Business Lessons from Africa

Carnivore in Nairobi, Kenya is a theme restaurant where you are served rare and unusual foods. It's a festive atmosphere and caters to those wishing to be both entertained and gluttonous. Meat is on the menu in many varied forms, some familiar, some rare and some not. Service is done on swords and sliced at your table by waiters with machetes. The presentation as you might expect is more than half the experience though the food itself is wonderful.

What impressed most though was the driveway and security. It was a restaurant sitting amidst a huge plot of land with multiple security checkpoints. Entering the Carnivore compound was akin to gaining access to a secured government facility. This was impressive in and of itself and lent a feeling of security that was understated and appreciated. However my party hadn't sought this out when selecting this venue - this was simply a value add. Or was it ?

The lesson (and very full belly) I took from this wonderful evening was that the intangibles or value-adds in our businesses are what makes the customer experience quite special. If we dissect (perhaps a poorly ironic choice of words in this case) the Carnivore experience to it's core elements, we are looking for a comfortable environment to enjoy a great meal. Conversely, if said another way, we cannot truly enjoy our evening of great food without the comfort of a secure environment.

What does this mean for those of us not in the food business in Africa ? It means we need to boil down our offering to it's core components and ensure we are meeting and exceeding customer expectations on each and every point. We cannot just "serve great food", that's not enough. Be extremely granular when doing this, as all too often we expect our customers to make connections for themselves as to how to use our product or service and we overlook gaps that we create. Assumptions we make based on our over-familiarity with our own products can be very problematic. In our expanding age of self service spurred by exponential growth in online adoption, nailing the customer experience is critical.

One of the reasons the Carnivore experience sat so nicely was that less than 12 hours later, I found myself attempting to work a CSFB bank machine - not my normal bank. After three aborted attempts, I finally got the knack of their user-interface. Now, I don't consider my self a dummy with ATM's, nor do I have a limited experience with them, but this particular design was very ill-conceived. As I not so silently cursed the Swiss design, the beauty of the Kenyan execution popped out. The irony of the situation caused me to pause and smile a little.

If you happen to be in Nairobi, check out Carnivore. Besides a great evening out, it's a strong example of a solid business in action where they "get it". They understand what it takes to deliver. We could all learn from them.