They fed the hippos

A story is told by Ernesto Sirolli, about their experience working in Africa. With good intentions, Ernesto and his fellow Italians decided to teach ‘unsuspecting’ Zambians how to grow tomatoes, zucchini, and other vegetables in the Zambezi Valley. They had been shocked that such fertile lands weren’t being put to great use, and went out of their way to motivate local people to work with them.

Once the crops had grown massively, a group of hippos came by night and ate all of them. Upon quizzing the locals in the aftermath of the incident, their response was ‘that’s why we don’t do agriculture here.’

Don’t be alarmed, you won’t find hippos everywhere in Africa to stop you in your tracks. But the way we do business or create products, both locals and internationals have striking similarities with Ernesto and his team’s journey to feeding the hippos.

Operating in silos

We don’t collect or process enough data in Africa, and that’s not helping our growth. Business symposiums and exhibitions are great, but those one-day events are not enough. Many times, we’re guilty of approaching them as channels to enforce what consumers should buy instead of using the opportunities to learn what they want.

On one hand, businesses are throwing stuff at the wall trying to find what sticks. On the other, customers are begrudgingly settling for what’s available and only feel alive when they import something which they feel represents them.

We’re operating in silos.

The main sticking point

Leave alone the well-documented structural, political, or social challenges harboring Africa; for businesses, actionable data and insights are a nightmare.

You may be able to find statistics about the average age of women business owners in the developed world or perhaps even granular details such as the average size of the turkey they eat on Thanksgiving Day. The latter may be an exaggeration but you got the point.

The call for creators

As a team, we always joke about how you can close your eyes, randomly pick an industry and start a business; you’d be able to at least compete with the current players. Except for the likes of telecoms and others, it's true for most African countries.

Our infrastructure and markets are still developing and almost guarantee everyone an opportunity to get a piece of the pie. The diverse cultures, languages, and environments however pose unique challenges for businesses but also overwhelming opportunities. In Nigeria, there are over 500 spoken languages and a population size of at least 200 million,  three times as much as the United Kingdom.

To effectively tap into Africa’s opportunities, creators will need to work together in meandering the challenges. And we would argue that anyone who lives or has lived in Africa for a considerable amount of time, is a potential creator.

When businesses and customers are given a platform to create together, the benefits to our society are endless. We explain a few of them in the following paragraphs.

1. Real-time data and insights

Customer feedback and industry insights are not only invaluable to businesses’ bottom line but pave the way for consistent evolution and improvement of production processes. 

Looking at a very basic example, if customers favor product A ahead of B and there’s enough data to support that, production output will reflect those choices. In the end, there would be better utilization of resources which in the long run, contributes to overall economic growth.

Additionally, potential investors are also able to use real-time data and insights as intelligence to create better economic opportunities. Accurate trends and models can also be created to gain better foresight of the future and assist in planning.

2. Broad reach

What would you do if you had access to almost all the exciting new products on the market and businesses challenging old frontiers? Whether you’re an investor or a potential customer, that prospect is exciting but seems unrealistic.

But we can start somewhere. Some innovative and upcoming businesses with no substantial marketing budgets can benefit from more exposure across digital or physical channels in the presence of a collaborative platform. What may take them a couple of years to achieve, could happen in a few months and accelerate the growth of those businesses as well as their ability to create employment.

3. A womb of sustainable partnerships

We must prepare ourselves for the opportunities that’ll come with the potential realization of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA). The ambitious trade pact with a current count of 43 state parties as of July 2022 will create the world’s largest free trade area by putting in place a single market for goods and services of almost 1.3 billion people across Africa.

While work is being done to complete all agreements at macroeconomic levels, the African private sector should intensify efforts to build relationships that transcend borders. 

A unified platform where African businesses can share and discuss industry knowledge, suppliers, and buyers alike, will most certainly create wombs for sustainable partnerships.

4. The talent opportunity & opportunity for talent

In 2030, Africa is projected to have 42% of the global youth population and the largest workforce in the world by 2050. At least 1 billion African people will be under the age of 25. A static that punctuated China’s transformation into a global economic superpower in the 1960s.

Human resources will always be key factors of production regardless of the times we live in. If we collectively utilize Africa’s key positioning in the labor market by equipping our young people with relevant skills, we can reduce the brain drain. Not only will this power our production processes but puts our people in stronger positions to bargain for better contracts, better positions and increase their ability to invest in their home countries.

The intricate details of how such platforms may be set up can be easily figured out when we collaborate and create together.

What It Looks Like in Practice

Defining the most effective way to create co-creation and collaborative platforms amongst African businesses as well as consumers is tricky. Though alike, we also have differences across industries, cultures, and nationalities that need to be factored in.

We can however use guiding principles that ought to be integrated with such platforms, whether physical or digital. These principles include continuity, inclusivity, and neutrality. 

When carefully inculcated, regardless of the channel employed, results from the unified platforms will be free from political or social bias and present credible as well as up-to-date actionable insights useful to all.

We’ll discuss these principles in detail in subsequent posts. What are your thoughts on creating effective collaboration platforms for African businesses as well as with their customers?