Why do African Business Fail?

Africans don’t seem to do that well in business. Of course this is just a statement, one could count a number of people who are doing very well, and are very well off from business enterprises. But the target of my article is ordinary business persons, small scale or medium scale businesses. We don’t seem to be very good at that. For one we seem to lack ideas… actually, we didn’t even realise we can make money out culture and our way of life until quite recently… and incidentally, have you ever noticed that most successful tour and travel agencies that operate on the continent are run by foreigners?This is not a political blog… we are not going to get into all that colonialism and subjugation anger here. We are trying to figure out why Africans don’t do so well in businesses.
The Nigerians try, but… well those engage in illegal activities haven’t exactly given the other honest and hard working Nigerians a good name. And yes, there are a couple of successful names in South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania to name a few but they seem to be exceptions to the rule the rest of us don’t really do that well in business, at least not in comparison to our Asian colleagues. There are many ideas as to why this is so, many people blame colonialism and neo-colonialism, trade restrictions and globalisation, the problem is India suffered the exact same history, for just as long as we did, and look where that country is right now. So why do African businesses fail?My own assessment is – African businesses fail because most of the people who start those businesses aren’t mad enough to do something radically different. They are not insane enough to try something new, and something innovative.

Tell me if it’s not true… in your country, if one person starts a cyber cafe, soon the whole town mushrooms into cyber cafes right? One person starts a kiosk, and before you know it everyone with a pension is starting a kiosk. One person starts breeding chicken and before you know it there is an overflow of eggs into the market.Africans don’t try new things. They wait until they see someone else try it, and if it seems to make money, they rush and duplicate the business to the very last bit, sometimes even to the name!

You can’t imagine how many women hit their thirties, get a bit of cash and go like… I should start a salon! This is exactly where the new generation of entrepreneurs need to start.
We need to challenge ourselves- together, lets start changing the way Africa does its business. If you are already in business start with this question- what can you do to your business today, without adding any money that would make your product or your service a newer idea, something your clients have not come across before? 

If you are not in business ask yourself, what could I contribute that would be completely new, and would meet a need that has not yet been met?

Originally posted in the madbusinesswoman blog