Conquering Africa; what the story of South African firms in Kenya – and Nigeria – teaches those looking for riches
At the arrival of democracy in 1994, South Africa was only making $11 million from Nigeria. Within a decade, that had gone up to $11 billion.
In June 2015, Nestle, the world’s biggest food company, announced it had 15% of its workforce in sub-Saharan Africa amid slower growth of the continent’s middle class.
Cornel Krummenacher, chief executive officer of Nestle’s equatorial Africa unit, caused a stir after he was cited as saying by the Financial Times famously saying; “We thought this would be the next Asia, but we have realised the middle class here in the region is extremely small and it is not really growing”.
Krummenacher’s comments typified the frustration both non-African and African businesses often have coming to grips with doing business on the continent.
But there are those who fallen many times, picked themselves, and finally succeeded. Many of them are to be found in South Africa. They offer some lessons on how to hit pay dirt on the continent.
