Ortega Group

06/11/2024

When my graphics designer produced the two options for the Ortega Group Logo, my feelings led me to the red option. There is something about red and white.

But then, I decided to be so logical about the process. And I went looking around when it comes to color psychology and all that, how blue represented trust and safety. But I still told the graphic designer that I will still keep the red option as the secondary logo (just in case).

And so I launched with blue. But over time, as I clarified what I wanted to do with Ortega Group, what’s the one or two things we were about, I just knew it was high time, I picked up the logo I had kept on the sidelines. Again, big lesson whenever I ignore my instinct.

Now that we are all clear, we are about two things: Innovation and Strategy, red and white just created that perfect fit.

Of course, I gave the graphic designer other instructions now that we have moved to this side of things. And those changes will be coming in due course.

But for now, there is a surge of life that comes from clarity. Knowing this is what I really want to do for the foreseeable future. I don’t mind waking up and breathing Innovation and Strategy.

I now subscribe to that wisdom that the idea never comes out fully formed. You have to make peace with the evolutions, the continuous changes. In the early days of your business or venture, be at peace with this. You will evolve and pivot a lot. Why?

As you act on the world, you gain more information and insight, you get more datasets, so you see more clearly. When I started out, I thought we are going to be these million things.

But I knew I didn’t want to be another management consulting firm. Then what new thing were we bringing to the table? So we have spent time answering that question of why really should we exist? Why Ortega Group aka O.G aka O&G?

So we had to keep drilling down to that one or two things we are all about. If we just did nothing else, if we were not going to be paid, what would we not mind doing? What do we really feel? And all answers led to Innovation and Strategy.

We are an Innovation and Strategy Firm. That’s it. Full stop. How you choose to interpret that, the freedom is back to you. We have chosen to carve out a new category, and build an ecosystem of Innovation and Strategy.

Even when it came to our values, we started with many. Heavily loaded, sagacity, conscientious, name it all. Again we sat and wondered, what are those one or two values that will underpin the work we do? Again, this came down to two values: Wisdom and Courage. We have picked values that we don’t need to explain.

Now that our aspirations are clear, we can gain momentum. Then it can make sense to make all the noise about Ortega Group, it can make sense to go big on the branding aspect. Because the worst thing in life is to go fast on the wrong things. Direction matters. It’s not just about speed.

So that going forward, when you think Innovation and Strategy, there is only one other thing that should come next, Ortega, Ortega Group, O.G, O$G.

And it becomes easy to market what you feel. I can spend the whole day, whole week, speaking about those same words, Innovation and Strategy, Ortega, Wisdom and Courage, the future.

That also then defines who we get to partner with, how we get to do business, our processes, who we associate with.

My humble advice to all founders, this work may seem stupid but it is probably the most important thing to do in a new venture. Be absolutely clear about why you want to exist and how you want to exist, the core of your value system. I don’t care how long it takes, but do it.

I know you are taught that revenue is the thing. That the first thing is to make sure money comes in. That survive in all ways. But if you want to be here for a decade or more, then do this work.

Photos: The early visions for The Observer and The Monitor newspaper.

26/06/2024

Regardless of the different routes all the firms take, it all ends in innovation. None of the routes works without a stop by the innovation station. Because let’s face it, to have an efficient and effective process that enables you to peel off waste, that’s going to take innovation. To have the most differentiated product in the market, that’s going to take innovation.

Go Deeper:

Businesses must constantly engage in the innovation process, everyone must be hired for innovation. For without innovation, without this constant creative destruction, businesses always lose their positions

18/06/2024

First, businesses must demonstrate that they are conducted in an ethical manner (Corporate Governance), secondly, they must show how they manage their key impacts (Economic, Environmental and Social) and finally businesses must show how their products create value for society (contribution to sustainable national development).

Follow full review: https://ortegagroupug.com/2024/06/18/whats-missing-a-review-of-stanbic-banks-sustainability-report-2023/ #

Stanbic Bank Uganda has been at the helm of sustainability reporting in Uganda. We reviewed their 2023 report and found some big wins and some missing links

17/06/2024

On 1st January 2016 when the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into effect, it marked the transition to the New Language of Business (NLOB). Never again were business going to speak only the language of profit. There was now need to go beyond profit. We wanted to know that the business had made a profit, but we also needed to know how this profit had been made. Thus, the new language of business is one beyond profit, it’s the language of the triple bottom line (profit, people and planet), it’s the language of sustainability.

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Accounting is the old language of business and it was represented by profit. But that's now past, there's a new language of business and it sounds more like sustainability

17/06/2024

Accounting was the language of business. And that language was always expressed in the three financial statements. It was the statement of profit or loss (income statement) with the major thing being the Profit element. We had the statement of cash flows and the Statement of financial position aka balance sheet.

But that was then! There is a new language of business. And businesses that don't speak this new language are being left behind. The train is moving and if a business is not speaking this language, it is surely on the wrong train.

That new language is the one of the triple bottom line. That more than ever before, we don't just want to know whether a business made a profit, we also want to know how it made that profit. So we now speak of Profit, People and Planet. Some businesses speak beyond the 3Ps. It can even be 5Ps where you speak of policy, partnerships. This language is also sometimes known as sustainability.

As simple as saying; "how do we meet the demands of today without compromising our ability to meet the demands of tomorrow."

So let's say you are a tourism resort somewhere in Kayunga. This language means first and foremost the materials that you have used to construct your resort. Is it all concrete? Or have you employed something eco-friendly? Have you reused some waste? What about the food in your resort, is it sourced from the local communities around the resort? Are the souvenirs crafted by the people around? What about the people employed at that resort, are they locals?

What about banks? What does this language mean? Here we are looking at the bank loan portfolio. If the country is made up of 99% MSMEs yet the loan portfolio has less than 1% of this, then we have question marks.

For companies such as Pepsi and CocaCola that package in plastics, we now speak of extended producer responsibility. What happens to all these plastics in which they package their products? Where do they end up? Is it in the rivers? Is there an active consumer education campaign about plastics? Are they funding reuse and recycle projects?

Again, we can go and say, if the median age in the country is 19 years old but we get to your organisation and the media age of the Board is 56 years. Such an organisation is not speaking the new language of business.

If you now notice, most Organizations in addition to their financial statements, they have now added the sustainability report. Of course the reporting is still a challenge as we codify taxonomies and standards. For example, when Stanbic says it is green, and ABSA also says so, are they speaking about the same green? And for banks, we are even asking about their cloud computing operations. The data centres where all servers are hosted, are they running on renewables? What about the consumption rates?

In the next 3 to 5 years, it is going to become normal for companies to publicly report how much electricity they used, how much water they used. And as they do this, issues around greenwashing and green hushing will be major risks. Because again, we don't want businesses that pretend to be doing something without actually doing something.

Transition risks are going to be high. As Organizations invest heavily in renewable projects, they can expect to see dips in their financials. Issues such as asset write-offs will come into play, so take for example Uganda Breweries shifting from HFO run boilers to biomass boilers. Also renewables are not that reliable, again, speak of inefficient runs.

On the career front, we see a heightened demand for sustainability and risk managers. We see demand for sustainable finance specialists. On the exchange markets, issues around carbon trading and transition credits.

So where does Ortega Group come in?

Well, we are coming in to support individuals and businesses to speak this new language of business. That could mean audits of their circular economies, preparation of their transition plans. Our strength is in our strategic and operational capabilities to enable businesses deliver on their Triple bottom line. We exist to demystify the new language of business for Organizations.

How do you reach us:
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +256781754358
Website: www.ortegagroupug.com

23/05/2024

Do you have a process for it? You want an outcome but have you designed the process to guarantee that outcome? Process excellence is what delivers results.

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It starts with process before outcome. Sustainability is about process. How do we arrive there? How are we consistent on that?