Zachary Wazara Spiritage Group Zimbabwe Businessman

"WHAT can be done should be done and what cannot be done should be done." These are the words that drive the founder and the chief executive of Spiritage Group, Mr Zachary Wazara.. Spiritage Group consists of companies in the health, telecommunications, information and communication technology sectors. Having spent about 11 years in the telecommunications industry, and with all the vast experienced he gained, Mr Wazara decided to go it alone. "After spending 11 years in the telecommunications sector where I was involved in the planning, setting up of GSM networks in both small and large markets in Africa, I decided to start my own company."

 His experience in the telecommunications industry was so diverse and as a result, he built his business empire, covering various sectors that include ICT and health. A devoted Christian, Mr Wazara said his passion and belief in the word of God has moulded him into the successful person he is today. Spirit Age Group uses the latest technologies to impact positively on the key sectors in the country. "What I studied at school and what I was taught by my parents is not exactly what I have become," he said. "Instead the word of God has been my inspiration. I attribute my success to God and it is the transformational side that helps us see the invisible and teaches us not to give up," he said Born 47 years ago in family of six, his parents were both teachers and were very nomadic that he never spent more than two years at one school.

 He did his primary education at different schools such as Pamombe in Kadoma and Chembira in Glen Norah, Matoranhembe in Zvimba. He did his secondary education at Kutama College from 1978 to 1981 then his A-Level at Gokomere High School between 1982 and 1983. Mr Wazara is a holder of Bachelor of Business Studies (Honours) from the University of Zimbabwe, focusing on Marketing, Corporate Finance and Management Accounting. He says his special interest was marketing which he spent a considerable amount of time doing in the earlier part of his career. After college, Mr Wazara became a bit of a career nomad, jumping from one job to another seeking probably a job that he could work with passion. In 1987 he joined the Auditor-General's Office, where we worked for three weeks as a trainee auditor and left after he realised it was not his passion. He later joined OK Bazaars for only two days and left again after he realised that his orientation was creativity and doing what others deemed impossible. 


He later joined Zimbank's retail division where he lasted for only four months. He left the bank because his passion was not retail but rather corporate banking. He finally realised his dream when he joined Lintas Worldwide where he worked for almost eight years as an account director. "The foundation in advertising was built when I joined Lintas Worldwide and this moulded who I am in terms of my orientation. "It gave me a very broad perspective about advertising and the different media that are available. This also gave me an opportunity to be creative and generate ideas all the time," said Mr Wazara After resigning from Lintas, Mr Wazara joined Blue Ribbon Foods where he created a name for himself when he relaunched various brands including Chibataura and Baker's Pride. "Working for Blue Ribbon Foods gave me an opportunity to discover the other side of marketing and see if it was possible to take a product that had a generic way to generate brand equity. 


"The industry at that time was dominated by Red Seal and my task was to apply my creativity so as to change the fortunes of the company," he said. Because of his creativity Mr Wazara made noise with his rebranding of Chibataura mealie-meal and Bakers' Pride flour. This made the market share of both the Chibataura and Baker's Pride brands to rise marginally. He served Blue Ribbon Foods for over 18 months before moving to Econet Wireless Zimbabwe in 1996. Mr Wazara joined Econet as assistant general manager for marketing. "I participated in the legal battles that took place and I was doing more business development work," he said. 


In 1998 he helped set up Mascom Telecommunications in Botswana and was appointed the chief operating officer. In 1999 he became the Econet marketing director, and rose to become the Econet Wireless Zimbabwe COO in October 1999 until July 2000 when he was appointed managing director of Econet Zimbabwe. Two years later, he helped set up Econet Nigeria and was appointed Econet Nigeria chief executive, a position he held for three years. He left in 2003 and went to South Africa where he was appointed the Econet Wireless Group's chief operating officer. At that time Mr Wazara was responsible for setting up Econet Worldwide operating in countries such as Kenya, Burundi, New Zealand (though it uses another name) and Lesotho among others.


 He says his experience in implementing telecommunications systems on the African continent and the impact that it made inspired him to work for similar impact in the country. Mr Wazara says there are three visions that motivated him. "Firstly, is the way that I can contribute to the economy of Zimbabwe, secondly the way I can use technology to impact key sectors, and I am also driven by the need to build a business whose fundamentals are based on faith in Jesus Christ," he said. He is a Christian who believes in the revolutionary and transformational nature of the word of God. He does a lot of ministry activities and loves spending time with his children. He is married to Rukudzo and the couple is blessed with six children - two boys and four girls. (c) Herald

Broadacom: Telecoms’ new player

The landscape of the telecommunications industry appears set for a significant re-shaping with the latest entry of yet another network, Broadacom, which threatens the entrenched positions currently enjoyed by incumbent telecoms giants Econet Wireless, Telecel, Net-One, Tel One and Africom. Founded by former Econet Wireless executive, Zachary Wazara, (pictured) Broadacom could significantly chew into the existing players’ near oligopolistic dominant positions in the country’s telecommunications sector. Broadacom’s offering cuts across voice telephony and broadband internet on cheaper platforms. This is in contrast to some companies’ approach of offering new products at a premium price, enabling them to quickly recoup their investment and thereafter gradually reduce prices as the number of customers increases and competition picks up. Broadacom is entering the market with fairly low prices, where according to their submission to Potraz, an intra-network call will only cost six US cents a minute.  According to a business analyst, Broadacom is employing a phenomenon known as disruptive innovation, a process where new start-ups firms gradually but systematically chip away at dominant incumbent players’ market share by offering a lowly-priced option to lower and middle-income consumers. They then improve the quality of their offering and attract more discerning customers until their quality catches up with or even surpasses that of incumbents. The Broadacom service is based on a platform called McWILL. “This technology has a very efficient utilisation of bandwidth and can therefore deliver very fast speeds and penetrate buildings very easily,’’ Broadacom CEO Zachary Wazara said, adding that the technology allows the seamless delivery of video streaming, data, voice and value-added services at the same time. This differs from the conventional mobile telephony system, GSM. Analysts say the potential of the McWill system to disrupt the existing status quo is high and may explain why major companies as Econet, as the dominant owner of Wimax infrastructure in Zimbabwe, launched its own VoIP products early this year.   Wazara said: “We are targeting the average Zimbabwean who has been denied value for money on voice, and has had no access to broadband. So currently, all high density areas of Harare have instantly available and affordable voice and broadband. Service is now also in Chitungwiza, Ruwa, parts of Bulawayo and Mutare is coming up in the next 30 days. Thereafter we move into the cities in between.’’ Broadacom was granted a Class ‘A’ IAP licence and which allows them to setup and operate a national broadband network encompassing both public and private data networks, VPN Services and Internet Services. The licence also allows the establishment and operation of a voice network using Internet Protocol (VoIP) together with attendant services. Broadacom has invested more than US$20 million to date and are now closing their next round of financing for a further $10-15m over the next 18-20 months, with 90% of the base station equipment needed for the next 12 months already in the country. The company expects the quality of service in terms of coverage and capacity to increase with each month as it rolls out. In the next three months, they expect to introduce a few value-added services that will not be replicated in the short-term by existing networks. (c) Independant