When creativity flows!

As I have mention before, things can take looooong in Uganda. But at the same time: when things first move, they often move very fast!

I have experienced this in the last few weeks. Things are really moving, after long time of almost stand still. Friday last week the two graphic designers working on this project and me, met for a creative workshop. And wow! Creativity was flowing. Ideas were bursting out... It was a lot of fun! and a big satisfaction to see sketches and ideas.

Have a look:

Ivan Barigye and Kainamura Sygon

Ivan

Sygon

Sygon

Sygon and Marianne

Sketches  and Pantone markers from when I was a student (still working!)

Sketches

More sketches

Happy creative team!

Today I am Reco - the employees role in corporate branding

It is Friday. I am wearing the Reco brand. I am wearing the blue Reco branded t-shirt. And the same is my colleague. I feel that we kind of belong together, my colleague and I. We are "family", and we are proud to wear our t-shirt. Today we are Reco. Do the employees feel this way every day? or is it just on Fridays? and is it just since a few weeks ago, when we got our t-shirts?

My colleague Albert and I wearing our new Reco t-shirts.

Employees importance in corporate brand building
Employees who are proud of the company they work for and feel like they belong together like a "family", are very important contributors to the corporate identity brand building.

According to Wikipedia, corporate identity consists of 3 factors:

1. Corporate design (logos, uniforms, corporate colors etc.)
2. Corporate communication (advertising, public relations, information, etc.)
3. Corporate behavior (internal values, norms, etc.)

Number 1 and 2 are quite obvious and most companies have clear policies here, but how about number 3? How is the company's corporate behavior? And how does the employees feel about the company's behavior? Are they familiar and comfortable with the company's values and norms? And do they feel ownership and pride when they represent and talk about the company?


Reco and HIPS - Health Initiative Private Sector
In August Reco organized a health fair, as part of their participation in HIPS, the Health Initiative for Private Sector in Uganda. The health fair was held on a Saturday in Kasese, the town in the west of Uganda where Reco's factory is based. The fair was addressing health issues like HIV and malaria prevention. Reco employees and the surrounding community was invited to take HIV tests for free, was offered mosquito nets at a subsidized price as well as getting counseling in regards to HIV and malaria prevention. The turnup of people was overwhelming. Reco even ran out of HIV testing kits.

Advise in regards to HIV prevention.

Malaria information and prevention. Reco employees could buy mosquito nets at a subsidized price.

Showing and promoting the products, also part of corporate identity work.

Reco's management introducing the HIV/Aids work policy.

Reco's HIV/AIDS work place policy.

No event in Africa without singing and dancing!

And last but not least: the food!

Events like these are so important, both for the corporate identity and the corporate culture. They bring together the company employees to a "family" and make them feel proud about their employer. By also involving the community and giving them free services, they are improving the company image.  With this initiative Reco has moved one step further in creating a strong and positive corporate culture, and this will in the long term also affect the corporate brand!

The brand can also "create" the culture!
The same way corporate culture can build the corporate brand, the brand can also build the culture. Creating a new corporate identity in the form of a strong visual identity (logo, colors, branding), clear communication and good values and norms for the employees, can improve the corporate culture. As a designer, this is very interesting for me. How can the Reco re-branding process influence on the corporate culture? Well, that reamins to see!

Stop production! - we are out of sugar...

... or out of mango... (they are not in season) .... or out of packaging material.... (it is too expensive, has to be ordered from China and it takes 4 months)...

It is not easy to run a manufacturing company based on natural raw materials. And it is not easy to run any business in a country that is landlocked and has to import almost everything, except from the natural raw materials. Welcome to Uganda!

The sugar crisis

The hot topic in the news in the last weeks has been the "sugar crisis". There is lack of sugar in the country and prices has doubled! And this despite Uganda being one of the most important sugar producers in Africa. And, I was wondering what's so important about that sugar?

What is all that fuzz about "sugar crisis" ?

That was until I realized that Reco, the company I work for, had to stop production because we had no sugar. All our products contains (a small amount of) sugar, and without it we can not produce anything. Orders are not being delivered, sales are going down, and we have a real crisis!

Fortunately last week, after being put on a waiting list for a few weeks, we were able to get sugar from one of the Ugandan sugar companies. Phu! Production could start again, and we are back in business!

Where things are not available all the time
But this gave me something to think about: I have almost never experienced that something is not available. In my home country, Norway, everything is available, - all the time! So, this is a new experience for me. It affects me in small scale in my daily life here in Uganda: if I see something in the shop that I like, I have to buy it there and then. Tomorrow it might not be there! One day there is cheese, another day there is no cheese. Thats life here. But, it is ok. It is good for me to learn to appreciate when the cheese is available ...

But, it really affects business here. And therefore also affects our project. The main raw materials needed for the products we are working with are fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are in season or out of season and they are depending on weather conditions. If the weather is not right, and the season is bad, there are no fruits and vegetables available until the next season.

We need mangoes NOW-NOW!
Like right now, we need mangoes for the development of the new products we are working on. But, there are no mangos in season until November, maybe December. Shame on you, mangoes! You are not not following the project time schedule!

Sarah Mundusu is a mango farmer, but she has no mango until November/December, only Guava. We need mangoes NOW to develop new products!

Peanut butter labels for the next 32 years
Other materials needed for our products are the packaging materials. Most packaging materials are not locally available in Uganda. They have to be ordered from China in big quantities, its expensive, delivery times are long and the transport cost to get them here are really high (even higher now, since the local currency it doing so badly). So, therefore it is "better to be safe than sorry". Let's make sure we have enough in stock, so we don't get a packaging material crisis.

Going through the stocks the other day shows that we have enough peanut butter labels for the next 32 years of production, if we continue our current production rate. And we want to redesign and launch the new labels this year. Means we have to destroy quite a lot of unused packaging material. Not good for environment. Not good for the company's economy. But, urgently necessary in order to "rescue" our product sales!

So, let the design of new packaging material begin! The design brief is ready. It is so exciting!


.... but the development of the new products has to wait for mango season...

Ugandan brands #1 - Good African Coffee

I love coffee! and I now love African coffee! I know it is African coffe, because it is named "Good African": it tastes wonderful, looks great and it is Ugandan. It makes me proud of Uganda when I drink it.

My favorite coffee, espresso roast.

Everything a brand needs
Good African Coffee has, according to me, "everything a brand needs":

• a clear name that speak for it self
• nice simple logo
• great packaging design with clear communication about qualities and use
• it is based on "good values", and use this in their communication ("trade not aid", "profit shared 50-50 with the farmers etc. ) 
• a strong story (the teacher who became an entrepreneur)
• a nice looking website, http://goodafrican.com/
• and of course, a really nice taste! (you can't build any brand on something that is not good...)

Nice, simple logo.

Good values: "trade not aid".

Good values: "50% back to the farmers" = Corporate Social Responsibility.

Their own Brand Cafe - giving good advertisement and selling coffee.

The "extras", nice commercial merchandise and promotion articles.

Is "Pearl's" a brand?

In my project I am now doing a market research to find out if Ugandan people know Reco's brand "Pearl's" and what they feel about it. I am so excited to get the results in the end of this month. 

Pearl's peanut butter. Is it a brand?

When I see what Good African Coffe has done with Ugandan coffee, I think it is possible to do something similar with Reco's food products. I am really gonna try my best!

Will keep you posted. Good weekend! and enjoy your coffee. I wish you could taste the Good African. Until it arrives in a shop or restaurant/café near you: enjoy the website of a great Ugandan brand: http://goodafrican.com/

We sit down and have tea!

“Could I please have access to your strategic documents, your vision and goals that you are working according to now and in the next few years?” – I asked the technical director this question the other day. He looked at me, smiled and said: “we don’t have any, we sit down and have tea”.

From working with big companies and organizations in Norway, we are so used to having visions, goals, strategies for the next year, for the next five years etc. “Everything you need to know about the company” is written down and serves as guidelines for what you are supposed to focus on and how to move forward with your work. I found my self asking: “but how do you know what to do then?”. The director's answer was “we just know”.

This gives me, a newcomer in the company and in the country, some challenges in doing my research and trying to understand how this company works and where we want to be in the future. Since I am working with their identity and branding these questions are crucial for me to be able to do a good job.

So, what to do then? Well, I have to look a bit beyond the traditional way of doing research (reading lots of documents), and just make sure I am there when they have their tea. In other words I need to spend time with the people here, observe, talk, ask questions and drink tea!

Being flexible and take advantage of opportunities

“Having tea instead of written formal strategic documents makes us flexible and able to turn around and take the advantage of opportunities that comes”, said the Technical Director. This is true. Looking historically at Reco's business and product development through my “strategic eyes”, it might seem a bit random. But, I am sure every step and turn they have made had a good reason, it was an opportunity that came by and they took it. I just have to find out how and why.

The latest example of Reco taking new opportunities, is their development and production of “Ready to use Therapeutic Food” – RUTAFA. This was a project done together with USAID and NuLife. RUTAFA is made specifically for severely malnourished people, most of them living with HIV/AIDS. There is a big need for this kind of treatment and food supplements in Uganda. 

Since suitable raw materials like peanuts, milk, sugar and vegetable oil are widely available in Uganda, why should these kind of products be imported and not produced locally? Well, Reco asked themselves this question, and they did something about it. The RUTAFA has been a very successful project and the products are now being used by Unicef and World Food Programme.

- I feel proud working with a flexible company that sits down and has tea!

More info on the RUTAFA project:

NuLife - Food and nutrition interventions for Uganda

About the project "Food packaging development"

The project I will be working on in Uganda is called "Food packaging development". Through this project Design without Borders wants to contribute in promoting Ugandan finished goods production.

Fruits and vegetables are “growing like weeds" and tastes great in Uganda! Nevertheless, the country produces few finished products based on these commodities. The country is exporting fruits and vegetables as raw materials with low profit and is buying expensive imported finished products back.

Design without Borders co-operats with Reco Industries Ltd, a local manufacturer of food products, in developing new products, packaging and brand strategy. The goal is to create products that are competitive at an international level and can show the potential of Ugandan food processing.

Some facts

- Uganda is a very rich agricultural country. There is a large supply of fruits and vegetables, including pineapple, mango, papaya, passion fruit, melon, tomatoes, avocado and more.

- 66% of the workforce belongs to the agricultural sector. Nevertheless, food processing accounts for only 8% of the country's manufacturings.

- Most of the fruits and vegetables consumed locally without processing or exported as they are, with low profit.

Reco Industries website: Reco Industries Ltd

PS: as my first assignment, I am now working on improving the Reco website. I will keep you posted when we launch the improved one!