09/12/2025
THE ZAMBIAN COMPANY THAT USED WRONG DATA TO MAKE BIG DECISIONS
Meet Mr. Bwalya from Lusaka, owner of a fast-growing distribution company. He bought an ERP system because everyone at Chamber of Commerce meetings kept saying, “Digital transformation is the future.”
He didn’t want to look like the only one still using a notebook from Shoprite’s back-to-school promotion.
So he bought the system.
But he never cleaned his data.
He never trained his staff.
He never even read the user manual.
The first month-end came.
The ERP showed that his company had negative stock of cooking oil.
Negative.
Meaning, according to the system, customers were buying cooking oil the company no longer had.
Meaning the business was operating in the spiritual realm.
He ignored it.
The next report showed that his profits had gone up by 300 percent. He celebrated.
He bragged to everyone.
He even wanted to take a loan to expand.
Until the auditor visited and asked a very simple question.
“Where are you getting these numbers?”
The accountant said, “The system generated them.”
The auditor opened the system and found the problem.
Two sales reps had mastered the art of pressing wrong buttons with confidence.
One had put 1000 cartons instead of 100.
Another created a supplier called "Test Supplier" and accidentally recorded a real payment under it.
The stock count showed 200 cartons in the system, but the warehouse physically had 23, and one half-full sample.
The ERP was not lying.
It was just reporting the nonsense fed into it.
But Mr. Bwalya made decisions based on all that nonsense.
He nearly expanded a business that was actually shrinking.
He nearly invested money he didn’t have.
He nearly fired the warehouse manager based on fictional data.
The problem was never the system.
The problem was the humans pressing buttons like they were playing a game.
When he finally hired a proper consultant to retrain the entire team, the consultant asked, “Why didn’t you call earlier?”
Bwalya said, “Because the system said we were doing well.”
The consultant shook his head.
“Sir, the system was hallucinating because your staff fed it confusion.”
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