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The Acorn Saga - Britam vs Cytonn
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actuarywahisa
#21 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 9:54:47 AM
Rank: Member

Joined: 5/21/2014
Posts: 184
mv_ufanisi wrote:
2012 wrote:
newfarer wrote:
is what dande did ethical?

stealing employee and clients from your employer


acorn sounds like a rebellious son to Britam.

britam can still make money if they had signed a contract with acorn.

lesson:

employees are the most important asset in any organization.


Dande did not steal employees, they moved out together to form Cytonn. It's very ethical. I think this is a culture that Kenyans should start to embrace. Employment is the part of the journey where you go to gain experience and capital then move.




The only reason why this happened is because of poor regulatory oversight in Kenya (inefficient, lazy and corrupt courts and CMA inaction). Kenyans have got into the habit of justifying the unjustifiable.
It's totally unethical and illegal for an employee to take over a company's customer list let alone a project that the company had paid that employee to work on and allocated them with resources such as an office, their brand name etc to engage with the client less than a few weeks later.
ED and crew may have gained in the short term but this could come to bite them in the behind. Would any sane company ever hire such people?





That is making a big assumption that they will want to get hired again in the future. Methinks, once you go fully into entrepreneurship there's no going back to employment.
There are too many opportunities all around. Open your eyes and maybe you'll spot one
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2012
#22 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 10:56:53 AM
Rank: Elder

Joined: 12/9/2009
Posts: 6,592
Location: Nairobi
actuarywahisa wrote:
mv_ufanisi wrote:
2012 wrote:
newfarer wrote:
is what dande did ethical?

stealing employee and clients from your employer


acorn sounds like a rebellious son to Britam.

britam can still make money if they had signed a contract with acorn.

lesson:

employees are the most important asset in any organization.


Dande did not steal employees, they moved out together to form Cytonn. It's very ethical. I think this is a culture that Kenyans should start to embrace. Employment is the part of the journey where you go to gain experience and capital then move.




The only reason why this happened is because of poor regulatory oversight in Kenya (inefficient, lazy and corrupt courts and CMA inaction). Kenyans have got into the habit of justifying the unjustifiable.
It's totally unethical and illegal for an employee to take over a company's customer list let alone a project that the company had paid that employee to work on and allocated them with resources such as an office, their brand name etc to engage with the client less than a few weeks later.
ED and crew may have gained in the short term but this could come to bite them in the behind. Would any sane company ever hire such people?





That is making a big assumption that they will want to get hired again in the future. Methinks, once you go fully into entrepreneurship there's no going back to employment.



I'm kinda of the same opinion with actuarywahisa. If you are a hospital and have employed a certain doctor with a certain speciality, when he moves out and clients move with him/her, will you consider that unethical? I think business is cut-throat and employers need to mitigate against this by having tighter contracts with their clients to protect themselves otherwise it's an open field.

BBI will solve it :)
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Sasha
#23 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 2:18:25 PM
Rank: Veteran

Joined: 9/5/2007
Posts: 627
There are many precedents to what Ed and team did:

1. Viva Africa came from Deloitte. 3 Tax directors left and took with them several big clients. No kerfuffle about stealing clients. The clients were at Deloitte primarily because of the 3 guys.
2. Maonga Ndonye Advocates also came from Deloitte with several clients sourced by Maonga and Daniel Ndonye.
3. The Late Anthony Githuku left Business Connexion to start Techgen and took some of his former clients there with him.

And many more. If I was a client of BAAM during Ed's tenure and I was happy with his performance, then he left to start his own outfit, I would follow him without batting an eyelid. Happens everyday in professional services.
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Kausha
#24 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 3:57:50 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 2/8/2007
Posts: 808
Arguments i am reading here are quite hollow and very bar talkish. Wait for the actual information before making any conclusions, you all may have very interesting comments to make. No point commenting strongly without an iota of information as is quite apparent.
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DBLyon
#25 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 4:47:38 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 5/28/2014
Posts: 149
Location: Nairobi
obiero wrote:
as i have mentioned severally and gone on to reveal a complete list.. there are only twenty fully ethical firms at the NSE


@Obiero - Where is this list of ethical firms. Point me to the link, please.
When you live for others' opinions, you are dead.

- Carlos Slim Helu
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DBLyon
#26 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 4:58:50 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 5/28/2014
Posts: 149
Location: Nairobi
Sasha wrote:
@mv_ufanisi: While it is unethical, it happens everyday in all industries and is especially prevalent in financial services, professional services and ICT. Note that Ed did not poach anyone. Liz, Shiv and Patricia all quit voluntarily.

BAAM would be ill advised to take this to court as no court can compel Acorn to retain them as transaction advisors. They would also have to prove that Cytonn somehow convinced Acorn to move their business. Remember they are still owners at Acorn and they will have been notified (I presume) of this change.

As selah says, Cytonn could very well be a front for BAAM in some boardroom musical chairs. However from the grapevine, Ed's departure (as well as the other 3) from BAAM was not amicable.


Yup. In fact if what's on the grapevine has an iota of truth, a client following Cytonn should do their due diligence before they follow.
When you live for others' opinions, you are dead.

- Carlos Slim Helu
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Kausha
#27 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 7:39:04 PM
Rank: Member

Joined: 2/8/2007
Posts: 808
Always very hard to wish away the truth. What's sickening is how unethical our media has become. All you need is some money fo grease editors and journalists and you can say all the nice things you wish about yaself. Soon it will be evident anyway.
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kiash
#28 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 7:50:53 PM
Rank: Veteran

Joined: 4/27/2010
Posts: 951
Location: Nyumbani
On the other side , there are jobs to be created here , unless BAAM fires a few people because business has gone down , then its just good news because these akoonn guys will not be three in the company they will need secretaries, guys in IT , clerks majamaa wa kufagia etc .This is good for the economy.
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Metasploit
#29 Posted : Friday, October 10, 2014 8:24:06 PM
Rank: Veteran

Joined: 3/26/2012
Posts: 985
Location: Dar es salaam,Tanzania
murchr wrote:
Mr Market punished Britam to the max Thursday. Wacha tuone kesho


Time to buy for quick short term gains

Remember when equity CFO resigned and the stock dipped.

“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
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Rankaz13
#30 Posted : Saturday, October 11, 2014 2:49:45 AM
Rank: Elder

Joined: 5/21/2013
Posts: 2,841
Location: Here
What is to be said of the personal rapport and trust that a client develops with the actual fellows handling their job and with whom they are in constant contact in the course of performance? Does this count for anything?

If it does, is it in order to then require the client to start developing new relationships with new people when the employees leave, yet the self-same employees are capable of performing/implementing the project as originally envisioned?
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
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  | | Edit by user: Saturday, October 11, 2014 2:52 AM | Reason: Not specified
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