When Starlink entered Zimbabwe, it didn’t just bring satellite internet. It brought a mindset shift.

Reactivity isn’t always laziness — often it’s a survival response. Zimbabwean businesses operate in a volatile economy with shifting regulations, currency instability, and supply chain disruptions. This environment can push leaders into short-term thinking, focusing only on immediate wins.

Other factors compound the problem:

• Lack of strategic marketing expertise to define a clear long-term brand position.
• Short-term investor or owner pressure that prioritises quick returns over brand-building.
• Comfort in current profits that dulls the urgency to innovate until a competitor forces change.

While these are real challenges, history shows they’re not unbreakable cycles.

Too many businesses in Zimbabwe default to “just enough.” As long as profits remain steady, innovation gets delayed.

In branding, this reactive posture leads to short-term fixes rather than long-term leadership. From a brand identity perspective, the results are predictable:

• Definition – Without a clear strategic anchor, a brand’s message shifts with the winds, leaving its identity fragile.
• Differentiation – Copying competitors makes it harder to stand out, ensuring you blend into the very market you want to lead.
• Cohesion – Without a unified system, campaigns, visuals, and experiences feel disconnected from each other.

The result? A logo design refresh here, a campaign tweak there — but no overarching direction.

And this isn’t limited to telecoms. The same pattern plays out in fintech, agriculture, mining, retail, and other sectors — industries that could lead markets regionally, yet often wait for external disruption before evolving.

In the late 1990s, the Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) had every advantage a monopoly could want:

• Massive infrastructure built over decades.
• Government backing with regulatory and financial support.
• Established revenue streams from exclusive control over all telecom services.
• Incumbent advantage with nationwide facilities and a large customer base.

By contrast, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe was a complete newcomer:

• Zero infrastructure and no customer base.
• Severe funding challenges compounded by a five-year legal battle to secure a licence.
• Hostile political and regulatory environment actively resisting competition.
• High startup risk with no operational history in the sector.

And yet, Econet pressed forward — building its network from scratch and launching as a credible competitor.

When Econet challenged PTC, it didn’t have the largest resources. When Starlink entered Zimbabwe, it faced a volatile market and still found a way to deliver.

The common thread is intent. Both acted with a long-term vision and were willing to commit to it. This is where many brands fall short — treating identity as decoration instead of direction.

If your brand is unclear, inconsistent, or generic, the Zarura Brand Operating System (BOS) is our proven framework for building scalable brands.

It combines strategy, messaging, visuals, sound, and film into one cohesive system that:

• Cuts through the noise.
• Aligns every customer touchpoint.
• Embeds brand values into operational decision-making.

As a strategy-first brand identity agency, we design BOS so that every decision — strategic, verbal, visual, sonic or motion — aligns with a clearly defined direction.