In September 2023, I left Uganda Breweries Limited. At that time, I didn’t know what I wanted to work on, what life was calling me towards. But there was a call within me, to pursue something, to dedicate my next years to something. It was puzzling that you leave a job not knowing what your next focus would be.
I have worked in many areas; I have crossed from one field to another. I have worked as a journalist, a social media manager, I have worked both as a founder and managing editor of an online media site, I have worked at events, I have been in marketing and innovations, I have been a maintenance planner and scheduler, worked as an area engineer, as a project engineer and manager. I have sold video tutorials, worked on the revamping of a sports club, and many other voluntary commitments. All these journeys have been an attempt to answer one question; ‘what’s my life’s work?’
Most people I meet have made their career paths and the possibilities there as their life’s work. If someone has been a finance executive, they think of becoming a finance director and perhaps later on a Chief Executive Officer. That is their life’s work. I hadn’t found mine yet, but I also knew that it was time to start committing to it. Quitting my previous job was that first step. Was it easy? Certainly no. You fight with your mind, your fight with many questions as you get to making this decision. Yet, the voice within tells you that it’s a decision that must be made immediately.
In December of 2023, clarity came in the form of registering Ortega Group, the company. At that time, it was all fuzzy, we saw ourselves as a company that would work on every skill I had acquired over time. From managing projects, to media and communications management, to personal brand management, to mention but a few. And you notice, the first communication around Ortega Group had positioned it as a 360 firm. But it was all an attempt to avoid the big word- Strategy.
Strategy is often treated as out of bounds. As a subject for the generals and a few Chief Executive Officers. It’s also discussed as though strategy is the one thing you do. Just one thing. You often hear of statements such as ‘our strategy is to be the best.’ Sadly, that has never been a strategy. You also see strategy being conflated with strategic plans. Although strategic plans form part of strategy, they are not strategy by themselves. As Ortega Group, we scanned the environment and there was nothing that pointed towards strategy in Uganda, somebody comprehensively setting out to build a house of strategy in Uganda.
Most strategic plans featured that one element of the ‘SWOT’ analysis, and some perhaps the famous Porter’s ‘PESTEL’ analysis. Although these are great tools as one formulates their strategy, they are not strategy. For me, it was this deep fuzzy world of strategy that pointed me towards my life work. I knew I had stumbled on something; on a world we can build. But because it’s also a subject that has been closest to my heart since childhood. I have always been intrigued by strategy. I have ready every book I could find on strategy. Whether it’s with the classics around war strategy with Clausewitz and Sun-Tzu or to the Competitive Advantage by Michael Porter. We are in the early days of strategy in Uganda, perhaps in those early days when Michael Porter realizes that the Business Policy course unit at Harvard Business School needed a reconfiguration. It’s those same days when Bruce Henderson at Boston Consulting Group opens the world to ‘Strategy.’ In Uganda, and in East Africa at large, we are in those early days.
Despite the word strategy having floated around over the years, there’s no grounded work around strategy. Speak to graduates from different Universities and business schools, and you will notice that there’s no grounded work when it comes to strategy in Uganda. For example, what is Café Javas strategy? Has somebody gone down to analyze their flywheel effect? To document what really makes them work? Many restaurants have tried to copy them, often, they try to copy their front operations. But then, Café Javas is much more than its front operations, the back operations are a bigger factor. And all these factors are inter-related, mutually reinforcing and connected. And these factors have come through constraints, meaning trade-offs have been made. What am I trying to say here? That strategy is not one thing. Strategy is a whole of many parts, these parts reinforce each other to achieve a fit. And that strategy aims at creation of value that results in superior profitability in the long-term.
Why Ortega Group?
By now, this should answer the question of why Ortega Group? Ortega Group exists as Uganda’s premier strategy firm. We exist to build the house of strategy in Uganda. And by doing this, we usher in a world of Ugandan Excellence in the different Ugandan organizations. Our mission is to be Uganda’s most innovative company, to innovate around strategy, to unlock the power of strategy in Uganda.
Why Strategy?
Because we believe strategy is the DNA of organizations. Everything that goes wrong in an organization can be linked to this DNA, the lack of strategy or just having a poor strategy. People tend to delink strategy from execution or operations. As though strategy is one thing and operations is another thing. We do not subscribe to that school of thought. Strategy is also how you operate, how you execute. Strategy at Ortega Group is this end-to-end chain of choices from the aspirations (mission, vision, values) all the way to your operations, and finally the top-line and bottom-line results.
We are getting in hyper-competitive times in the country. Gone are the days when advantages of one company couldn’t easily open up to another country. Today, more people are moving into domains previously feared such as manufacturing. The service sector is also receiving hyper-competition. So what makes one hotel to stand out from another? It just can’t be that they have better beds or a better chef or that they advertise more? It is all going to boil down to strategy. Who has the better strategy? The work is going to happen at the DNA level of organizations. I repeat, Strategy is the DNA of organizations. It’s the one thing that affects everything in an organization, from structure to culture to how you hire and fire, to the approach towards finance, to mergers and acquisitions, it’s all strategy.
Since our vision is a universe of Ugandan Excellence, we cannot have Ugandan Excellence without excellence in strategy. That’s the missing puzzle in the equation. There’s a lack of strategy in Ugandan Organizations. And it’s mainly because strategy has been neglected, it has been confused with strategic plans and annual operating plans and the word in Uganda has largely been misused and abused. Ortega Group exists to start a new discourse on strategy, to build the house of strategy in Uganda.
Why Now?
Because anything later and the situation may never be saved. But also, because two or more things have all coincided. One, is my personal commitment to strategy over the years. I eat strategy, I sleep strategy, I dream strategy, everything, I see it as strategy at the end of the day. Then, the current situation in the Ugandan business world, the age of hypercompetition, and finally, the absence of real work on strategy in the country. What we call strategy is not strategy. And so, our first work is going to be around awareness of what really is strategy. We must first bring everyone to speed, from the business leaders to the teams on the ground. We must be talking about the same thing when we say, this is strategy, and this is not strategy. Awareness will mean trainings, seminars, retreats, online lectures, guest lectures at universities and business schools. All this is aimed at having a consensus on the true meaning of strategy. So Ortega Group as a strategy firm exists to not only define, shape, mould and set direction for the world of strategy in Uganda.
Strategy is who we are. Strategy is what we are about. Strategy is why we exist. Strategy is the future we are creating. The work starts one. Today is Day One of Strategy in Uganda: 14th July 2024.