Welcome back from the break! I took some holidays but also I attended a couple of conferences. One of them (the meeting of the Academy of International Business sub-Saharan Africa Chapter) took place in August in Johannesburg (Jo’burg to friends). It was a fantastic opportunity to share ideas with scholars and business people based or […]
Ease of Doing Business Rankings in sub-Saharan Africa
The Managing Director of a Kenyan company with operations across East Africa explained to me that “Rwanda is embracing investors. They have an organized, one-stop process. We were done with registration within a week.” Her experience doing business in Burundi was completely different. “The laws are not publicized and they change overnight”, she said. “Half […]
Localizing international quality standards
Standards are meant to ensure that products and services are safe, reliable and of good quality. More often than not, there are multiple ways in which standards can be met, depending on the context and external conditions. That’s why it’s important to localize international quality standards, ensuring the standard is achieved but taking into account local […]
Doing business in Africa: some practical advice
Last week I heard a talk by a consultant from Roland Berger who specialized in Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa. He offered some practical advice for doing business in Africa. This is what he said, and some of my experiences of how it holds true: 1. Take market intelligence and customer understanding seriously: product-oriented companies won’t make […]
Pygmalion in (African) management
“A lady is a woman who is treated like a lady.” You remember probably this line from My Fair Lady. In a classic Harvard Business Review article, J. Sterling Livingston coined the expression “Pygmalion in management.” The main point of the article was that “a manager’s expectations are the key to a subordinate’s performance and […]
