With all its opportunity and resources, why isn Africa a primary market target for Fortune 500s?
One would think that Africa would be the true “final untapped frontier” market for multi-nationals. However, I think there are a number of reasons why most U.S. companies haven’t spent a lot of effort trying to make inroads there. 1. Many of the governments in sub-saharan Africa are either dictatorships or very wobbly democracies with systematic corruption at every level, making them very difficulty and risky to do business with. 2. Many countries there are still plagued with civil unrest, terrorism, piracy and other forms of violence, again, making it too dangerous to warrant the investment of human and capital resources. 3. Most Africans live in poverty, and a strong, stable, sizeable, urban-based middle class has not emerged in most African countries. Without this centralized middle class populations, it’s nearly impossible to establish profitability in retail sales, since retailers are very unlikely to wish to establish retail centers in rural areas. 4. Most African countries don’t
