Ubuntu is an African concept of 'humanity towards others'.

Ubuntu is an African concept of 'humanity towards others'.

African culture is very exotic and different to the western culture, their background, history, believes, traditions, believes, values and specially the way they see life are definitely a legacy to the world, a clear example of this is the philosophy they came up with, it is called UBUNTU” and it consists in the importance they give to the relations we have with each other, it is based on the community life and the sense of carrying for the other; all of this can be summarized in a phrase they use: "umnu tungumntu ngabanye", it means that “a person is a person trhough others” (Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Builgind competitive advantage from ubuntu: Management lessons froms South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24).


The word ubuntu comes from the Zulu and Xhola languages, and can be roughly translated as "humanity towards others." Ubuntu embodies all those virtues that maintain harmony and the spirit of sharing among the members of a society. It implies an appreciation of traditional beliefs, and a constant awareness that an individual’s actions today are a reflection on the past, and will have far-reaching consequences for the future. A person with ubuntu knows his or her place in the universe and is consequently able to interact gracefully with other individuals. One aspect of ubuntu is that, at all times, the individual effectively represents the people from among whom he or she comes, and therefore tries to behave according to the highest standards and exhibit the virtues upheld by his or her society.

During the 1990s, the concept of ubuntu was adapted as an ideology by post-apartheid South Africa, as a vehicle to bring about harmony and cooperation among its many racial and ethnic groups. The ethical values of ubuntu include respect for others, helpfulness, community, sharing, caring, trust and unselfishness. Ubuntu underscores the importance of agreement or consensus, and gives priority to the well-being of the community as a whole. (New world encyclopedia, 2008)

This theory gives the proper importance to the social level and involves many of all the values that the world seems to have forgotten and that if they were implemented in organizations people would perform their tasks easier because there would be more harmony, everyone would count on the support of the partners and they would love their jobs so much more. Every person needs to be feel part of something, the employees, for example need to feel their bosses care about them, managers should hear them and to care about their feelings and their problems to make them feel they are part of a family, not as part of the coompanies system
It is also important for companies, specially if they are globalizing, to learn from every culture and to include new points of view (if they are positive) in order to evolve and be more competitive, and hence make more profits, so the change is not only internal, but also external.

Bibliografía
New world encyclopedia. (6 de june de 2008). Recuperado el 24 de September de 2010, de Ubuntu: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ubuntu_(philosophy)

"Take the spring in a bottle with the new fragance eternal spring"

This task consists on creating a product that is produced by a colombian organization, which is trying to sell it abroad, it also necessary to come up with a metaphore taht helps in the internalization process.

When you are trying to create any bussiness or product it has to be taken into account the competitive advantage you have, this is something that only you have and it differenciate you from the rest of the competitors. In Colombia we have a lot of natural resources that are exotic or atractive for the rest of the world, one of them are flowers.

The idea is to sell a perfume called "Eternal spring"that is made with flowers, like roses, orchids, chrysanthemums and gerberas, it will smell fresh and clean, as the spring is perceived. The perfume will be made here, specifically in Medellin, because this is the place where we can find lots of flower cultives.

Before to start investing or operating we have to study your internal strenghts an weakneses an also the external opportunities and threats, also it has to be done a marketing research in order to know what would be our competitors and our target market and how we would get to those markets with publicity, advertisement, image, etc. You have to make your product look very attractive, this way you will create customer value and brand recognition in a longer term.

When talking about promoting and advertising, the slogan plays a very important role because it is the easiest way for custumer to remember a product and its main qualities (the ones you want them to remember), so this is why I picked "Take the spring in a bottle" because flowers are related to the spring and in Colombia they are produced in Medellin, which is the city of the "eternal spring", this is very romantic and this will attract women, because flowers are one of the favorite essences that women choose when buying perfumes.

(images taken from members.tripod.com)