Downtown Cape Coast, Ghana

Pulsating business scene

I spent the last couple weeks on assignment in Accra, Ghana. On this trip, I’ve seen more growth than any time since my company started working there in ‘07. This is a period of unprecedented business activity and promising new projects within and beyond the mobile sector.  Meanwhile, new competitors from around the world are streaming in. This corner of Africa’s business scene is pulsating.

Astute businesses here are taking steps to preserve their client base and deepen relationships with their customers. We’re privileged to work with a new generation of African business leaders with the courage and determination to transform their offerings to meet the needs of an emerging class of consumers.

These are exciting times to work with African business leaders who take seriously their mandate for investing in new technologies and business practices.  We’re helping them gain competitive advantages by improving the service systems that support touch points, by adding new service channels, and by harvesting business intelligence, among other initiatives.

Building competitiveness

The most effective strategy for businesses to gain a competitive edge here is to understand and meet the customer needs better than their rivals.  Forward-thinking leaders here know that competing on service will help preserve their customer base and attract new customers even as the marketplace grows more crowded with aggressive new entrants.

Developing insights about customers’ preferences and purchasing drivers helps companies here achieve competitiveness as well as profitability.

It also creates jobs. Thriving regional businesses are Africa’s greatest engine of job creation and economic growth.  That’s why we’re committed to collaborating with leading African businesses, knowing that their success means more jobs and higher living standards across the region.

What it takes to work here

This question comes up frequently in my circles. I think Western companies operating here require a distinctive set of leadership and communication skills. Traditional business skills are necessary but not sufficient to address the complexity and scale of challenges on this continent.

But what’s needed for Western companies to operate effectively in this environment? We’ve explored this question with business leaders in various sectors as well as academics, entrepreneurs, and technology innovators.

Our conclusion is that it’s not enough to bring an open mind. We must be skillful listeners. That means checking our assumptions at the door and listening with the intention of gaining deeper insights about the market and, most importantly, the customer.  Deep collaboration with partners and clients is key.

Africa’s dynamism and complexity require going beyond merely tolerating ambiguity. Ambiguity, a ubiquitous feature here, must be embraced.  “Leaning into” uncertainty is critical to problem-solving in this market.

It’s critical to drop the need for control, otherwise it’s tough to handle the inherent ‘push-pull’ of a region that’s steeped in tradition while it grows so rapidly.

The ability to consider competing, often “fuzzy” options helps us work with stakeholders here to produce the imaginative, yet practical solutions that the region demands.

Finally, operating in the region requires extraordinary levels of patience and perseverance.  Change rarely happens in sweeping strokes here. Instead change occurs through “successive approximations”.  One step forward, two back but always moving ahead.  Patience — never my strongest card — is essential.  (Note: I’m working on it.)

People, Process and Technology – Redux

Succeeding here requires mastery in choreographing people, process and technology, and we help clients focus on all three dimensions — what we refer to as “service systems”.  Of the three, ‘people’ is the most critical and challenging to optimize.

Africa’s leading companies are now investing heavily in their people because they know, in the end, that this the only sustainable ‘differentiator’.

On this trip, I observed how one company in particular, a leading business process outsourcer and partner, transformed its organization into a high performance business by nurturing its talent.  It accomplished this feat by fostering competition among its teams while encouraging buy-in and autonomy among team members.

Watching their evolution over time has been both heartening and instructive. Today, I’d stack them up against any competitor in the world. This kind of innovative, customer-focused organization is poised to meet the needs of customers in any market.

Lessons from Africa

Like all prior trips to Africa, this one was a valuable learning experience on several levels.  I encountered a new generation of leaders and was impressed by their willingness to invest in becoming more competitive. The vitality of the continent’s nascent mobile-web industry is breathtaking.  Keep an eye on this exciting space…

I also learned more about my company on this journey. I’m reminded that what separates us from our peers is our passion for and commitment to producing substantial results for our clients and their customers across the sub-Sahara.  It’s energizing to work on a continent of one billion people whose economic growth is only surpassed by China, and I never forget what a rare opportunity it is.

***

What do you think?  I’d appreciate hearing your perspective.

………………………………….

Want more info on this subject?  You’re not alone.  There’s a plethora of books about conflicts and coups in Africa, but there are fewer resources about doing business on the continent.  I’ve previously recommended Paul Collier’s ‘07 book, The Bottom Billion, which remains relevant.

In ‘07, TED organized Africa: The Next Chapter, a series of talks which included the first TED conference held on the continent.  The series featured a stellar lineup of speakers on a range of topics about Africa.  Since then, TED has added new presentations about business development in Africa to the series, and  I heartily recommend it.

Here are some of my prior posts about the sub-Sahara.

I’d appreciate hearing your recommendations about resources on this topic.

Related posts:

1. A Distant, Quiet Mobile Revolution One thing

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ex Africa semper aliquid novi — Out of Africa always something new. ~Pliny the Elder

This week marks my company’s 3rd anniversary of working in Africa within our emerging markets service practice. Helping companies in the region to understand and serve the needs of their customers has been enriching on a personal level.  I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the growth of the sub-Sahara’s nascent service industry and I marvel at its favorable impact on a growing number of people in the region.

The ascendant mobile industry illustrates the point.  On a continent where few people have landlines due to the high cost of installing cabling, cell phones are bridging the communications gap. In many sub-Saharan markets, like Ghana where we work, mobile growth rates have been approaching 50% annually. While less than 20% have mobile phones now, hundreds of millions of Africans are expected to get handsets in the next few years. Keep in mind that this is a continent of almost a billion people. That’s a lot of potential new subscribers.

I’ve written about how people in emerging markets are using their new cell phones to perform essential functions like transferring money (m-banking). But mobile technology is connecting people in wondrous, new ways every day.  Local entrepreneurs are devising inventive means of helping people meet their needs. TradeNet, a company in Ghana, has developed an eBay-like site enabling buyers and sellers of agricultural products to post their needs and offerings using text messaging.  MPedigree, another Ghanaian venture, lets consumers check the serial numbers of malaria or other drugs to determine if they are legitimate, a pressing regional concern.

Mobile technology is a “disruptive force” that is quietly but inexorably changing the lives of Africans across all socio-economic strata. The industry employs thousands of workers, improving living standards and slowing the region’s talent drain. A recent London Business School study found that a 10% increase in mobile-phone penetration adds 0.6 percentage points to the economic growth rate.  According to Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs, “The cell phone is the single most transformative technology for development”.  It’s the region’s best hope for bridging the growing digital divide.

Make no mistake: the challenges of building on the early successes are steep. Despite inroads by equipment makers, handsets are still too pricey for people at the bottom of the pyramid who live on less than a couple dollars a day. Governments and companies must work more closely to make low cost handsets available to more people.  Telecom firms must invest in tools and practices to meet the growing needs of customers as their markets grow crowded with new competitors.   The mobile business is pushing Africa’s service industry forward rapidly.

There is growing uncertainty about how the global economic crisis will affect the region. While developing economies are tanking, analysts believe that regional GDP growth will slow but not recede. And, the region is expected  to bounce back sooner than developed nations.  While I’m not confident in analysts’ rosy predictions these days, I’d wager that we’ll see growth, albeit below the robust 5% rate the region has enjoyed in recent years.

When it comes to Africa, my rule is to always expect the unexpected.  Stability is something that people in the region don’t take for granted. In January, Ghana witnessed a peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another.  But memories of coups and tyranny are too recent and too close at hand to take stability for granted.

I genuinely enjoy working and spending time in the West Africa. It stimulates my mind, quells my restlessness and, at times, tries my patience. Often projects take longer to develop  than seems reasonable to a Westerner, and it’s imperative to figure that into any timetable.  But if you’re wired for adventure, it’s one of the most compelling business destinations on the globe.  I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with some of the sharpest, most resourceful entrepreneurial minds I’ve ever encountered.  And, there’s nothing like the thrill of making things happen in a region where doing so has such a profound impact on people’s daily lives.  There’s nothing like that.

More on the impact of the mobile industry in Africa from BusinessWeek.

Related posts:

1. Dispatch from West Africa Astute Afr

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In my lifetime, conditions have grown immeasurably better, freer and more prosperous for a majority of humanity, yet hand-wringing about the miserable remains the reflex mode for most coverage of planet earth.

Nowhere more so than in Africa, from which I’d just returned when the e-mail landed. During a short stay in Ghana, which will hold free elections in December, Vodafone had bought a majority stake in Ghana Telecom for $900 million (entering a fiercely competitive mobile-phone market) and I’d heard much about 6 percent annual growth, spreading broadband and new high-end cacao ventures.

Accra, the capital, is buzzing. Russian hedge funds are investing. New construction abounds. Technology enables people in the capital to text money transfers via mobile phone to poor relatives in the bush.

I think most of Cohen’s points are well taken. He doesn’t mention the discovery of oil off Ghana’s coast and the country’s fiber projects or the investments being made by multinationals in the country’s business infrastructure.  The business climate in the region is improving, albeit in successive approximations.  The country’s services sector — chiefly teleco and financial services — are contributing to Ghana’s high annual growth rate.  Inflation is a growing concern, but so far it’s been manageable.  The process leading up to this December’s election should be interesting.  So far so good.

It’s also true that Africa’s success stories aren’t newsworthy to many news consumers.  We mostly hear about war, corruption, disease and rampant poverty.  On this point, I recommend Charlayne Hunter Gault’s “New News Out of Africa: Uncovering Africa’s Renaissance,” — it’s  chiefly about South Africa, but pertinent to the problem of media coverage across the continent.

If Ghana’s political environment remains stable and forward-looking, the country will be in a position to contribute even more of its stalwart intellectual capital to a “globalized” resource (R=G) community in the coming years.  So, even if the global media is fixated on the region’s challenges, the numbers will support a different story.  So look for Ghana and other gazelle nations of the sub-Sahara to lead the way.

Related posts:

1. Dispatch from West Africa Astute Afr

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A confluence of forces may be working in the country’s favor. The vitality of its government institutions, its deep appreciation of civil liberties, and its fiercely independent media have all made Ghana a beacon of stability in contrast to many of its neighbors. In addition, legions of tech-savvy Ghanaians, many educated abroad, are accelerating the country’s technology boom. These factors, coupled with the nation’s intense entrepreneurial drive, are helping Ghana build its service sector from the ground up.

As an English-speaking country, Ghana is poised to deliver a range of BPO services to other Anglophone nations in the West African sub-region and beyond. This particularly applies to its oil-rich neighbor, Nigeria with a population exceeding 140 million, the largest country in Africa. While Nigeria has made great strides in reforming its institutions recently, the country has long battled institutional corruption. Nigeria’s growing financial services sector is already looking to Ghana as a safe harbor for delivering its customer-facing and back-office services. And its telecom sector is the world’s fastest growing after that of China.

There’s been a lot of buzz about partnering with African companies lately, starting with the World Economic Forum in Davos (“Promise of Africa”), followed by this year’s TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference held in Monterey, California, last March. TED featured a particularly inspiring talk about doing business in Africa by Ngozi Okojo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, who served briefly as Foreign Affairs Minister – the first woman to hold either post. She warns business people and investors not to miss the Africa boat. Africa, she tells us, is open for business.

Okojo-Iweala later wrapped up a special 4-day session held in Aruysha, Tanzania, last June, called Africa – the Next Chapter, by discussing the flow of private investment in Africa. She pointed out that emerging confidence in Africa is creating exciting opportunities for collaborating with smart African entrepreneurs. The take away is that this is only the beginning.  One thing for sure – it’s energizing doing business in Ghana.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.