‘Who you know’ is no more a key factor in business – Lanre

Foundation of some business axioms is shifting grounds, according to experts. For instance, do you wait for your time and opportunity or do you create the opportunity. Secondly, is getting business or employment still depends on who you know?

Whatever side, arguably one belongs to, Lanre Adisa, Chief Executive Officer of Noah’s Ark Communications Limited, Nigeria’s creative agency said recently that securing business, to some extent depends on who you know but that belief is changing fast.

“That maxim is changing but not completely eliminated. But we can see that supremacy of knowledge is getting more pronounced today”. He told BusinessDay recently that companies are investing more on their people and the workforce is demanding commensurate knowledge from partner agencies.

According to him, who you know is still a factor but it is not the key factor going forward from what is happening in the industry today.

“These days, it is about what agencies and people bring to the table as the market-place is becoming unforgiving than it used to be. Therefore, it is not enough to keep agencies on the basis of knowing them”.

Lanre who said Noah’s Ark values its team said the company entered the creative industry in 2008 during the dominance of big agencies “but what set us apart is power of idea and what we can offer and ability to find partners who believe in that philosophy.

“It was important that we really could show people what we could do as we did not have money. Our industry as some point used to be who you knew. I am not saying that is over, but that is changing so fast”.

While some writers strongly believe that getting business largely depends on who you know, others said it depends on what you know rather than who you know. In his article: Networking is not about who you know, it is about who knows you, Ken Sundheim of KAS Placement Staffing, writes that  if relying on someone else does not work, how do you  get to where you want to be in your career? The answer is simple. Start subscribing to the attitude that it is who knows you and what you can do for them instead of the “it’s who you know” frame of mind.

 Daniel Obi