Africa with her vast market is crisscrossed by large footprint of youthful population with passionate entrepreneurial spirits. The continent is made of countries such as Nigeria that have states with country-like populations and increasing market demands. This means that obtaining a market dominance in just one state in Nigeria can be equated to having a competitive market advantage in some other countries around the globe.
Intriguingly, Africa tends to be blessed with enormous challenges. This can invariably be deduced as great opportunities for investors with innovative solutions looking for problems of security, energy, technology and health services. In order words, this is an emerging market with enough problems waiting to be solved.
Africa is an exciting place to be in the world right now especially for creative and innovative minds willing to push their ideas to the limits. There are numerous second-mover advantages that can be secured in Africa. If you look back into the Americas, Europe, and Asia, you will notice that there exist solutions in these climes that can be customized to create value (happiness) across the African market.
For me, it seems that the growth of African countries may be driven not by multinational enterprises or large-scale firms but by small-medium scale enterprises (SMEs). The growth of SMEs is intertwined with the growth of venture capitalists (finance) and consulting (strategy and organization).
What the SME lacks are a clear strategy, strong management practices and access to capital. They need the success stories that will encourage and stimulate them to evolve competitive thinking, authentic awareness, and modular approach to market positioning.
I strongly believe that consulting firms will play a key role in the growth of the SMEs (and African economies) by providing organizational frameworks and contingent management practices for these SMEs. However, the consulting firms need to have a deep understanding of the dynamics of the local environment and be patient enough to hand-hold these emerging market players.
Michael Porter (1990) in “Competitive Advantage of Nations” posited that the competitiveness of a Nation is dependent on the competitiveness of her enterprises. This encourages me to argue further that the level of growth of a country is significantly linked to the level of consulting activities that take place in that country.
The future of the continent will be driven by SMEs and consulting firms who localize their methodology and get into the driver's seats will secure first-movers advantages.
This piece is contributed by:
Leesi Gabriel Gborogbosi
The author, Leesi Gabriel Gborogbosi, CEO of Gabriel Domale Consulting, is an expert in finance and strategy with emphasis on finance transformation, project finance, strategy implementation, performance management, corporate governance, and collaboration.
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