{"id":451,"date":"2014-06-25T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=451"},"modified":"2016-10-28T14:45:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T13:45:26","slug":"the-challenges-of-internationalizing-in-east-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/06\/25\/the-challenges-of-internationalizing-in-east-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The challenges of internationalizing in East Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are an Africa connoisseur (or if you have followed this blog), you will know that Africa is not a single entity.<\/strong><\/a> 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\u00a0 immediate. It may be less obvious in Eastern Africa where English is predominant. Managers from companies aiming at internationalizing in East Africa<\/strong> need to bear this in mind, and be ready to cope with the challenges<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/a>
Some African international banks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One Kenyan bank decided to expand to Uganda: <\/strong>it’s a neighboring country.,\u00a0and you can get there in one hour<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Before becoming a Pan-African bank<\/a>, it made sense for them to become an Eastern African one.\u00a0The bank enjoyed momentum in Kenya, and the management team took for granted that the brand would be embraced by Ugandans with the same enthusiasm as by Kenyans<\/strong>. They acquired a bank in Uganda, taking over 26 branches and opening 18 more in the first year. The new branches were hosted in 3- or 4-floor office buildings.<\/p>\n

It turned out they didn’t have the success they had expected<\/strong>. What did they learn<\/strong> from the Uganda experience?:<\/p>\n