How the African movable assets bill can unleash innovation opportunities for the rural economy

Somewhere in Kenya, 4th June 2012 (Photo: Niti Bhan)

As Kenya joins Zambia and Zimbabwe in ratifying a Movable Property Security Rights Act, there’s a sense that the floodgates to innovation in access to finance might be taking place in rural Africa, south of the Sahara and north of South Africa.

Kenya’s law also goes beyond the cows and goats and allows a borrower to collateralise future receivables arising from contractual relationships.

How it ends up being implemented will set the stage for the next big disruption in financial inclusion. In the meantime, let’s take a closer look at the opportunity space for innovation in the informal and rural economy that dominates these operating environments.

1. A whole new bank, designed to meet the needs of rural Africa

Last night, a tweet by Charles Onyango-Obbo struck me forcibly, and reminded me of our Banking the Unbanked proposal crafted for ICICI back in January of 2007.

The very fact that contemporary thoughtleaders in the Kenyan banking industry are unable to take the concept of livestock as collateral for loans seriously, taken together with the deeply embedded assumptions of the formal economy’s financial structure leaves the door wide open to disruption.

It would not be too difficult to conceptualize a rural, co-operative bank custom designed for the local operating environment. In Kenya, where the mobile platform provides clear evidence of the viability, feasibility, and desirability of innovative financial tools and services that work for irregular income streams and provide the flexibility, reciprocity, and negotiability inherent in the cooperative local economies, such a bank could change the social and economic development landscape overnight.

In fact, one could conceivably foresee this “bank for rural Africa” scaling far beyond Kenya’s borders.

2. Insurance sector must respond to banking disruption

The domino effect of disruption in the banking sector should kickstart the stagnant insurance industry that has been ineffectually attempting to scale outside of the formal economy’s neatly defined boundaries. Bankers willing to take livestock as collateral for loans will therefore require insurance on their movable asset as a surety against the risk of disease, or drought.

Current products tend to emerge from the international aid industry, seeking to insure smallholder farmers against the shock of losing their livestock to climate related disasters such as prolonged drought, or an epidemic of illness. There is a dearth of relevant and appropriately designed insurance products from the private sector targeting the needs of the rural economy. For all the talk of African urbanization, even the most optimistic projections show that East Africa’s rural population will continue to dominate.

Thus, this an opportunity ripe for the plucking, given the right mix of product, pricing, and promotional messaging.

3. Disrupting assumptions of Poverty and Purchasing Power

Whether it is Kenya’s significant non profit sector or the nascent consumer oriented markets, the redrawn lines defining assets, collateral, and the floodgates of access to finance will require a complete overhaul in the way the population is segmented and measured.

Once these hundreds of movable assets have been valued, insured, and registered officially, even the most reluctant banker must now count the pastoralist among his wealthiest local clientele, able to draw a line of credit against his true wealth to the tune of thousands of dollars without feeling the pinch.

4. Triggering a rural investment and consumption boom

From mabati for a new roof and simti for the backyard wall, to the latest model smartphone or pickup truck, the concurrent boom in investments and consumption provides an ample playing ground for new products and services tailored for the contextual needs upcountry. Finally, Farmer Joe can install that solar powered irrigation pump for his orange groves in time to reap the next big harvest. And Mama Mercy can think of building up a nest egg of investments faster from the income provided by her farmyard animals.

Kagio Produce Market, Kenya, April 2013 (photo: Niti Bhan)

This might turn out to mean upgrading to a breed of high yield milch cows or being able to provide them with better quality feeds and medicines, but the financial bridge that a well designed strategy leveraging this movable assets bill and it’s timely implementation could mean the difference between the brass ring or treading water.

5. Trade and Commerce will open new markets

Given that the Kenyan Movable Property Security Rights Act 2017 goes beyond livestock to include other stores of wealth and value creation, there will be an undeniable impact on regional and cross border trade. No trader will give up the opportunity to leverage their existing inventory if it qualifies for additional credit that can be plowed back into the business.

On the road to Bungoma, Western Kenya, February 2016 (Photo: Niti Bhan)

Trader’s mindset and the documented biashara growth strategies already in evidence point clearly to the productive economic use of this access to finance rather than passive consumption alone. As their business grows, they will require a whole slew of tools and services tailored to their needs. This could be as simple as a basic book keeping app or as complex as customized commodity (assets, livestock, non perishable foodstuffs, grains and cereals) exchange platforms that integrate the disruptive new services percolating through the entire ecosystem.

In conclusion

These few steps outlined above are only the beginning of laying the foundation for disrupting the current social and economic development trajectory of small town and rural Kenya. I see immense potential for both direct to consumer as well as business to business segments for forward looking organizations seeking a foothold in the burgeoning East African markets.

We, at Emerging Futures Lab, would be pleased to offer you customized white papers on the opportunities for new products, services, and even business models, based on this emerging financial environment recently signed into law by President Kenyatta. Contact us for an exploratory conversation on the scope and scale of your particular industry’s needs. Our experienced team can help you maximize these opportunities from concept design and prototyping all the way through to path to market strategies.

As global firms (MNC) pull back from emerging markets, what does this mean for Africa?

Last week’s issue of The Economist drilled down deeper to cover the retreat of globalization – at least in the most visible form, that of the multinational brands dotting cityscapes around the world. The retreat of the global company, they trumpet, the end of Theodore Levitt’s vision.

Credit Suisse takes a concise yet comprehensive look at these weak signals in their well-written report that frames the situation as a transitional tug of war between globalization and multipolarity – an inflection point, rather than a retreat. They make it sound like missing the turn at an intersection and having to come back to the traffic lights to figure out which way to go.

Duncan Green of Oxfam captured the essence well:

But the deeper explanation is that both the advantages of scale and those of arbitrage have worn away. Global firms have big overheads; complex supply chains tie up inventory; sprawling organisations are hard to run. Some arbitrage opportunities have been exhausted; wages have risen in China; and most firms have massaged their tax bills as low as they can go. The free flow of information means that competitors can catch up with leads in technology and know-how more easily than they used to. As a result firms with a domestic focus are winning market share.

In the “headquarters countries”, the mood changed after the financial crisis. Multinational firms started to be seen as agents of inequality. They created jobs abroad, but not at home. The profits from their hoards of intellectual property were pocketed by a wealthy shareholder elite. Political willingness to help multinationals duly lapsed.

Of all those involved in the spread of global businesses, the “host countries” that receive investment by multinationals remain the most enthusiastic.

The first thing to note is that the global MNCs being considered by The Economist are primarily the legacy ones – fast food chains like McDonalds and KFC (Yum Brands) – whose shiny logos used to represent the liberalization of the closed markets of India and China.

Even at powerhouses such as Unilever, General Electric (GE), PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble, foreign profits are down by a quarter or more from their peak.

or the few examples of emerging market brands that have gone global such as China’s Lenovo which purchased IBM’s Thinkpad and India’s Airtel which bought into the African market.

What’s being touted as their competition are regional brands, who aren’t as stretch out globally in terms of their supply chains, and less vulnerable to currency volatility. Further, the majority of these global brands are heavily dependent on their B2C marketing and sales – the question of whether they ever managed to understand their new markets is a topic for another post.

And so, we ask, what will this mean for the emerging economies of Africa, who are only now seeing the first fruits of FDI? Who will come and develop their consumer markets?

India and China apparently. And strategically – through unbranded affordable commodities and the acquisition of successful regional consumer brands – rather than the legacy MNC approach influenced by Levitt. Even Japan recognizes this, as they seek to piggyback on the Indian experience.The economics of scale that propelled the first rounds of growth for the manufacturers of washing machines and the automobiles never did make sense infrastructurally for the majority of the African consumer markets.

Instead, the patterns pointed out by The Economist and Credit Suisse imply that opportunities will lie among regional stars – Equity Bank of Kenya, for instance, whose regional footprint is surely but steadily creeping outwards across the East African Community and trading partners – or, the telcom brands such as Tigo (Millicom) who innovate for each of their local markets.

The jobs and exports that can be attributed to multinationals are already a diminishing part of the story. In 2000 every billion dollars of the stock of worldwide foreign investment represented 7,000 jobs and $600m of annual exports. Today $1bn supports 3,000 jobs and $300m of exports.

Godrej, for instance would be considered a regional Indian giant rather than a multinational in the conventional sense of a Unilever or P&G.

Where [MNCs] get constrained is, they are driven by lot of processes that are global. For a smaller organisation like us, we are completely empowered; decision-making is quick and we can initiate changes very fast. We are more agile and have an advantage over them.

Yet their expansion outside India shows a “pick and choose” strategy of markets they’re comfortable entering.

The group’s acquisition strategy hinges on identifying unlisted companies built by entrepreneurs looking for capital, picking up stakes and working with them to scale up their businesses.

At least two homegrown Kenyan FMCG brands – skincare by a global giant and cosmetics by private equity – have been acquired. As have snack foods, spices, dairy products, and other products that cater to local tastes. The best known being Fan Milk of West Africa. Private equity such as Abraaj make no bones about going after consumer driven opportunities.

Given these choices, sustainable African businesses who understand their consumer markets have an opportunity to establish their brands and grow – with the financial help that’s strategically becoming available.While Chinese imports make the market highly competitive and price conscious, fish and tyres are substitutable goods in a way skincare and cosmetics are not.

African consumer companies – formal, informal, or semi-almost there-formal – need to hustle right now.

The retreat of the MNCs offers a chance to exhale, and expand, and grow, but the advent of the East implies waking up to the need for serious strategic thinking about domestic comparative and competitive advantage – one of which is incomparable knowledge of local consumers, culture, and needs, and critically, experience of their vast informal sectors and cash intensive economies.

Professionals stand above the competition: Branding lessons from street vendors of Africa

Zimbabwe

Farai Mushayademo’s distinctive dress sense, with a different shiny suit every day, makes him a darling of customers and helps him beat the “rising competition,” he said.

This article on the increasing competition for the burgeoning informal economy of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, came less than a month after we saw this smartly turned out fruit vendor plying his trade in the streets of Accra, Ghana.

Ghana

For communicating brand quality, the Ghanaian gentleman surely deserves an award. His read to eat fruit was as smartly packaged and labelled as any consumer brand in a supermarket.

I’ve written before on the topic of ‘Branding the Unbranded’ – whether its the humble avocado being sold by the side of the road in upcountry Kenya, or a designer BBQ meant for the emerging middle class – but these distinctively dressed gentlemen on two opposite ends of the vast African continent come under an entirely new category of product and service innovation happening in the informal sector.

How do you set yourself apart in the unbranded informal economy in response to rising competition is a challenge. Ghanaian market women’s customer development and retention strategies in a commodity market (potatoes) were documented a decade ago, and found to rely on social skills, including non verbal ones such as eye contact and encouraging smiles. Yet, her advantage is that her potential customers are slowly walking through the market, looking for the best potatoes to purchase. She has the time to call out and attract their attention.

For these men on the streets, walking through traffic, that advantage is fleeting or nonexistent. They must grab attention *and* communicate their messaging in an instant (can they have been reading Gladwell’s blink?) – and the fruit vendor, with his spotless white gloves, and packaged fruit, clearly rises above the rest with his strategy.

The police are also, one hopes, less likely to chase a man in a three piece suit off the street. This is one pan African trend worth keeping an eye on.

Africa’s Middle Class: Development economics and marketing demographics conflating the holy grail

The most developed nation on the African continent, south of the Sahara desert, is considered to be South Africa with its financial and transportation infrastructure and systems, a legacy from history. In the first decade of the 21st century, the black middle class – known as Black Diamonds in marketer jargon – came into prominence on the back of numerous economic initiatives after the fall of apartheid.

The rise of the Black Diamonds was meant to be the signal of a changing rainbow nation, one whose peoples would finally be included in the social and economic advancements long enjoyed by a privileged minority. This emerging middle class was also among the first to be noticed as African consumers in their own right, and their discovery pioneered the subsequent search for the now mythical African middle class. Even then, their total number was under scrutiny for its aspirational inclusivity versus actual households fitting the conventional definition of a middle class. From The Economist writing in 2007:

The University of Cape Town’s Unilever Institute of Strategic Marketing says there are now 2.6m “black diamonds”, as it calls the black middle class, a 30% increase in less than two years. Included in the definition are working professionals; those who own things such as cars, homes or microwave ovens; university students; and those who merely have the potential to enter these categories. The survey estimates that these black diamonds represent 12% of South Africa’s black adults, and make 180 billion rand a year ($26.2 billion), or 28% of the country’s (and more than half of all black South African) buying power.

For some, such as Lawrence Schlemmer, a sociologist in Cape Town, this definition is far too broad to be meaningful. He agrees that numbers are rising fast but argues that they are still tiny. Last year, he says, only 322,000 black South Africans (less than 1% of the black population of 38m) could be deemed “core” middle class, a far cry from 2.6m black diamonds.

Still, whatever their size, the buppies are affecting the economy and the political landscape.

This week, a comprehensive new survey by the South African government shows the on the ground reality in 2016. The National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS)‚ launched by the Department of Planning‚ Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in Pretoria surveyed 28‚000 people who were tracked every two years from 2008 to 2015. Very similar in fact to the recent household panel survey completed in India. Even their conclusions resemble each other:

According to the study‚ those in the middle class have a tendency to drop in and out of poverty.

And the size has not actually changed much since 1993 – the year before the fall of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela.

The study also shows that the South African middle class is much smaller than estimated‚ sitting at around 14.5% of the total population in 2014. Women are more affected by poverty, and even those who manage to climb the ladder may slip down again.

“…It has not grown much since 1993 — growing its share by only two percentage points in the past 23 years…”

And, perhaps, the real challenge we face with the ongoing search for Africa’s middle classes is the conflation that took place back then between a consumer marketing segmentation and a socio-political demographic. By allowing the aspirational reach of the consumer marketing driven research to inflate the size of the segment classified as middle class, it has given rise to an ongoing and complex muddle across teh entire continent. As the AfDB’s former president Donald Kaberuka said last year:

“I think we are wasting too much time on the definition of the middle class and the cut off point, it is a sterile debate.

“A dynamic middle class that rises with the sea increases domestic demand, the diversity of the economy, [its] resilience, and they also stabilise the politics of a country as well, since they have a stake in the system.”

He has a point. But perhaps not the one he intended to make. Instead, if we consider disentangling consumption and demand for consumer products from the increase in political voice and “stake in the system”, we may in fact discover that there is indeed a sizeable bourgeoisie emerging even though they may not possess all the qualifying criteria traditionally attributed to a middle class per se. (Previous posts on this topic have been tagged informal bourgeoisie)

There’s the demographic segment which is the middle, and then, there’s the conceptual body of solid citizens invested in the democratic stability and economic growth and development of their countries. As Jacques Enaudeau wrote in 2013:

But fixated on wealth, the discussion on middle classes in Africa misses out on the other two pillars of social stratification: social status and political power.

As soon as those two are factored in, discussing the “African middle class” as a homogenous entity seems absurd, and so it should. Thinking that what separates the senior civil servant from the street hawker or the country head of a multinational from the shop owner is a matter of daily expenditure amounts to looking at their reality through the wrong end of the telescope: the bigger picture is that they live in different worlds.

In the developing world, the formal sector with its white collar jobs populated by university graduates may jostle cheek by jowl with the informal economy’s life lived on the street but that proximity might be on the only thing they have in common.

For here lies the rub: the material culture that the notion of “middle class” posits as shared consciousness is articulated to a strong sense of individualism, which is borderline contradictory with the idea of class. All the more reasons for the analysis to consider the representations which members have of themselves as a group and the historical context in which such groups are being shaped.

This, however, is not the post to unpack those complexities of self image and collective consciousness. It’s one which pauses to ponder the newest set of findings on the dynamic nature of poverty and wealth in the more uncertain and volatile operating environments of the still developing world. And considers the South African example introduced today:

There has, however, been considerable demographic transformation within that band of the middle class, with Africans now outnumbering whites by about two to one, the report said. Factors driving the surge include greater access to credit, improved education levels, BEE and improved economic growth until recently.

Transformation of societies is underway, just as the Indian researchers concluded in their analysis. This might be a much larger global trend underway, whose weak signals we’re just beginning to pick up now. I’ll be following up with these musings on the blog. The people with the real problem on their hands are the consumer companies looking to justify entering the African markets, and perhaps that’s a topic to take up in the next article.

Research Question: Why is the informal retail sector so persistent and resilient?

Retailing in India is currently estimated to be a USD 200 billion industry, of which organised retailing makes up 3% or USD 6.4 billion. By 2010, organized retail is projected to reach USD 23 billion and in terms of market share it is expected to rise by 20 to 25%. (Sinha et all, 2007)

These claims of projected growth were made based on a 2005 KPMG report on the Indian Consumer market, while the chart itself with it’s aspirational forecast is from the IBEF website. I have been watching and waiting for more than ten years for India’s retail revolution to take place.

The consistent message from the beginning of the retail boom has been that since the organized retail sector (what we would call the formal) has only been ~2% of the total retail trade in India (the balance is informal retail) there was ample opportunity for growth in modern retail.

Yet if you look at the data from 2015, you’ll see that the forecasts were far too ambitious (or, perhaps, aspirational, in the push for modernization driving India’s recently opened markets) – formal retail has only reached 8% penetration in the past 10 years. Nowhere close to the 25% expected by 2010. Mind you, these were all the management consultancy reports bandying the numbers around.

I bring this up because I’m seeing the same kinds of projections happening right now for the African consumer market by the very same firms. And with very few exceptions, the majority of the SSA markets tend towards the same kind of proportions of organized vs unorganized retail (formal vs informal, modern vs traditional et al are all variations on this theme with minor differences in definition).

And, even as the retail real estate development investments are booming, we are already seeing the very first signs of the same challenge that India faced – over capacity, low footfalls, and empty malls. Just yesterday, the news from Ghana – a firm favourite of the investment forecasters – has this to say:

Ghana’s economic woes have translated into a variety of challenges for formal retailers who are competing for sales alongsidethe dominant and deep-rooted informal shopping sector. According to a recent report by African commercial property services group Broll – titled Ghana, Retail Barometer Q2, 2016 – overall sales in most modern shopping malls are well below historic averages, despite garnering sufficient foot traffic.
[…]
“International players are also looking at the market and re-adjusting their product/pricing mix to cater for the real middle class, whereby we are talking more in terms of value products rather than high-end products.”

And, retail developers are turning their attention to secondary cities such as Kumasi and Takoradi, as Accra reaches saturation point. The exact same pattern as we have been seeing in India. You would think people might pause a moment to take a look at similar markets and operating environments to assess patterns of market creation development.

This pattern is what gave rise to the research question I would like to frame – why has the informal retail sector been so persistent and resilient? What does this mean for modern trade? And, what are the implications for urban development and planning?

The trajectories of the Indian and the Ghanaian economies have taken different turns, thus, while one might point to these factors as the reasons for the challenges facing the mall owners and the retail brands, the big picture over the past twenty years points to something more fundamental in these operating environments common to the developing world.

That is what I would like to find out.

Japan’s Indian Strategy for the African Consumer Market

One of the most high-profile events Kenya has hosted since independence begins this week when heads of state from across Africa and the Prime Minister of Japan Mr Shinzo Abe jet in for the Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD). It will be the first time that Ticad has been held outside Japan and it is an honour to Kenya to have been picked to host this event. ~ Daily Nation editorial

The Nikkei Asian Review has been preparing for days with longform articles on the African consumer market, and other opportunities for Asian businesses. While Indian B2C investments have been closely analysed (and embraced), it is clear that the East Asians are eyeing each other as their closest competitors.

Africa was once dominated by Western investors, due to ties forged in colonial times. But Chinese companies have muscled their way in, and Indian, Japanese and South Korean players are arriving and thriving. This intense competition is no longer just about extracting minerals and materials. It is about tapping the next big consumer market.

Their articles are well researched and provide ample insights for businesses contemplating these new markets. Here are some highlights that caught my eye:

Vivek Karve has a clear picture of the ideal African market. The chief financial officer of India’s Marico, a maker of hair and body care products and other fast-moving consumer goods, said his company targets countries with “per capita GDP under $5,000, many mom-and-pop shops, low penetration of multinationals and political stability.”

There’s little handwringing over lack of data or missing middle class metrics. Inadequate infrastructure and informal retail in Africa is no different for your average Indian FMCG brand than their domestic market, thus the concept of the ideal market being one full of little mom and pop shops.

Marico’s strategy for achieving that includes promoting local brands familiar to African consumers, rather than pushing products that are popular in India. It uses multiple distributors to cushion itself against credit risks.

The Japanese, having already faced off with the Koreans in India’s large, diverse, and fragmented markets, are ready to take a leaf from the Indian playbook for their foray into the African market.

The gap between Asian and Western rivals is expected to narrow over time, with China making up much of the ground. About 3,000 companies from China — Africa’s largest trade partner since 2009 — are doing business in sectors such as infrastructure, resource development and telecommunications.

And even this focus on infrastructure development and large scale investments is changing. The Chinese idea is to boost purchasing power across Africa and turn the continent into a massive consumer market.

csm_Dr.Morimoto_and_Mr.Okabayashi_01_c364aafd49

Nissin Foods launched locally sourced sorghum noodles in Nyama Choma flavour in Kenya

The Japanese are preparing the ground to apply their own strengths in Africa. Japanese companies see Africa as a lucrative but daunting challenge — one they would rather tackle with a partner or subsidiary that is familiar with emerging markets.

This, again, is where India comes in. Toyota Motor, Honda Motor, Nissin Foods Holdings and Hitachi all export from their factories in India to Africa. The Japanese government is actively working to help companies make inroads in India as a springboard to Africa.

A couple of years ago, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry compiled a list of potential Indian partner companies with strong African operations in 16 fields, including beverages, consumer goods, retail, electronic parts and auto components. Godrej Group and Marico were among them.

The lessons of the last quarter century are driving a new collaborative strategy. My rupees and yen are on Asia.

Le commerce direct des produits fabriqués en Chine est-il susceptible de perturber le marché des consommateurs africains?

This article has been translated into the French by Yacine Bio-Tchané

La première plateforme d’e-commerce spécialisée dans la vente directe des produits fabriqués en Chine vient d’être lancée au Togo, un pays de l’Afrique de l’Ouest. Coincé tout comme la République du Bénin entre deux grands pays davantage connus, le Nigeria et le Ghana,le Togo est un petit pays francophone d’environ 7 millions d’habitants.

Comme l’énonce l’article :
« Nous voulons être les pionniers du commerce électronique au Togo et tirer parti de la forte coopération multiforme entre la Chine et le Togo, le premier pays carrefour commercial en Afrique de l’Ouest “, a déclaré Yuan Li, fondateur de JMSA-MALL, à Xinhua vendredi dernier à Lomé.
«Nous faisons la promotion d’échanges commerciaux directs, entre les clients africains et les commerçants chinois, de produits authentiques chinois à des prix intéressants “, a-t-il expliqué.

Des appareils électroniques jusqu’aux machines agricoles, la plate-forme offre une large gamme de produits chinois, qui sont vendus au Togo, ainsi que dans plusieurs autres pays de la sous-région tels que le Bénin, le Niger, le Ghana et le Burkina Faso.

Toutes les principales cartes de crédit sont acceptées comme mode de paiement ainsi que le système de paiement local via mobile money – Flooz (Moov). Il y a une politique de garantie avantageuse, et les articles sont entreposés à leur arrivée dans un bâtiment local pour les livraisons, au cas où l’article commandé n’est pas déjà disponible en stock dans leur entrepôt local. En outre, JMSA-MALL offre aux PME locales l’occasion de vendre leurs marchandises à travers leur plateforme. En apparence, cela semble bien – en supprimant les intermédiaires, ils peuvent offrir des meilleurs prix.

Yacine Bio-Tchané, notre collègue béninoise a aussi ses marques à Lomé. Ensemble, nous avons discuté de l’impact potentiel de ce lancement dans le contexte local, ainsi que des implications plus larges. Voici quelques réflexions:

Est-ce que cette plate-forme de vente « directe au consommateur» a un impact sur les commerçants locaux qui se rendent en Chine pour se procurer leurs produits?

Yacine a fait observer qu’à partir du moment où la plate-forme vend tout, des appareils électroniques aux machines agricoles, si certains éléments coûteux et lourds ne sont pas facilement disponibles au Togo, mais pour lesquels il existe une demande,ils peuvent être achetés en ligne et les utilisateurs pourront profiter de cette occasion. Aller à la Chine, identifier le bon produit au bon prix et l’expédier au Togo est long et coûteux (1). La plate-forme e-commerce réduit considérablement les coûts de transaction, ce qui la rend très attractive pour les acheteurs locaux.

Les produits chinois sont connus pour être moins cher (en prix et parfois en qualité) que les autres produits de sorte qu’ils sont très compétitifs et accessibles à de nombreux Togolais, surtout compte tenu du faible pouvoir d’achat. Si, au lieu d’aller au marché et de se promener à la recherche de ces produits, tout le monde pouvait acheter en ligne, les gens préfèreraient le faire. Cependant, alors que le Togo a 67% de pénétration des téléphones mobiles, moins de 10% de la population a accès à l’internet. Cela implique que la solution de commerce électronique est accessible à peu de personnes, mais cela pourrait déclencher une utilisation accrue de l’Internet par les commerçants.

Bien que l’article ne dise pas quels sont les principaux acheteurs (nationalité), il dit qu’ils couvrent plusieurs pays. Il ne serait pas surprenant de voir que la demande soit plus orientéevers le Ghana par exemple.

Le commerce direct de la Chine crée des marchandises

D’autre part, étant donné les coûts, le temps et les tracas pour aller en Chine à la source et expédier des produits à vendre au pays, cette plate-forme pourrait être attrayante pour les commerçants locaux eux-mêmes, à la fois au Togo, et au niveau régional. Comme le fait remarquer Yacine, la demande pourrait ne pas émaner du Togo même mais plutôt des pays voisins. Selon le fondateur de la plate-forme, le Togo est une plaque tournante du commerce en Afrique de l’Ouest pour la Chine.

La Chine a accru le commerce et les relations diplomatiques avec le Togo au cours de la dernière décennie. Il est même dit que la Chine est devenue le premier partenaire financier du pays. Les entreprises chinoises opèrent dans les industries, l’agriculture, le commerce et la construction. Ils créent de l’emploi et sont en concurrence avec des entreprises locales dans la vente de certains produits tels que les tissus.

Le fait que cette plateforme d’e-commerce soit tournée vers les consommateurs et qu’elle soit soutenue par un entrepôt local rempli de marchandises produits par la Chine est symbolique. Pour Yacine, le message le plus fort que la plateforme envoie est que les Chinois sont entièrement installés au Togo. Ce genre d’investissement à long terme, associé à leurs investissements accrus dans les industries, est déterminant. La Chine n’est plus un simple partenaire qui vient pour des projets périodiques, maintenant c’est un acteur important qui influe sur le comportement des consommateurs. Elle est sa propre image de marque, avec le lancement de ce consommateur face à la boutique en ligne.

Géographiquement, le Togo est bien placé pour toucher facilement l’Afrique de l’Ouest anglophone et francophone. L’e-commerce est déjà en train de décoller de façon exponentielle sur le marché géant du Nigeria, mais il en est encore à gagner du terrain dans les autres pays voisins. La Côte-d’Ivoire a quelques acquis, mais elle est encore à ces premiers jours. Traditionnellement, les Chinois ont attendu que les marchés soient à maturité avant de les inonder avec leurs prix plus bas – le marché du téléphone mobile illustre cela.
Ce lancement de la plateforme semble précoce pour les perspectives de l’e-commerce (de même que les paiements mobiles), mais pas du point de vue des tendances du marché et du commerce mondial.

Les industries manufacturières de la Chine ressentent les effets rétrécissement du marché mondial, et les problèmes de surcapacité. Le marché intérieur a toujours l’axe majeur de leur développement, ceci semble êtreleur première tentative sur un autre marché. Le commerce informel entre l’Afrique et la Chine n’a pas entièrement été sous le radar –les compagnies aériennes africaines et chinoises ont été les premières à répondre à la demande. En outre, il y a d’autres changements en cours de réalisation qui impacteront directementl’Afrique de l’Ouest, comme cerécentarticle de CNN le montre:

Au cours des 18 derniers mois, bien que des chiffres concrets soient difficiles à trouver, des centaines – peut-être même des milliers – d’Africains sont soupçonnés par les habitants et les chercheurs d’avoir quitté Guangzhou.

La dépréciation du dollar dans les pays d’Afrique occidentale dépendante du pétrole, associée à la politique d’immigration hostile de la Chine, le racisme généralisé, ainsi que le ralentissement et l’échéance économie, indique que Guangzhou perd son avantage concurrentiel. […] Alors que la Chine devient moins rentable, de nombreux Africains ressentent avec plus d’acuité les aspects négatifs de la vie la bas.

Si la montagne ne peut pas soutenir Mahomet, pourrait-elle au moins réduire les coûts en construisant des entrepôts appuyés par des marchés en ligne? Les centres d’entreposage de marchandises chinoises ne sont pas inédits sur le continent africain, l’Afrique australe dispose déjà d’un certain nombre, tandis qu’il a été dévoilé que la Chine finance la plate-forme logistique de la Tanzanie. Comme l’a déclaré le fondateur de JMALL, cette “plaque tournante du commerce qu’est le Togo semble être un nouveau pays partenaire. Est-ce que la plateforme d’e-commerce est un projet pilote pour tester efficacementle coût régional du marketing B2C?

Les géants du e-commerce Chinois comme Alibaba ont montré la voie avec les efforts de leur agent pour ouvrir les marchés ruraux difficiles de l’arrière-continent. C’est seulement une question de temps avant qu’un autre type d’intermédiaires n’apparaisse au Togo (et ailleurs) et offre des services similaires pour faciliter le commerce. Cette fois, cependant, ce sera depuis le confort de leur pays d’origine, car ils assistent les commerçants et les consommateurs avec les achats en ligne. Pris ensemble avec des investissements continus dans les systèmes de paiement via mobile money, les initiatives d’inclusion financière et l’utilisation du modèle d’agence – la Chine semble avoir saisi un excellent espace d’opportunité à explorer.

(1) Voici un documentaire qui suit un commerçant congolais pendant son shopping à Guangzhou, en Chine, cherche à remplir son conteneur avec des marchandises exportables. Il donne une assez bonne idée de l’expérience client.

The Kenyan informal sector’s well-trodden paths of upward mobility

Studying the dynamics of the informal economy of a particular region in Western Kenya has been an eye opening exercise in questioning one’s own assumptions and frameworks. Other times, I noticed answers to questions I’d never even thought of asking (an outcome of holding implicit assumptions).

One of these was career paths and ambitions.

The most obvious paths are the ones with tangible indicators of upward mobility. You begin with the bicycle, adding a cushioned seat at the back, and dream of purchasing a motorcycle, which can also double as a micro distributor at the last mile of delivery. Then, you dream of a car and taxi.

I was wrong. The decision to select one’s choice of vehicle is a professional one, and each of these transportation mechanisms is a distinctly separate cluster of owner/entrepreneurs. There isn’t much cross vehicle mobility as you’d imagine. There are older gentlemen who preferred the simplicity and the low running costs of a bicycle, saying that anything one earned after a big solid breakfast in the morning was pure profit.

However, this is not to say that the fundamental paths to expansion and growth of opportunities were as closed. They are just different from what we imagine, looking on from the outside, and the drivers for decision making are fundamentally characterized by the patterns of flow of time and money in the informal/rural economy.

For instance, in Malaba and Busia on the western Kenya/eastern Uganda border, one does not begin in Malaba. For the penniless youth emerging from his father’s shamba deep interior where no tarmac goes, its Busia that provides the facility to earn seed capital. They call this kibarua, and there’s a yard near the truck loading docks where they can join the available pool of labour. Its the first step to earning an income in the economy the world calls informal. Women prefer to grow something to sell – be it chickens, eggs or a wide variety of fruits and veg. One lady sells partially treated roots and branches that’s the seed for locally brewed beer.

Once one has amassed some cash, one can buy stock to sell, or invest in a growth vehicle for cash flow. A dairy cow is a growth vehicle, with almost daily cash flow. The challenge for growth on the farm is lack of cash money. Women dominate the informal wholesale and retail trade, just as they’ve been documented to do in West Africa. They are newcomers to trade, having been noticed in this region only in the past 10 or 15 years. They’re smarter, shrewder, and know how to leverage their extensive social networks. They are a growing demographic, particularly in Kenya, Uganda, eastern DRC, South Sudan, and Rwanda. Burundians, it seems, are happy to live on their farms and let their Rwandan friends do the hard work of buying and selling them stuff.

Then, one can move from tabletop sales into retail and wholesale. Its an interesting example of leapfrogging the middle income trap – by the time the market woman with a cloth covered with merchandise can grow her stock to rent a permanent store, she has also become a micro-wholesaler who will break bulk down to the smallest denominations for her micro retail customers to sell on their tables and mats.

Their next ambition is to become that micro-region (a radii of 50km) re-distributor. That is, by the business practices of the global FMCG majors, they want to be registered and counted. The local Coca Cola distributor has probably a hundred such wholesalers scattered around a 100km radius. The scale of operations is limited by the cost of fuel and transport.

Now, many who don’t wish for the extensive groundwork that the former ambition requires, move on to trade from Malaba. Its where the larger regional trade flows take place, not just the multiple micro-crossings of Busia (which by the way annually cross 33 million US dollars). In just one border market, there’s annual biashara worth $5 to 10 million. There will be one or two outliers to this due to natural and geographic advantages.

The energy of biashara is obvious in the market. And every market day along the better roads, the scale of trade was far more than anywhere upcountry, even the roads to Nyeri and Nanyuki. These trading ties go back centuries to before the white man came and the kings of the Buganda loved teh stuff the Indian Ocean traders brought to the Swahili Coast.

The best paid profession is that of a long distance trucker. Yet, intriguingly, young men aspire to reach this position only to acquire the networks of a broker and to retire from the dangerous business of driving heavy inflammable loads for a living.

There many such paths to live a good enough life, educate the kids in town, take care of mums back home on the homestead. The informal economy does indeed offer the lowest barriers to entry into business.

Reframing the informal sector in the African consumer market: The real African middle class

This is Ruth’s shop, on the side of the highway, approximately 5km on the road to Kisumu, from Busia in western Kenya. Not quite directly part of the borderland’s economy, that trades incessantly with each other, these businesses still manage to feed off the energy of the hustle and bustle of biashara, as it flows through the complex webs, as seen by Walther in W/Africa.

Her home, abutting her husband’s wholesale business in soft drinks (they’re registered with Coca Cola) is next door to her shop, hidden in this photograph. She buys a minimum of 10,000 shillings of goods each Thursday, just from Bungoma, and that’s only one of her many source markets. The malimali shop is the village general store or variety store. The 5 and 10 mashed with a mini department store. We bought two of her sandals. I would have paid $7 in Singapore for them and it only cost $1.80. They were made in Kenya, I think.

This is the sign of the emerging middle class that the bean counters can’t find in their datasets. This class of business abounds in the small market towns dotting the countryside and the economically stronger parts in the interior. They are wholesalers and retailers, sometimes both, as nobody wants to turn away a customer, no matter how small their wallet might be. Its an inclusive market and one that we might learn something from. It sometimes has a feeling of a socially responsible capimercantilist society.

Bright Simons was the first to point this fact out, in HBR a few years ago. He was right, as I’ve just validated through a recently completed study on the rural/urban economic linkage in western Kenya.

Infrastructure has a direct relationship to how much your rural business can scale

Busia market, Kenya Feb 2016 (Photo: Niti Bhan)

This is a micro-wholesaler and retailer in a staple commodity. Infrastructural constraints limit the stock she can manage at one go – seen as the sack with her name on it. This indicates that it was sourced from some distance away, as this is the matatu’s informal package tracking service. It could have come from rural Uganda – some of the most productive agricultural land is in Eastern Uganda within 60km of the Kenyan border. Food is ridiculously cheap in Uganda and the fish in Busia was swimming a few hours before it landed on your plate with dhania sprinkled over it.

Similarly, that poor fish can only go so far, though the traders have built their own jua kali cold chain and can assure you of 24 hours freshness. Its the tomatos and the cabbages that wilt miserably in the searing sunshine and thus limit Mama’s daily income to the purchasing power in her neighbourhood market. She can’t wait for two days to sell her produce.

Its a natural cap on her ability to scale. Both volumes traded and distance supplied are a function of the quality of the cold chain at the very last mile of the farm to fork sustainable agricultural value chain. They need good logistics and reliable infrastructure. We can’t have the fish spoil during a power outage.

Therefore, you can see the economic importance of good infrastructure and also how such minor easy to implement tweaks can boost and trigger all sorts of emerging opportunities for entrepreneurs.