Africa’s Father Christmas in $100 million ways

If you’re an aspiring African entrepreneur, 2014 Christmas will make you go “ho,ho,ho” after Nigerian billionaire Tony Elumelu (pictured below), announced earlier this month that he would spend $100 million for 10 years to nurture 10,000 African entrepreneurs. 

Tony Elumelu will spend $100 million to nurture 10,000 African entrepreneurs.

Image courtesy of www.forbes.com

The ‘Africa rising’ buzzword usually takes on the shape of an African marketplace that’s harvest-ready for Chinese, American and European brands, the usual suspects; and barren for African brands, except in supporting actor roles such as suppliers. In fact, African governments aid this steam train along by hosting “international” investors – or travelling to China, Europe, etc – to promote the investment opportunities in their countries. Have you ever heard of Kenya hosting a Senegalese delegation of potential investors? Tony’s lasting impact, however, will be psychological for both the entrepreneurs and customers. 10,000 African brand owners might get to realise that Africa’s rising for them, too. They know the languages of their respective markets, the terrains, the challenges, the opportunities. They’ll be proud that a fellow African had faith in them, not an international NGO. Customers might like to know that they’ll be supporting businesses whose profits are reinvested locally, not shipped to New York. They’ll perhaps take confidence from the fact that the relationships they build with these African businesses are long term, not pegged on short-term considerations such as election outcomes.

So, if you’re another African billionaire, and according to the Forbes’ 2014 list, there are 29 of you, will you also support the development of African brands, in your own unique way, or is it another opportunity to buy another yacht?

The whistle that blows customers away

One unusual website feature caught my eye recently as I was researching Tanzanian brands that have an active social media presence. National Microfinance Bank’s website (www.nmbtz.com), has a “whistle blowing” section that allows both its employees and customers to anonymously report fraudulent activities in the bank. 
That got me thinking about Kenyan banks which lost $907,797 (approximately Ksh82 million) in the second quarter of 2014 due to fraud, according to the East African newspaper. To retain their customers’ confidence and loyalty, banks usually deal with the suspects “internally.” However, if Kenyan banks enabled customers to report fraudulent behaviour anonymously, they might only reduce the losses and inconveniences they experience, they’d signal to their customers that they care about their employees’ integrity. Perhaps they could offer customers rewards for information that uncovers fraud, like National Microfinance Bank does. Unless they want to continue proving Tanzanians right with their theory that Kenya is a “man-eat-man” society.

The engineers got equity

If there’s a profession in Kenya that’s jealously protecting its brand equity, it’s engineering. Through the profession’s regulatory body, the Engineers Board of Kenya; some engineering courses at universities such as the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) and the Technical University of Mombasa have been denied accreditation. One result is that students who studied for these courses have to redo them before they graduate and think of affixing the prefix ‘engineer…’ before their first names. If you’re Kenyan, you don’t need a weather forecast to know the students’ immediate reaction.

If only the PSV sector cared about protecting its brand equity as much as it cares about its profits

Image: http://www.asirt.org/ASIRTKenya/ASIRTKenyaActivities/MatatuSafety.aspx

Turning to for-profit companies operating in Kenya, Wananchi Group recently exhibited that it cares about its equity from the top when Richard Alden, the Wananchi Group CEO, apologized via a newspaper ad to consumers for Zuku’s 10-day service disruption. He even used Swahili: ‘poleni sana!’

Now, if only our friends in the PSV sector showed the same zeal in delivering a great consumer experience as they do when they protest against ‘police harassment.’