The Great White Mill

 

THE GREAT WHITE MILL

(& the Entrepreneur)

 

I was doing some work in small town outside the capital a few months ago. There in the middle of the town was a Great White Mill. The rice mill was big, white and silent in a little town is which rice growing and milling is big business. Almost every other shop was milling rice and sending that rice directly to consumer markets - thanks to technology and communication. What happened to the white mill is not unique. The age of monopoly and "industry" is over. Unless Banks, Publishing houses, major Oil companies and other big business re-invents itself as small business, it will suffer the same fate. A quick drive through the dusty town confirmed the absence of all the big league players in banking and revealed the presence of small banks and oil companies.

 

Big business feels that legislation is needed to protect them. Small business does not need legislation to turn big business into white elephants. All it takes is some new technology and a few cocky entrepreneurs who are not interested (or have not been able to get jobs) in corporate careers. These people, in actual sense, just use common sense to make use of opportunities that presents itself. Most are willing to live outside the big corporate image, without a name, so long as they can make a few shillings. This  band of "small" misfits can take over a market overnight like ants on a sugar hill. They are able to declare big business redundant, irrelevant and dead. Three things make small business able to kill big business; Technology, Training and Access to markets – and we haven't even mentioned overhead.

 

Allan Bukusi, 2005