Editor,

RE: "We lack product and branding developers” (The New Times, March 2).

I would like to disagree with Jean Francois. We do not lack people who have the skills to develop brands. The statement about the need to train brand developers implies that these are people with skills that we do not have in the country.

To me, people you call ‘brand developers’ are nothing but branding consultants who decided to specialise in that field. But that does not mean that they have special knowledge or skill that nobody else has. They are people who studied business at the University and in Rwanda we do have a good number of them. Is there a market for that kind of consulting business yet?

In my view, the problem is that most businesses in our country know nothing about branding or re-branding and the majority wouldn’t even get interested even if you were to teach them about its importance.

In sum, we have trained people but the market for them is still primitive on issues branding. How can you even talk about branding in a country where many businesses are still operating without having to worry about insuring their multi-million businesses?

Seth