{"id":518,"date":"2014-09-03T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/?p=518"},"modified":"2016-10-28T14:12:58","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T13:12:58","slug":"thinking-long-term-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/africa\/2014\/09\/03\/thinking-long-term-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking long-term in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back after the break! When I came back from Africa,\u00a0one of my colleagues at IESE<\/a> told me: “Africa, you’re re-energized!” Indeed, I am. One of the energy shots came from meeting the CEO of a leading bank in Kenya and East Africa<\/a>. His approach illustrates that thinking long-term pays off in Africa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

To the question “Why did the bank become international?<\/strong>,” the CEO’s answer included as a rationale: “To contribute to the socioeconomic transformation of Africa.<\/strong>” And he went on to explain his long-term approach to business in general, and to internationalization<\/a> in particular. This is in sharp contrast<\/a> to the short-termism that’s so prevalent among Western companies<\/a><\/strong>. And the best part of it is the conviction \u2013 backed by results \u2013 that by not focusing on profits, profits will come eventually.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Bankarization:<\/a>
Bankarization: a contributor to socio-economic transformation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To illustrate with one example: they entered South Sudan in 2006, when the country was starting to come out of the war.<\/strong> At the time, no bank was operating in the country.<\/strong> There was no governmental agency where to go and apply for a license to operate. They literally got it in the middle of a bush! At this time, the perspective of making profits in South Sudan was far in the horizon but the management team thought that ‘bankarization’ would contribute to the country’s transformation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Their thinking is that they will see profits in the next 10-20 years,<\/strong> the time it will take for South Sudan to be at the level Uganda is. There are some other institutions which are setting up in the country now.<\/strong> However, because this bank has been there during the difficult times, they are the bank of choice and they have more than a 50% market share.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is there any lesson to be learned here?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome back after the break! When I came back from Africa,\u00a0one of my colleagues at IESE told me: “Africa, you’re re-energized!” Indeed, I am. One of the energy shots came from meeting the CEO of a leading bank in Kenya and East Africa. His approach illustrates that thinking long-term pays off in Africa. To the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1654,"featured_media":525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247,99314,77626],"tags":[7967,45502,121,139,80751,80747,1267],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","category-social-and-institutional-context","category-entrepreneurship-in-africa","tag-banking","tag-east-africa","tag-economic-growth","tag-finance","tag-internacionalization","tag-management-style","tag-social-development","megacategoria-mc-africa"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t