This week we had a case premier in my MBA class. We discussed the brand-new case Innovis Telecom. Actually, both the students and I enjoyed the discussion quite a lot! Founded in 2010, Innovis is an Indian company that provides services to telecom operators. Uganda and Myanmar are its main markets but they also operate […]
Trading Times Across East African Borders
My young friend Giovanni came back from a visit to East Africa last week. As part of the trip, he traveled by car from Uganda to Kenya. This involves crossing the Malaba border where trucks can wait anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks. But the driver was an expert at crossing this border, so they only […]
African Investments in Africa
Great news! . This is according to a perspective paper by Ralf Krüger and Ilan Strauss published by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investments. So it looks like African development is finally beginning to come from within the continent. Over 400 Africa-to-Africa projects (which I like to call intra-African development projects) were carried out between January 2003 and January […]
It takes local management to succeed in Africa
At a meeting with the management team of a company in Nairobi, I was asked: “Our company started operations in Nigeria two years ago. So far, we have not succeeded. Based on your discussions with Pan-African companies, why do you think this is the case?” I had some seconds to reflect. It could not be […]
The challenges of internationalizing in East Africa
If you are an Africa connoisseur (or if you have followed this blog), you will know that Africa is not a single entity. And neither are African regions: not all countries in one region are the same. This is more obvious in Western Africa where the anglophone/francophone distinction is immediate. It may be less obvious […]