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Appendix 4c
Culture & Doing Business In Africa: 2 October, 2018
https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/opinion/africas-rich-diversity-is-a-challenge-to-business-1662772
https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/pmsa.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/Events/N_Ekpott_KS_9_May.pdf

Despite the euphoric growth story over the past decade, Africa remains the world’s most underdeveloped region, with about 60
percent of the population still living on less than $4 a day. Social and political institutions are weak or absent. But it is Africa’s rich
diversity of 54 countries, with more than 1 000 spoken dialects, a tapestry of cultural and tribal groupings and the ever-changing

arena of social, political and economic rules and systems that pose the greatest challenge.

This demands a nuanced approach, focused on local dynamics. In Africa one size does not fit all and a single Africa strategy will
prove ineffective. Take east African regional leader Kenya, and west African powerhouse Nigeria, as examples. Both are
Anglophone countries with increasingly progressive and familiar institutions, but their market dynamics are vastly different.
Nigerian consumers tend to favour imported brands, while Kenyans prefer to “buy local”. Even though UK-based Diageo owns
the controlling share of East African Breweries, it still markets its primary beer brand, Tusker, as proudly Kenyan. Another contrast
is scale. Kenya is much smaller than Nigeria and relatively insignificant in the global context.

You have South Africa in the mix –a melting pot of afrocentric and eurocentric sub-sultures with an aparthied past that has created
a society where trade unions and even senior managers expect lengthy consultation on any aspect of company strategy before it
can be implemented. There is also the agitation for empowerment (Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment, local content,
indiginisation) and a government too willing to intervene in the market to protect jobs and reduce social inequlity.

These differences illustrate that investment decisions cannot be based on data from a spreadsheet. It is crucial for investors to
match statistics with geography, socio-political and cultural insights, and on-the-ground experience. Data must be generated from
on-the-spot experience, or through experts immersed in understanding individual African markets. Deciphering the African
business terrain is far more complicated than it seems. Opportunities abound in Africa. But there is no single template or way of
doing business across Africa. One size certainly does not fit all.

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