Shs400m initiative to boost innovation

Brainchild Burson-Marsteller business unit head Walter Wafula

What you need to know:

  • Reluctant. Most Ugandan businesses are yet to embrace innovation.

Kampala. Brainchild Burson-Marsteller has announced its Shs400m project to stimulate innovation in business and service delivery.
The project dubbed “innovation series” is a pack of leadership events to be held in Kampala three times a year.
“Through the innovation series, we seek to bridge the current innovation gap in the country by inspiring business owners to invent and seek new solutions to their challenges and those of their customers,” Brainchild Burson-Marsteller business unit head Walter Wafula told guests on Monday in Kampala.
Innovation in business and public service processes is key if countries are to achieve sustainable economic growth.
Unfortunately, most Ugandan businesses and public bodies, according to the public relations agency, are yet to embrace the culture of innovation to match acceptable global standards.
The 2017 Global Innovation Index, a report by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, ranks Uganda among the least innovative countries in the world at number 102 out of 127 countries in the world that innovate in institutions, business, marketing, infrastructure, knowledge and technology.
The first innovation series slated for September in Kampala will focus on packaging products for the 21st Century consumer.
“For many businesses in Uganda, delivering high-quality products in world-class packaging to the final consumer remains a big challenge yet a number of solutions exist among us. The first innovations series event will help combat the current challenge in this space by providing practical solutions to business owners and managers,” Mr Wafula said.
The series come at a time when the minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives Ms Amelia Kyambadde is promoting ‘Buy Uganda Build Uganda’ policy (BUBU).

Selling point
A survey on large supermarkets by the ministry indicates that Ugandan products struggle to make it to supermarket shelves partly because they are not well-packaged.
During the launch of the Action plan for BUBU, Ms Kyambadde tasked supermarkets to provide 40 per cent of shelf space to locally made goods but said businesspeople must live up to their end of the bargain.
“Supermarkets should start putting Ugandan products where they are visible. Let us make these goods visible but even the producers, meet quality standards, present your products better, well packaged and branded,” Ms Kyambadde said in March this year.