Connectivity, Communication, and Commerce: The 3 Cs of Africa’s Smartphone Led Future
Recent headlines touted the decline in marketshare being seen by smartphones on the African continent, and the concurrent increase in sales of basic devices. Yet a closer look shows that this shift might only be numerical due to the opening of new markets in heavily populated DR Congo and Ethiopia – first time buyers are […]
Professionals stand above the competition: Branding lessons from street vendors of Africa
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 […]
Lowering barriers: Its about access, not the device
When Vanderbeeken sent me a link yesterday about Nokia working closely with Facebook to get the next billion online, it reminded me of this crude diagram I’d constructed back when I was watching this space far more closely than I do now. Twitter and Facebook are the two big names that weren’t even on our […]
Why so much “BoP” marketing fails in the developing world
Increasingly I have been getting the sense that there are some fundamental issues with the way BoP focused organizations are developing, creating and implementing their market entry strategies. Here are four of the most obvious errors that I’m seeing: Assuming there’s no competition Most of these firms, particularly those coming in from the outside and […]