imbevent a new world

‘IMBEVENT’ A NEW WORLD

There are two new world economic orders coming to earth in very quick succession. The first one which will be ushered in as a result of the present global economic crisis is already upon us and the other will follow shortly. A new set of business values, information and skills are therefore required to not only thrive but survive in today’s economic world because in spite of the turmoil it is still very possible to be profitable and grow your business and economic fortunes. There is nothing in history to go to for solutions. The world has never been here before, to survive and thrive especially in the third world, we must ‘imbevent’.

You have to realize that wealth like matter is never destroyed; its ownership is only transferred in times of crisis. When Lehman brothers collapsed in the United States, Barclays bank of the UK was able to acquire its North American assets for a fraction of their value which still was a strange move as conserving capital is supposed to be the key strategy for banks in times of a credit squeeze and not acquisitions. However, the asset was so cheap it became irresistible to the English. Also, the 700 billion dollar bail out arranged for American banks by the government will also create opportunities for Asian banks (who have the greatest liquidity of all global banks having learnt to have massive cash reserves as a result of the melt down that occurred in Asia in 1997) to acquire American bank assets at massive discounts.

Understanding the present economic realities is important if you and your business must be correctly positioned. In subsequent editions of this column I will be writing a lot on what you can do to position yourself and your business correctly. Basically, there are three things you have to take seriously: heart- vision, mission and values; mind- information and hands- skills.

First is the positioning of your heart as an individual and the heart of your business if you are a business owner. By heart I mean your vision, mission and values. In the last two decades, there has been a lot of hoopla in management and business circles on these three components of business success. Most companies however did not pay attention to them and those who did relegated vision, mission and values to well craft words they hung on reception walls. They never became the driving force of the enterprise. Some companies however took it more seriously and actually adopted well reasoned out business hearts which to a large extent was installed in the organization. However, for a lot of these businesses they took a wrong heart. In the new world economic order, businesses with the wrong heart will not survive, how much less those without one.

Second is the positioning of your mind which really is your having the right information.
Every competent business person knows information is a key to business success, not just having the right information but getting it on time. Never before has the world experienced such economic interconnectedness like we do today. How could you have guessed that a sub prime mortgage crisis that began in Miami, Florida will cause the value of the shares you have in the Nigerian stock market to go down by more than 30 % in less than six months? Of course you would have been able to predict that, if you understand that debt makes the world go round and everything that goes round comes around. You would have gotten out of paper based investment the moment Northern Rock was privatized in the UK as the first major casualty of the credit squeeze, you would, if you knew that credit is the life blood of capitalism and foreign investors will dump their Nigerian shares which had been artificially pumped up by leverage buying to have enough cash to protect their more valuable assets in the west. If you knew! But you didn’t know that’s why you suffered looses.

Positioning your hands which is having the right skills is the third key to surviving. If you have the right information and can correctly synthesize them maybe you would have been able to predict the future which is important to your making the right investment and business decision. However, every time there has been a contest between predicting the future (speculating on paper based investments like stocks, mutual funds, bonds e.t.c) and creating the future ( creating real wealth by adding labor to resources through the process of enterprise) enterprise always come out on top. The number one skill in enterprise is what we have called ‘imbevention’. ‘Imbevention’ is the ability to look at the world of humanity and imagine solutions to human problems and through conscientious faith and intelligent work create solutions to improve human welfare in a spirit of service. Our goal is to ‘imbevent’ and serve humanity resources upon which today’s business and economic fortunes can be built for the common good.

The company –IMBEVENT- represents the philosophy that anything we can IMagine if we BElieve, we can inVENT. Reaching your potential as an individual, business or institution will require that you can imbevent. Our mission is to provide people, businesses and governments with the intellectual capital and empowerment required to survive and thrive in the coming new world economic orders through training and consulting.