SPEDU targets 10,000 new jobs in four years
Onalenna Kelebeile | Thursday September 8, 2016 18:00
Speaking at the launch of SPEDU’s new brand here on Tuesday, CEO Mokubung Mokubung said the company has already identified strategic priority areas that will be key in job creation within sectors such as tourism, horticulture and manufacturing. “In terms of our 2015-2020 strategic plan, SPEDU must attain the status of a regional benchmark for driving regional economic development in the next five years. “We also want to do something even more ambitious, that is making Selebi-Phikwe Botswana’s first industrial city,” he said.
According to Mokubung, the new brand is symbolic of the opportunities that SPEDU will open for Batswana. He added that SPEDU region is evolving very fast as evidenced by the fact that the region is rapidly becoming a premier site for the development of innovative, high technology companies.
SPEDU became a company last year in order to expedite its decision making process and improve operational efficiency. Mokubung said when they took the decision to develop a new brand they were conscious of the fact that it cannot be achieved overnight because it must be a well thought out strategic plan. He added that the visual identity elements of a brand should tell customers what they should expect to get when doing business with the company behind the brand.
“A brand must have a vibrant colour spectrum that reflects the energy and spirit of the company,” he said.
For his part Selebi-Phikwe town mayor, Amogelang Mojuta said government recognises the importance of branding as evidenced by the fact that it initiated a brand development exercise in 2006.
Mojuta said in order for a company to radiate a strong sense of brand identity it must have an in-depth understanding of its target market, competitors and the surrounding environment. He added that the SPEDU brand incorporates all these elements.
“While we celebrate the success of the brand development exercise we should knuckle down for the hard work that will be needed to manage the brand. The brand also has implications for SPEDU employees’ own professional self packaging because what they do reflects on the company,” he noted. Mojuta noted that employees must demonstrate a high level of professionalism because that is the one quality that should be associated with the new brand.
“Employees must realise that strong brands need adequate support structures around them to shore the brand up. We expect the new brand identity to greatly assist in achieving the company’s mission of facilitating business in the region that covers constituencies of Selebi-Phikwe, Bobirwa, Mmadinare and Lerala/Maunatlala,” he added.
Mojuta further said two years ago the Private Sector Development Programme commissioned a number of studies on some sectors of the economy and they discovered that just a few local companies feed into value chains. He implored SPEDU to change the anomaly through its projects and realise that the success of this initiative depends on the extent to which residents participate in the process.
The mayor said the SPEDU initiative is important because it is a pilot project whose success story will be applied nationally. “As a result the entire nation is rooting for SPEDU because it consciously hopes that successes from the SPEDU region will be replicated in other parts of the country,” he added.