Amazon’s Leadership Principle “Invent and Simplify” sounds grand until you remember that, in South Africa, invention often starts with someone saying, “Sharp, I will make a plan,” while balancing a customer message, a courier delay and a half-packed order on the same afternoon.
South African entrepreneurs are often brilliant at improvisation. We can sell through marketplace listings, social messages and community referrals with a kind of practical fluency that does not always show up neatly on a dashboard. We know how to work with what we have. We know how to keep the conversation alive. We know how to build trust through proximity.
This is the rise of conversational commerce, local style. The sale does not always begin with a polished checkout page. Sometimes it begins in a message, a question, a recommendation, or a quick “Do you still have this?” That is powerful because the customer is not only buying the product. They are testing the person, the promise and the trust signal in real time.
That proximity matters. The global giants have scale, data and fulfilment networks that blink with terrifying confidence. Smaller local businesses often have something else: context. They know which courier struggles with which area, which customer needs reassurance before paying, and which product photo causes confusion every second Thursday.
That is living data.
The problem is that living data often stays trapped in someone’s head, buried in message threads, or locked inside “ask Thandi, she knows” operating logic.
This is where Invent and Simplify becomes useful. Not as a shiny innovation slogan with conference perfume. Not as pressure to build an app by Friday. Not as a demand that every small business suddenly become a miniature global platform with a warehouse, chatbot and dashboard named Kevin.
Invent and Simplify asks a more practical question: where is the business using hustle to carry confusion that the process should have removed?
Make-a-plan energy is a strength. It becomes a risk when the same workaround keeps carrying confusion the process should have removed.
The South African marketplace is changing. Customers are more comfortable buying online, through social channels and from smaller sellers they discover digitally. They still value human contact, but they are also becoming less patient with vague pricing, unclear delivery and missing stock information.
This is the tension. Local closeness is powerful, but closeness without structure becomes tiring. The seller becomes the search engine. The customer becomes the reminder system. The business keeps moving, but it moves through memory, effort and panic.
That is not simplicity. That is admin smoke coming out the bonnet.
Here is where Lean Six Sigma can help, as long as we do not invite it in wearing a lanyard and frightening the packing table. One useful tool is called TIMWOODS. It is a Lean way of spotting waste in a process. The letters stand for eight common forms of waste, but the heart of the tool is simple: look for work that consumes time, effort or trust without adding value for the customer.
In plain seller language, TIMWOODS asks: where is the business working hard for no good reason?
Where hustle is carrying confusion
For this article, we do not need to unpack the whole toolbox like someone selling Tupperware at a family braai. Start with three wastes that show up often in small selling environments: waiting, overprocessing and defects.
Waiting happens when the customer cannot move because the next step is unclear. They are waiting for the price, the delivery fee or the stock confirmation that should already have been easy to find.
Overprocessing happens when the business repeats work that should have been made easier. The same answer gets typed again. The same payment detail gets explained again. The same product question gets handled manually again.
- Waiting happens when the customer cannot move because the next step is unclear.
- Overprocessing happens when the business repeats work that should have been made easier.
- Defects happen when confusion turns into rework.
You can have a clear dispatch update routine, even if you do not have the automated tracking systems used by larger players. You can have one simple return message that is easy to find, even if you do not have a dedicated return portal. You can have a basic stock check before accepting payment, even if you do not have the live inventory systems available to bigger platforms.
Turn the useful workaround into a system
That is not overcomplicating the business. That is removing the potholes before the customer has to drive through them.
The fear, of course, is that structure will make a small business feel cold. Nobody wants a warm local brand to start speaking like a policy document that escaped from a bank. But good process does not remove personality. It gives personality somewhere safe to stand.
When the basics are clear, warmth works better. Humour lands better. A friendly update feels reassuring instead of suspicious. A customer is far more likely to enjoy your tone when they are not still trying to figure out whether the next step has disappeared into the digital long grass.
So what does “from make-a-plan to operating model” look like in real life? It looks like taking repeated questions seriously. If customers keep asking how delivery works, the delivery information needs a better home. If they keep asking what options are available, the product information needs cleaning up. If they keep chasing updates, the update routine is not strong enough yet.
Pick one repeated friction point and simplify it. Not ten. One. Create one saved response. Clean up one product description. Add one delivery explanation before the customer asks.
Pick one friction point and simplify it
That is invention at ground level. Not shiny. Not theatrical. Not innovation wearing sunglasses indoors. Just a better way to carry trust.
This is where South African entrepreneurs can learn from the big brothers without becoming them. We do not need to outspend the global giants. Most local businesses cannot, and trying to do so would be like arriving at a braai with one chop and challenging the whole butcher.
The better move is to outlocalise, outlisten and out-simplify.
Use the proximity. Use the trust. Use the local context. But do not make the person closest to the customer carry every part of the process through memory and charm alone. That is how trust gets tired.
The better move is to outlocalise, outlisten and out-simplify.
The future does not belong only to the biggest sellers with the biggest platforms. It belongs to the sellers who make buying feel easy, trustworthy and human without turning every order into a tiny admin obstacle course.
So keep the gees. Keep the relationship. Keep the clever local workarounds that get you through a difficult day. But give the business somewhere stronger to stand.
Because if the customer needs airtime, patience and a prayer just to complete the purchase, the problem is not the customer journey. It is the operating model. And that, dear seller, is where the next invention begins.
This is a personal thought piece, written from my own customer experience and process improvement perspective. It draws on publicly available information and reflects my own views.