest was a result of Brazilian authorities failing to sell their vision to the taxpayers.
In as much as the authorities wanted to enhance the brand Brazil, the providers of funds wanted their social standards improved.
The authorities should have been well aware of this and manage the conflicting priorities by first selling their own vision and getting the taxpayer’s buy-in.
You have a vision for your business. Learn to share it with your employees so that they work knowing exactly what they are supposed to achieve.
Knowing your purpose and following it with commitment and passion
As the tournament progressed, the stars for Neymar, Messi, Rodriguez and few others continued to shine. You could see Neymar crying as his team was suffered defeat against Netherlands.
You could see how Messi felt dejected after the defeat by Germany in the finals despite walking away with a prize.
These guys nurture and exploit their talent with commitment and passion. They knew they were in Brazil to play the game of football.
On the other hand some of our African brothers thought they went out there to Brazil to make money.
As a result, some suffered the worst humiliation. They embarrassed themselves, their football federations, countries and Africa as a whole.
Never ever go into business to make money. Go into business in pursuit of you passion. Whatever money comes your way becomes a windfall gain.
Team work
The reason why the Germany team finally prevailed was because of their exceptional team work.
The Germany team did not have mega football stars.
Germany just had good players who played as team. They worked together and finally celebrated together.
Learn to build a team out of your workforce. One quick and cheap way of developing team building skills is by attending leadership seminars.
You can also enrol for a leadership course. Mould your workforce into the Germany 2014 world cup team and you are rest assured of winning the “2014 world cup”.
Strategic planning
Louis Van Gaal the Dutch coach knew how to come up with game plans. Each game was a new game His strategies played an important role in ensuring Netherlands went as far as the semis.
Spain was clobbered 5 1 in the first round because he knew and went on to exploit Spain’s weaknesses and the same time making full use of his team’s strength in Robin van Persie and Arjent Robben.
The game against Mexico was a different ball game. Despite temperatures clocking 40 degrees to his very disadvantage, van Gaal made sure his players endured harsh weather conditions.
Your business strategies will determine whether you will finally make it or not.
Marketing
A lot of brands got to be known during the world cup. Talk of Jack Daniels, Budweiser and Yingli, just to name a few.
Companies are big because they advertise and not the other way round
What are you doing to ensure the market is aware of your products?
Advertising can be expensive but there is always a way to be visible on the Market place. Nike Coca cola, Adidas, Emirates, Hyundai, Sony, Visa, McDonalds and many others pumped out millions as part of their marketing budget.
Puma came out into the open to say they do not have that kind of money but infiltrated into the big boys arena by merely introducing the mismatched pink and blue “Tricks” football boots. Some of the world football greats like Yaya Toure and Mario Balotelli could be seen putting on these shoes.
Kyle Stock of the Bloomberg Business had this to say, “You see a lot of yellows out there and oranges and reds, but in their blur of the feet you notice the Tricks.”
For start-ups the marketing budget can be very tight. When such is the case you need to think outside the box, innovate and improvise.
Internal controls
I also noticed an elderly man being escorted to the cells by law enforcing agents. He was found selling fake tickets.
Fraud can only be detected in environments where internal controls exist. Internal controls are meant to safeguard wealth.
Imagine if a substantial number of fraudulent tickets were sold only to be discovered after the final game. Sure FIFA would have suffered financial and image damage that would take time and money to repairs.
The wealth of your business can only be safeguarded by putting in place clearly laid down systems and procedures that provide checks and balances to enhance internal controls.
Only then can you minimise operations risk.
Continue following your passion with determination.
Godfrey Wasara is a registered public accountant. He has passion for equipping people with financial literacy so that they can improve their living standards through enhanced appreciation of the best ways of conducting business and financial activities. You may contact him on wasaraman@gmail.com