Scaling and Doing business in Africa

As a young person leaving my village in the north central Nigeria and then journeying to Lagos, Trading was one of the first options before the need for education halted that plan.

In that short experience of hawking around the Idumota market in Lagos Nigeria and having mastered the mystery of making money and the possibility of using money to change the course of life, I went on self-discovery about why Africa remain poor, despite the enormous potentials.

After few years of experiential study, I discovered what was better put together by the UN Conference on Trade and Development Statistics in their summation as at 2017, that Africa trade in this order: Intra Africa trading is less than 20%, Africa trade with the North Americas is 30%, Africa trade with Asia 60% while Africa trade with Europe is 70%. This simple statistic was not making sense, like we say in Africa, the Maths was not matching ! .Further research shows that the reason for less trade within Africa continent especially by it bordering neighbors include: roadblocks, global single financial currency, logistics, lack of Infrastructures, cost of travels among others.

But in 2020, the pandemic revealed the real truth, which is that obstacles to trade is human deliberate obstacle. No continent is super power and we can make this happen if only we so desire it. With the incremental tech enabled businesses railing in sky rock profits in the COVID 19 era, the world was truly a global village in 2020 and trading with our neighbour and beyond became possible.

Our company, HRLeverage Africa registered its affiliate business in 3 African countries during the pandemic beginning with Uganda , Ghana and Kenya. Kenya specifically was an option because of its cosmopolitan nature and being situated within the horn of Africa , making it easier to connect with Foreign direct investment coming from East Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and other Indian Ocean Islands .

Aside the need to encourage intra Africa trade, building business infrastructure and helping to retain African money in Africa was also a major strategy for starting up as an entrepreneur from Africa. Our business is strategy entails building for other startup who needs some form of hand holding and space to incubate their ideas across the Continent. With similar passion, we birthed a sister company OfficePhase , this is meant to provide private serviced office spaces and shared work spaces for start ups all over Africa. At this pace it may be correct to say we are doing everything possible to making doing business in Africa scalable.

Our serviced and flexible office spaces help companies get and manage top talent through our outsourcing products and physical office infrastructure presently in 8 Africa countries .

Not withstanding, any success that cannot be replicated is not worth any scientific hypothesis right? Yes, it is on this note that this newsletter and communication has been birthed so everyone can get an insights into ''the hows and the process'' of running a scalable and successful business in Africa despite the odds.

Please expect practical steps on business insights across the 54 countries in Africa.

See you in the next publication shortly !