The engineers got equity

If there’s a profession in Kenya that’s jealously protecting its brand equity, it’s engineering. Through the profession’s regulatory body, the Engineers Board of Kenya; some engineering courses at universities such as the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and the Technical University of Mombasa have been denied accreditation. One result is that students who studied for these courses have to redo them before they graduate and think of affixing the prefix ‘engineer…’ before their first names. If you’re Kenyan, you don’t need a weather forecast to know the students’ immediate reaction.

If only the PSV sector cared about protecting its brand equity as much as it cares about its profits

Image: http://www.asirt.org/ASIRTKenya/ASIRTKenyaActivities/MatatuSafety.aspx

Turning to for-profit companies operating in Kenya, Wananchi Group recently exhibited that it cares about its equity from the top when Richard Alden, the Wananchi Group CEO, apologized via a newspaper ad to consumers for Zuku’s 10-day service disruption. He even used Swahili: ‘poleni sana!’

Now, if only our friends in the PSV sector showed the same zeal in delivering a great consumer experience as they do when they protest against ‘police harassment.’