Trans Business Machines (TBM) is a technology solutions provider that has been in operation for over thirty years now. Little is known of the family-owned enterprise, yet many have either directly or indirectly interacted with the company for their technology needs, be it hardware or software. Ronald Maina is now the operations director of the company his father started back in 1991. He says that it is unspoken rule that after one’s various travails abroad, there is always a requirement to come back home and ‘give back’. His case is no different. The Inquisitor caught up with him at their offices in Upperhill.

Do you always work from the office?

Presently it is a combination of work from home and work from office. When I look at my typical day, there’s in-office and out of office duties. I prefer being in the office in the morning hours and then if I can, I can set up one or two client meetings in the afternoon.

Is this the only office or do you have another one?

This is the only office but we have teams that are located at customer sites.

Let’s talk about Ronald Maina, who is he?

I was born and bred in Nairobi. I went to Nairobi Primary School and Strathmore School for my early education and then joined Egerton University in Njoro. I worked in Nairobi for about three years and then left the country around 1996. I was in South Africa up until 2010 and for all that while, I worked in the technology space. I met my wife while in SA, got married and started a family.

Any passions?

Golf and travelling.

Golf is a fantastic game for work life balance because you get to destress by just walking about for hours on the golf course. I enjoy travelling because of the joy of exploring new places and cultures. We are doing a lot of domestic travel with my family courtesy of the pandemic.

Are you a morning person or a night person?

Both. (Smiles)

I find that I go through phases. There are those times when I find myself having late nights and then there are those times where I purpose to wake up early perhaps to go to the gym.

The thing is, when I get up early, I find that the day goes well and I get a lot done especially with my routine which involves doing a lot of admin work in the morning. In the afternoon I can kind of slow down, cool off and meet people.

What was your best and worst experience as a customer?

(Interlocks fingers and stares at a corner in thought. Brief pause)

None comes to mind at the moment but I would say it’s when I felt like I either got or did not get my money’s worth.

You will always remember good service because of the way the person giving the service made you feel. You even ask yourself where they got that skill and level of finesse because sometimes it’s not something that you can be trained on. It’s the way somebody handles a situation and when they finish and you think about it later, you are amazed. Perhaps they were warm and full empathy. The obvious one which perhaps many can relate to would be at a restaurant and one time my wife and I felt that the person deserved a recommendation, which we gave.

I’m assuming you have tried to translate this into the business.

I have. My job is to try and capture these commendations however they may come and get the member of staff being lauded to be noticed by everybody and really pinpoint the specific behavior or character that got the customer feeling appreciated.

What is the history behind TBM?

The business was started by my father in 1991. He was 52 then, so you can work out his age now.

Prior to establishing the business, he had been in a similar business with about five partners. The partners started pulling in different directions but my father wanted to stay on, particularly in the technology field. In 1991 he went solo. The core business at the time was business machines like typewriters, accessories and repairs.

He then moved into selling what we now call endpoints but everyone knows them as desktops and laptops. This became the core business for the next four to five years moving into the millennium year. By then he had brought in a finance director who was his cousin and my mum who took up the human resource (HR)director role. The three were the primary shareholders. The finance director has since passed on, but his shares were transferred to his family.

TBM is the leading IBM partner in the region. Our core business is no longer just hardware but software as well. We have the technical skills and offer support services in all the areas we have ever offered technology solutions, whether it’s in fixing desktops and laptops or in supporting and implementing back-end systems of servers and storage.

Does your father still come to the office?

We drove in about an hour ago. He still comes in every day. His presence is a constant re-assurance to us and the rest of the staff.

What advantages do you find in running TBM as a family business?

Quicker decision making. I always try to imagine what the scenario would be had we not been a family business. That flexibility for me is very important because, by way of an example, there are maybe three or four areas in the industry that will probably bloom in the next ten years and we need to decide on which one of these areas we need to hedge ourselves and make a firm commitment in the form of investment, whether it be skilling staff or even an acquisition. That flexibility in making such decisions is important. You don’t have this flexibility when you have external stakeholders who might have a difference of opinion about the amount of risk when thinking of a new investment or new area.

Are there any disadvantages?

One thing I have noted is the importance of having external input on issues. The diversity question is a matter we are exploring, and we’d like to bring on board external directors who will bring an alternate or divergent view to whichever area we think they can support, whether it’s in finance, strategy or people management. That is our priority. We acknowledge that we are specialists in our areas but there’s a lot that we can learn from persons external to us.

Who sits on your Board?

That would be my parents, my brother and myself. Dad is the Managing Director and Chairman, Mum is the Human Resources Director, my brother is the Sales Director and I am the Operations Director. We have an external company secretary who comes to document the meetings.

As a family, how do you define your roles in the business?

We all have different expertise and experiences and there is mutual respect for the role and role holder on the board. We are expected to demonstrate an in-depth understanding of our areas and take charge when engaging in board discussions about your area. You need to show an understanding of what has happened, what is happening and also share insights on where we need to go.

My father has created and fostered an open environment where we all can share our opinions and perspectives freely. He encourages us to express ourselves and give justification for what one thinks we should do. We question ourselves a lot during board meetings.

How do you foresee the dynamic of increased interest in the business by other family members?

We are in the process of putting together a family constitution. It’s a process that has been ongoing for some time now. We are currently designing the ideal governance structure which would encompass the various interests in the businesses.

There are other business interests outside of TBM which is the core family business. We had different members of the family express their areas of interest as well as concerns and this was all captured by a consultant who is helping us with this process. I would say we are in the first phase of this process.

Can you give us context of this process?

There is a lot that we are exploring.

What governs the family? How does it bring those who are in the business and those out of the business together? How do we keep the information sharing between those in the business and those out of the business? What are the ideal structures? Who runs business A, who runs business B, and who runs business C? How do they report? What does succession planning look like?

That’s the thought process, at least at a high level. Once all these have been adequately captured then we can implement the family constitution.

Succession planning is mostly an overlooked issue. How are you catering for this as you transition from the first to the second generation?

The true test for this is when the founder and owner is incapacitated or has passed on. First is the guidance and handover by active participation of the running business. Second is the documenting of governance structures for future sustainability and the third is estate planning. There is an urgency to have the plan ready and documented.

Is there a “sweet spot” in the relationship between the business’ objectives and the family’s priorities?

This is something the Chairman has done well. He has always kept his personal finances separate from the business and that is a great lesson for me. Whenever he has felt that he needed to invest in a new venture, he has done this through the Board. Bear in mind that he could have easily signed off whatever he desired. He has been a role model on how to keep your personal life out of the business and I think that’s important. He has kept that discipline. He has a load of other things going on but he still insists on coming here every day. Among his many investments, TBM is the one that has grown into an employment business with day-to-day operations and sizable transactions. I think the key there is the discipline of separating the two.

What business do you desire to model yourself on and how do you get there?

During my time in South Africa, I observed that most African businesses grew to a certain size, brought in external shareholders, went on to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange but the family still retained a portion of the business.

I don’t think there’s a business that remains entirely 100% family owned. In South Africa for instance, the Wessels family founded Toyota South Africa as a franchise and years later Toyota Japan came and bought out the family. The patriarch scaled the business, made it so dominant and Toyota became the leading brand for the Toyopet Stout pick-up in South Africa. Toyota Japan saw the potential of the market and noted that it was too big to ignore. They bought majority stake in the Wessels family business.

Perhaps that is the transition we need to make.

Lastly what is the Chairman’s vision as well as yours moving forward into the future?

Setting up the right structures is his focus right now. Structures that will enable the business run transparently and create continuity beyond the second generation.

TBM appears to have its backpack ready for the corporate governance hike. Among the functional tools in the backpack is a family constitution which as described by Ronald is still under development.

Here is the Inquisitor’s take: A business is as dear to an entrepreneur as a child is dear to the parent. In the African set up, the role of the community in the well-being of a child is as imperative as that of the parent. Perhaps this is why Ronald notes the importance of external input to their board deliberations. Once a business scales to levels that impacts different stakeholders, then the community’s input is essential.

 The family’s efforts to formalize and strengthen the current governance structure is commendable especially in view of the aspirations the family has for the business. The Inquisitor hopes to document their progress in a future article. Stay tuned.

The Inquisitor.