By Ian Ortega
Café Javas (CJs) is the Ugandan brand that got me excited into studying businesses. From the time I encountered CJs, I have made it a point to study everything they do. I have watched every mini-improvement, I had watched every trim, every smoothening, and I am still observing. Yet, the more I observe, the more the initial conclusions get erased. The more I realize there’s something to this machine, something so obvious, yet something that can’t be copied or replicated in another company.
That thing is culture.
I am a culture obsessionist. All great companies knowingly or unknowingly built a culture of greatness long before they even produced any greatness. And this culture is something that starts off from the founders, the leaders, the values they espouse as a people.
Which is why, you can’t easily separate Omar Mandela from this story. He’s a man of continuous improvement. He observes, he listens, he does his homework. Above all, he’s a man of his word, so trust and honesty are a big deal for Mandela.
Mandela is among the few Ugandans that have built a business model of trust and figured out how to scale trust. I have met him countless times, asked him different questions, and it will always end up in trust and honesty. And this relentless pursuit of that which is good, truthful, beautiful and unified.
Every day, every hour, every second, CJs is always improving something. If you watch the supervisors and the managers, they are always observing, noticing. Sometimes it’s a simple improvement such as noticing that a certain paper type is eroding an experience. If you’ve noticed of late, they have decided one big plastic packaging. Previously, you had multiple plastic containers, one for rice, one for chicken. All this has now been compressed into an all-one.
They have a bigger ear, wider eyes, and all their senses are continuously attuned to the customer. It’s an obsession to move ahead of the customer, to know what the customer wants long before the customer figures that out. And this is the culture embedded in everyone. In the Boda delivery staff, in the janitors, in the chefs, it’s all about the customer. And continuously improving this customer experience.
All this sounds easy in words, but to build a culture that holds these things sacrosanct is the hardest thing. And I must say, CJs has built and is continuously embedding that culture. Culture is the hardest thing to build but the easiest thing to destroy. There’s a CJs way to things, and every new employee gets inducted into it. And when you learn it, you also transfer it to the customer. That’s why CJs customers become part of CJs, because they’ve been accustomed to a certain way of doing things. There’s a way the CJs menu is assembled; there’s a time in the head within which one’s food will arrive. It’s all coded in every customer subconsciously, and CJs will climb mountains if anything falls short of the CJs way.
There are two companies in Uganda that have come close to building great cultures at this scale. One is Uganda Breweries Limited, and the other is Stanbic Bank. Yet, analysed through the CJs scale, they would pale down in comparison.
What is it that CJs has cracked about culture? Especially, the maintenance of culture. If you speak to the medics, they will tell you, great health boils down to great body culture. Culture is also a great filter. If you go to a place where excellence is a must-do, you will either be excellent or the culture will spit you out. For CJs, that culture is customer obsession. And improve the experience. If you get a plastic fork that breaks midway of a meal, then go back, seek a better fork that won’t break as the customer enjoys their meal. CJs would rather lose money than fail to deliver on their customer experience.
It’s the only place you will probably say; ‘this was my first time to try this meal and it’s different from what I expected’, and they will at no cost, replace your meal. Because you’ve come for a meal, if it’s your first time to try a Tacos and your palette doesn’t take it, they understand this. CJs will never shame its customers. Customers fought within their vicinity, but you will never see a CCTV recording of that. Even when a customer claimed to have bought a milkshake with a rat, CJs never launched any direct attack on them. Because again, they are all about family. And all this, is a result of a persistent culture of customer obsession.
When O.G finally gets a moment to document the CJs way, you can be certain, the number one theme will be culture. It all boils down to culture. And the beauty about culture, everyone can see it, looks easy on the eyes, but it can’t be copied. It’s a moat. You can copy the results of a culture, but you cannot copy the culture, how the different inputs interact to produce the outputs.
More Ugandan Business leaders should take culture seriously. Its results seem slow, but once they kick in, they become exponential. And whether you consciously build a culture or not, there will be one that emerges. You are better off being intentional about building a great culture. And wait, culture is not about team buildings and Pizzas when the team performs, it’s a longer journey.