When the iPhone emerged in 2007, it came with all the promise and pomp of a major Steve Jobs announcement, highlighting its user interface and slick design as key selling points. We know now that the iPhone transformed the mobile phone business, the internet economy and, in many ways, society as a whole. But technically speaking, the iPhone was not very innovative.
Its software and the interface idea were based on the iPod, which was already <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/itunes-10th-anniversary-how-steve-jobs-turned-the-industry-upside-down-20130426">reinventing the digital music industry</a>. Touchscreens had appeared on earlier phone and tablet models, including <a href="http://oldcomputers.net/apple-newton.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s own Newton</a>. And <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">top-line Nokia phones</a> had more memory, better cameras and faster mobile connectivity. What made the iPhone transformative was the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/13/15782200/one-device-secret-history-iphone-brian-merchant-book-excerpt" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">shift in concept underpinning the entire iPhone project</a>: Its designers did not create a telephone with some extra features, but rather a full-fledged hand-held computer that could also make calls and browse the internet.
As a <a href="http://www.internationalinnovation.com/how-digitasation-is-changing-the-working-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">scholar of management, design and innovation</a>, I find it hard to predict what the next truly revolutionary technological development will be. In the 10 years since the launch of the iPhone, <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/when-iphone-met-world-7-years-ago-today/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">so much about modern life, commerce and culture has changed</a>. In part that’s because the iPhone, and the smartphone boom it spurred, created a portable personal technology infrastructure that’s almost infinitely expandable. The iPhone changed the game not because of its initial technology and cool user interface but rather as a result of its creators’ imagination and courage.
<h2>Inventing mobile apps</h2>
As the iPhone took shape, its designers found themselves <a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/the-one-device/9781478915836/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">torn between making a phone or a computer</a>. Engineers and marketing executives alike worried the new device would kill the iPod market that had <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/09/14/without-music-apple-would-be-nothing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">driven Apple’s corporate resurgence for five years</a>. Nokia, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/263438/market-share-held-by-nokia-smartphones-since-2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the biggest player in the cellphone market at the time</a>, had similar technologies and prototypes, and also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304388004577531002591315494" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feared outcompeting</a> its own successful mobile phone product lines that used a simpler and more old-fashioned software platform than that on which iPhone was built.
Apple took the leap, however, by installing a fully capable computer operating system on the iPhone, along with a few small application programs. Some were phone-related, including a program that handled making and receiving calls, as well as <a href="https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new way to display voicemail messages</a>, and a system that kept different contacts’ text messages separate. Others were more computer-like, including an email app and a web browser. Of course, the music-playing features from the iPod were included too, linking the phone with the emerging Apple music ecosystem.
Initially, that was about it for apps. But <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/164137/meet-geohot-guy-who-unlocked-the-first-iphone-and-hacked-the-sony-ps3/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">skilled computer engineers and hackers</a> knew they were holding a palm-sized computer, and set to work writing their own software and <a href="https://www.cultofmac.com/213904/how-far-weve-come-the-original-iphone-jailbreak-took-74-steps-jailbreak/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">getting it running on their iPhones</a>. That was the dawn of the now-ubiquitous app. Within a year, these apps were so popular, and their potential so significant, that <a href="http://www.macworld.com/article/1134503/iphone2update.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple’s second version of the iPhone operating system</a> made it easy (and legal) for users to install <a href="http://www.phonecruncher.com/features/00942/the-first-ever-apps-on-the-app-store-gone-but-not-forgotten/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">apps on their phones</a>.
<h2>Shifting priorities</h2>
The prospect of making a fully functional hand-held computer changed how users and manufacturers alike thought about mobile phones. For Apple and every other phone company, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-android-smartphones-2011-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">software became much more important than hardware</a>. What apps a phone could run, and how quickly, mattered much more than whether it had a slightly better camera or could hold a few more photos; whether it flipped open, slid open or was a bar-style; or whether it had a large keyboard or a small one. The iPhone’s <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-reaction-first-iphone-2015-9" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">keyboard was on-screen</a> and software-generated, making a function that had required dedicated hardware into one running on generic hardware and dedicated software.
At the time of the iPhone launch, Nokia offered about 200 <a href="http://nokiamuseum.info/category/launching-year/2007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">different phone styles to meet all the different needs</a> of its hundreds of millions of customers. There was just one iPhone model at the start, and in the ensuing decade there have been only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_iOS_devices#iPhone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">14 major styles</a> – though today they come in different colors, not just white and black as the original did. This is the power of software functionality and related simplicity.
The heightened importance of software on a mobile phone shifted the industry’s economy as well. The money came now not just from selling devices and phone services, but also from marketing and selling apps and in-app advertisements. <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/6/8/11889298/google-apple-subscription-app-revenue-share" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">App developers must share revenue</a> with the <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">companies that control smartphones’ operating systems</a>, providing serious earning power: Apple holds <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/16/14634656/android-ios-market-share-blackberry-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">about 15% of the mobile phone market</a>, but reaps <a href="http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170308000345" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">80% of global smartphone profits</a>.
Whatever the next tech industry game-changer is, and whenever it arrives, it will likely have some connection to the smartphone and related infrastructure. Even today, <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/10/13/virtual_reality_is_made_o_smartphones/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">exploring virtual reality</a> requires only installing an app and connecting just a bit of additional hardware to an existing phone. Similarly, smartphone interfaces and cameras already <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410889,00.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">monitor and control intelligent and automated homes</a>. Even as devices are developed to operate all around us, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/alphabets-new-plan-to-track-10-000-people-could-take-wearables-to-the-next-level-76620" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">even in our clothes</a>, many of them will be able to point to the iPhone as a conceptual ancestor and inspiration.  &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/kalle-lyytinen-336943" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Kalle Lyytinen</a>, Iris S. Wolstein Professor of Management Design, Case Western Reserve University
Originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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Understanding the real innovation behind the iPhone

<div id="attachment_27742" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-27742" class="size-large wp-image-27742" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-471769854-1024x760.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="760" />Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, with a Powerpack unit the background unveils suit of batteries for homes, businesses, and utilities at Tesla Design Studio April 30, 2015 in Hawthorne, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)</div>
On May 31 Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a statement that he was getting serious about factory safety. The statement sounded like a heartfelt appeal for everyone to improve safety at the state-of-the-art Tesla automobile factory in Fremont, California.  Unfortunately, the statement was issued after it was made public that Tesla’s safety rates from 2014 to 2016 were poor.
<a href="http://worksafe.typepad.com/files/worksafe_tesla5_24.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Worksafe</a> conducted a review based on federal OSHA reports required to be submitted by the Fremont Tesla factory from 2014 to 2016. Worksafe concluded that the rate of reportable injuries was 31% higher than industry standards. Worksafe’s report was issued 24 May, one week before the CEO’s statement.
Although some manufacturers voluntarily release this safety information, Tesla had not done so for the 2014-2016 period. Now, Tesla has voluntarily released data for the first quarter of 2017, showing an improvement in the safety record that is now better than industry average.
Tesla’s factory is the only major automobile manufacturing facility not unionized. The United Auto Workers prominently displayed Worksafe’s report on their website. The UAW are using the safety record as part of their campaign to encourage Tesla workers to unionize. The argument is that union factories are safer because union workers can speak up about safety violations without fear of losing their jobs.
There maybe something to that. The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/opinion/2-years-31-dead-construction-workers-new-york-can-do-better.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reported</a> January 16, 2017, that there were 31 construction deaths in the city over the past two years. 29 deaths occurred at non-unionized construction sites, while only two occurred at unionized construction sites. The report cited the ability of union workers to speak up as a key differentiator.
Musk has big ambitions for Tesla, which is putting factory workers under considerable stress. Tesla delivered 80,000 cars in 2016 would like to deliver 500,000 cars in 2018.  Working conditions in the plant have been described as very difficult. It has been reported that ambulances showed up over 100 times in the past three years because of injuries or workers simply passing out on the job.
<a class="yoast-link-suggestion__value" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/10/01/teslas-secret-formula/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tesla’s secret formula</a>
But no statement was made about safety then, and only now, a week after the record goes public, does the CEO get serious. If Musk were truly interested in safety, he would not need to be provoked by the safety record going public.
In his statement, Musk says he requires a report on every injury. CEO’s receiving reports of on-the-job injuries is standard practice, not a significant commitment above and beyond. The statement also says he will visit each injured worker and perform the same task as the worker, presumably to understand in detail the nature of the work. This is a good practice but should not need to be done by the CEO. By proposing to do so, he is implying that only he can truly understand what is happening.
Safety is a complicated thing, resulting from cultural and organizational design decisions to create a safe working place. It does not get solved in any enduring way with slogans. It starts with the fundamental design of the factory and a culture where workers can speak up.
One way for managers to understand deteriorating conditions before an injury is to ask, at the end of the shift, a one question survey: ‘How safe was it today?’ It’s better to ask ‘How safe was it today’ than ‘Was today a safe day or not?’ This is because as workers begin to fatigue or sense priorities shifting to production over safety, it’s easier to change from a vote of 5/5 to 4/5 than to meet the threshold that would require someone to shift from ‘it is safe’ to ‘it is not safe.’
Sadly, highway deaths have trended up recently, surpassing 40,000 deaths in 2016. In Florida, where I live, angry, elderly, and inattentive drivers have pushed the rate 40% above the national average. A safer driving car would save lives. While a safer autopilot would save thousands of lives, it is hard to build a safe car in an unsafe factory.
Maybe we should start treating our employees as our first customers in the value creation chain.
For Forbes.com by David Marquet, CONTRIBUTOR

Tesla’s secret formula

Elon Musk Left Worker Safety On Autopilot Too Long

For the past decade, AB de Villiers has been achieving records on the cricket pitch. Now South Africa’s ODI captain and world number one ODI batsman, is set to achieve yet another milestone off the field. Renowned for his innovative batting and sharp fielding, De Villiers is now setting a trend off the field. The innovative batsman has partnered with US-based tech company, FanHero, to become one of the first sportsmen in South Africa to develop a personalized fan engagement app. This will allow fans from around the world to interact with him on a more personal level.
<blockquote>I have been looking for a way to engage on a more authentic level with my fans across the world and FanHero has offered me the perfect platform to do that.</blockquote>
It will be my life in a bundle, something that I haven&#8217;t been able to get across on traditional social media, says De Villiers before the launch of the app. FanHero, a tech start-up that has been running for just over a year, has already produced several apps in North and South America. They specialize in sports teams and celebrities, allowing them the opportunity to engage exclusively with fans without the constraints of other social media platforms. FanHero allows the fan to get closer to De Villiers. Supporters will get access to De Villiers&#8217;s personal and professional life. With live streaming, pictures, videos and updates from the global cricket star, fans will be able to see De Villiers behind closed doors, learning what it takes to be a professional cricketer and what makes him tick. In addition, fans will be able to ask questions, which AB can respond to.
<blockquote>I want to give away as much as possible, and allow people to understand exactly what it takes to be a professional cricketer.</blockquote>
While South Africa is still a developing country in terms of technology, AB de Villiers is a superstar both on the field and online. He is one of Africa&amp;#39;s biggest sporting brands and represents everything we were looking for in terms of a partnership,” says Johan van Wyk, Director of FanHero South Africa. The app launched at the end of March, just before De Villiers set off for England to play in the upcoming Champions Trophy. De Villiers has temporarily stopped playing Test cricket so he can focus on ODIs. Nearing the end of his career, the South African is looking to win an elusive ICC international trophy with South Africa. Fans can look forward a direct line to one of South Africa&#8217;s favourite sportsmen, bringing the fan and hero closer together.

CRICKET-SRI-RSA

AB de Villiers Uses App To Connect With Fans

Over the past decade, Kenya has taken considerable steps towards deepening financial inclusion. This is reflected in the 2016 FinAccess Household Survey which shows that slightly more than three-quarters of Kenyans are now formally included by the financial system, which is a 50% increase over the past 10 years.
According to the report, the percentage of Kenyans relying on informal services providers decreased from 32.11% in 2006 to 7.2% in 2015. Thanks to technology, 18% of Kenyans now use new mobile banking services such as M-Shwari and M-Pesa, a scenario that has pushed the proportion of bank account users to 38%, up 10% from 2013, while traditional bank accounts have decreased.
Despite the significant progress seen towards enhancing financial inclusion, there is much less success in the use of investment products, such as shares, mutual funds and treasuries. The study showed that the use of investment products decreased to 10.6% in 2016 compared to 11.6% in 2013. Findings by the same survey also revealed that the number of Kenyans familiar with the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) stood at only 38%. It seems that a lack of awareness could be why less than 30% of daily market transactions at the NSE are attributed to local individual investors.
But there is hope. Mobile phone platforms are being used to increase awareness and participation. Data shows that 26% of Kenya’s adult population own a smartphone or other smart devices. The uptake of mobile banking services has led to an increase in the banks’ penetration in the past 10 years, from 14% in 2006 to 38.4% in 2015. Investment managers, stockbrokers and insurance companies will also be buoyed by market studies that show that 71% of the population uses financial services provided by mobile financial service providers. This is a clear sign that mobile phones are the best way to encourage investments.
In light of this, the Kenyan government is launching the mobile-traded government security, M-Akiba. Kenyans with as little as $30 will be able to bid for the upcoming five-year income tax-free bond using their M-Pesa accounts. Investors will rejoice; M-Akiba returns are expected to be better than the current fixed deposit rates and most money market accounts. Stockbrokers have not been left behind either – at least three of them have recently launched mobile apps aimed at retail investors looking to buy shares, monitor their portfolio holdings and check account balances via their mobile phones.
But, the road ahead is not without obstacles. One is the low incomes among Kenyans. According to household survey, 75% of adults earn less than $150 per month. This may hinder most Kenyans from taking up financial products. A lack of trust among women towards formal financial institution is another major challenge. According to the latest quarterly report by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), women account for merely a third of the total number of investors. Low levels of education in the country are also an issue, with 60% of the population not completing a secondary level of education. With this in mind, it could be daunting when it comes to selling sophisticated financial products, such as derivatives and exchanged traded funds. Even among the educated, stakeholders will have to fight to shake off the persistent fascination with real estate.
At least Kenya is showing resolve to deal with the challenges. There is a big chance to make real changes to how people invest; all that is needed is a phone.

More Phones more finance

Ali Resting, the pioneer of Swaziland’s internet, chuckles when he speaks of failing first-year computer science at university. As a tech entrepreneur and university drop-out he is in esteemed company. He follows a well-worn path walked by Apple’s founder Steve Jobs through to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and the most famous drop-out of them all, Microsoft’s Bill Gates.
Resting’s parents did not quite see their son through that prism of the failed graduate set to blaze new frontiers of technological advancement. He returned from South Africa’s Rhodes University in 1996, aged 18, and got the silent treatment.
His university studies at a premature end, Resting began work at his father’s civil engineering company in Swaziland’s capital Mbabane, which shared offices with an architectural firm. At a younger age, Resting had ambitions of becoming an architect, attracted by its “visual aspect”, and drifted unconsciously to that side of the offices.
He found the architects somewhat bemused about how to network their 20-odd office computers and took on the “pet project” and successfully built an intranet system. It was a pivotal moment for Resting as he realized then that his passion was his vocation.
Resting had failed his university year through the distraction of Rhodes University being one of the earliest among South Africa’s tertiary education institutions with access to the internet and he soon went walk-about from his studies.
“I would spend a lot of time fiddling in the labs (at university) and I learned and understood about the internet, which at that stage was just known as the World Wide Web. I found out about an internet research project, which had nothing to do with the curriculum perse, and I soon became well acquainted with it.”
An only child, born in 1978 to a Welsh father and Swazi mother, he was exposed to rudimentary PCs at an early age and quickly became astute with DOS and other programs. His academic primary school progress saw him accepted as a weekly border at the Sisekelo High School, initially established by sugar milling companies to provide well-resourced education for the children of their expatriate employees.
“It was very strict. We were not allowed to hold hands with the girls, we were not even allowed to be within five foot of a female,” says Resting.
The school on the banks of Usuthu River in Swaziland’s Lowveld region, however, had a couple of computers and Resting spent leisure time writing computer programs and a 3D version of the game Minesweeper. He became so proficient he assisted in teaching computer studies to his classmates.
His maths teacher advised him: “Maybe I should think of IT as a profession and not architecture. So he got me thinking about IT as a career. But back then the only company that anyone had really heard of was Microsoft… I didn’t see it as a skill then; just a passion.”
Following Resting’s intranet installation, the “pet project” quickly established a momentum of its own. Working with Lachezar Karadjov – an architect fascinated by the concept of global connectivity and who was to become his business partner – he created a basic gateway to CompuServe, the first major US commercial online service provider. Swaziland joined the internet age.
Real Image’s formative years saw the door-to-door selling of internet dial-up email services, initially signing up five subscribers who remain on the books today. The fledgling company built the country’s first internet website portal and claimed some prime digital real estate with the ownership of the legend swazi.com. But income remained elusive and Karadjov shared some of his architect salary with him.
“We had no idea how we were going to make money at that stage,” says Resting.
His partner was 30 years senior to the teenage tech entrepreneur. Resting acknowledges, although at the time it went unrecognized, the benefits of Karadjov’s mentoring of him in the ways of business. Karadjov was to retire from Real Image a few years later in 2004 and Resting bought him out to become the company’s majority shareholder.
In the early days Real Image’s office space was a cubicle in the architect’s offices. As the business expanded, so did the computer hardware which began to spill out and display tangles of electrical wiring and connections.
“It was damn hot, and it never looked good, as we had customers walking in and seeing all these things.”
At 19 years old, Resting’s company, Real Image, became Swaziland’s first internet service provider (ISP).
The financial gravity of Johannesburg pulls the bright and the talented to it from throughout southern Africa. Resting’s lack of a degree would not have handicapped him from employment in South Africa, where the IT industry’s rapid evolution thrives on the innovative.
But he never considered it as an option.
“I want to leave a legacy behind and I want to be known as the guy who brought connectivity to this country and I continue lobbying to bringing proper connectivity.”
“To go to South Africa is about making a quick buck and a substantive living working in those markets. In Swaziland I get to experience all the challenges there are to rolling out a network, be it terrestrial or wireless. Money will come in due course, I am not worried about that. But what we are doing is building value.”
“Our (Real Image) rate of growth used to be 6 or 7 percent. Now we are hitting the 15 percent mark compounded, which is 17 to 20 percent year on year. We may be doing R30 million ($2.3 million) [annual turnover] today, but in five years we may be beyond the R50 million ($3.8 million) mark and it is an organically grown company.”
As a dominant player in connectivity, employing 40 full time staff, Real Image hosts 80% of the country’s internet content, and provides a range of services, including internet or intranet, through to website development and tailored software.
“One of the ways to quickly grow your numbers is buying up the small operators. But then what are we trying to achieve. We are very much driven by quality of service and believe that we provide a superior product.”
The geographical triangle of Mbabane, Manzini and Matsapha, about 20 kilometers apart at their furthest apex, forms Swaziland’s industrial base and hosts its manufacturing and finance industries, some of King Mswati III’s myriad palaces and the seat of government.
Swaziland’s comparatively much higher internet costs to neighboring South Africa is a consequence of a government parastatal acting as the gatekeeper for importing bandwidth and able to charge monopoly prices in an uncompetitive arena. Within this constricted operating environment, Resting is on a mission to reduce data costs and increase connectivity speeds by making the epicenter of the Swazi economy a WiFi zone.
Owing to Mbabane’s mountainous terrain five WiFi towers have been built to service the capital, each structure costing R500,000 (around $38,000) before the installation of the electronics, but fewer are required in Matsapha and Manzini as the landscape gives way to shallow undulating hills.
In October last year, communications minister Dumisani Ndlangamandla cut the ribbon to open Real Image’s Mbabane headquarters. The double–story, open-plan offices has a public internet cafe – with limited free data access – and amid the workspace’s rows of computers a tabletop football game. The architecture firm that provided him a small cubicle for his initial foray into the digital world is now a tenant at the new offices.
Resting says he has the “ear of government,” and continues to lobby for the liberalization of the sector, including the removal of the “exclusivity clause” that makes the import of bandwidth the sole preserve of a government parastatal.
“My hope is that by the end of this year (2017) the pricing of the internet is going to drop dramatically in the country. Dramatically,” Resting predicts with a smile.

Drop Out, Cash In The King Of The Kingdom’s Internet

It was not narcissism that saw Papa Kwesi Nduom name his company after himself. It was that desire to put his reputation on the line when it came to business; that strong belief, born of a brass neck and a steel backbone, to be accountable for his work.
Today, Groupe Nduom sits atop of a business made up of tourism, investment advisory and management, financial services, technology, media, management consulting, cross border trade and sports.
It is a modus operandi born in Nduom 47 years ago, when the first opportunity knocked.
“There are certain stages in life that you get to know things. I had the privilege of getting a scholarship and spending one year in the United States in 1970. Prior to that, I wanted to be a medical doctor. I went to the United States and was introduced to other things. Through that I got to know that you could also be in business. In just that one year I took so many different classes outside medicine which broadened my view in life and all sorts of opportunities became possible,” he says.
His uncanny ability to spot opportunities led to the formation of a business empire, based in Ghana, with 60 companies in its portfolio. When we meet at the Coconut Grove Hotel, on a warm Saturday afternoon in Accra, Nduom has a spring in his step, a broad smile and an energetic “good afternoon” for everyone as he ushers us into his inner office in the sprawling resort.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Forbes Africa TV Ep12: Papa Kwesi Nduom reveals how he lost $2 million in one day" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LE2a7A0mT9I?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h5 id="eow-description">The final episode of the first season of My Worst Day with Peace Hyde features Ghanaian serial entrepreneur Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom &#8211; who shares his memories of the day he lost $2 million worth of business that threatened to end his consultancy business.</h5>
At 64, Nduom’s attention to detail is slightly intimidating; his demeanor is composed and authoritative. His gaze is attentive as he reminds us politely he is flying out later that evening to the United States to complete the acquisition of a new bank. Nduom’s intuitive timing has served him well over the years. That skill was born of the transition from medicine to business. 
“I ended up at the University of Wisconsin and that is where I did the Bachelor of Economics and PhD in service delivery systems. It is there that I actually went off course. I wanted to be a medical doctor and I took all the admission tests and everything and got to a point where I needed a lot of money to continue if I wanted to get into a high-quality medical school. But I found out that I could take some different courses and take a degree in economics and get to work quickly, so I took that path so I could finish and get to work and make some money.”
“I had to fend for myself. Some of the things I do to make a living today, like finding opportunities, comes from the fact that I had to do those things myself and scrape along to survive. I had to pay my own fees, pay for my rent and go to school at the same time,” says Nduom.
In those lean days, he packed canned beans in a factory; toiled for two weeks on a construction site, in the cold winter; and spent long hours as a parking lot attendant.
“I would do the third shift at work which was at midnight and when you come back there would just be enough time to take a shower and go to school. If they said a semester was 15 credits, I wanted to take 20 because I calculated how many credits I needed to take to get out of school early because it was money I had to pay.”
The search for new opportunities to make money taught Nduom two key business principles: the first was how to negotiate.
“One job I really liked was working second shift at a meat factory. It paid well per hour and you learned how to cut meat, and you were also able to take some of the off cuts home. So you had food. So the people I shared my apartment with at that time were two Somalis who loved meat, so I used the meat to trade for other necessities which I couldn’t afford myself.”
Second lesson: the power of perseverance.
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“Right after university, my first job was with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance in Milwaukee. I went there and applied with my Ghanaian name and the lady looked at the name Papa Kwesi Nduom and started asking all sorts of other questions. I got to a point where I couldn’t answer all the questions so I failed the interview.”
“I went back to the university and I carried a different identification because my passport had two names in it. So I went and changed my clothes and came back as Joseph Hubster Yorke Junior, which was my other name. The lady didn’t notice that it was the same person. So now, with my new name, she asked me completely different questions, which I answered and she gave me the job and I became a life insurance underwriter,” says Nduom.
Then, Nduom worked at the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, a health insurance company, and then the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District, a county government institution. Here a rare life-changing experience, in an unlikely place, unfolded through a chance meeting.
“You never know where and when opportunity will make itself available so you should always be ready. I was on the fourth floor of my work building but on the seventh floor was a nice men’s room, which was big and had marble floors, which was really nice. So I would go and use the men’s room on that floor instead of going to the one on the fourth floor,” says Nduom.
“One day I was washing my hands and a guy comes also washing his hands and we strike a conversation. He asked if I would be interested in a job opportunity. He happened to be a recruiter who worked in the building and was looking for people that Touche Ross might be interested in. So we spoke and he set up the interview for me with the partner at Touche Ross and that is how I got the job. It was just an accidental meeting in the men’s room.”
Touche Ross later became Deloitte Touche, one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting firms with revenues of $36.8 billion, according to research company, Gartner. Nduom worked his way up to become a partner in the firm where he would learn his most important business skill, the art of selling.
“Every year they had a book that had all the partners in the US and in that book every partner’s production was there. In it were also the points that you earn as a bonus, so you see the entire top performing partners. So you knew where you were and what your business was supposed to do. So it is important for you to deliver. So you learn how to sell, you learn how to provide service and you learn how to satisfy the need of your customer.”
Nduom became a partner at Deloitte in 1986; with that the pressure to deliver increased. Ronald Reagan was president, Wall Street was booming and business was opening up around the world. Deloitte was in the thick of it.
“When you become a partner in the firm, you are a shareholder in the firm and basically you work for your own account. What you earn is strictly based on the business you bring in. The minimum amount you had to bring in terms of consulting fees was $1 million a year.”
Nduom moved to Washington when the firm merged the Milwaukee and Chicago offices. That put him in contact with the international division at Deloitte; another opportunity Nduom quickly took advantage of.
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“One day, over Thanksgiving dinner I told my wife that I wanted to go to Ghana to see what it was like to work there because I had never worked in Ghana before. So I bought a ticket, came to Ghana and I wanted to spend about a month or so to look around,” he says.
It was this conviction to understand the Ghanaian market that lent Nduom his next big entrepreneurial break. Initially, he sought to offer his services for free to get a feel for the consulting market in Ghana. At the time, Deloitte had representation, with Haskins &amp; Sells, in Accra as well as an association with Akintola Williams in Nigeria. Nduom looked for another opportunity and his instinct paid off, yet again.
“One of the partners said Ashanti Goldfields was their client and it was time to go do an audit, so maybe I should go with them to do an information systems audit. I traveled with them to Obuasi and spent a week, did the analysis of their systems, wrote a report and spoke to the man in charge of the whole area. He said he liked what I was suggesting which was something they might like to do but I should go talk to the managing director of Ashanti Goldfields, which was Sam Jonah, but then he was based at Diamond House in Accra.”
This principle of perseverance, which Nduom had learned a lifetime ago, when he secured his first job as a life insurance underwriter, was to serve him well – just as well, as a frustrating time was ahead.
“So I tried to talk to Sam Jonah several times in Accra and it didn’t work. I went back to Obuasi and somehow somebody there accused me of messing up with their computer systems so they ordered me off the mine. So I left the mine but sat by the supervisor’s door all day and convinced them to let me in because I wanted to talk to him about what can be done to improve their systems. He let me in and I left with an agreement to come back and organize their information systems,” says Nduom.
The contract was for a complete systems overhaul of the gold mine, involving the change of computers, accounting systems as well as payroll. Nduom enlisted the help of Deloitte to deliver the projects. After this, Nduom delivered more projects, including overseeing the merger of Touche Ross and Deloitte Haskins &amp; Sells, forming Deloitte &amp; Touche.
“When they merged they didn’t have a management consulting section and that is what gave me the opportunity to set up Deloitte and Touche Consulting West Africa and brought some other people from the US and hired them to join the team,” says Nduom.
The team had nearly 100 people in Liberia, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe. Ever the opportunist, Nduom spotted yet another gap in the market.
“While we were here, we realized that nobody was doing consulting work. So I took my own money because the firm said you are a partner in the US and not a partner in Ghana or Africa. They had no interest in setting up a branch of Deloitte USA in Ghana. Deloitte is set up as member firms. So they said we will give you two years after which you will get Africa out of your system and come back to the US.”
The two years taught him resilience. The new West African consulting business was inundated with work. Nduom secured major contracts with Texaco and Elf Oil in Nigeria, the African Development Bank and Malawi Oil. He was also responsible for setting up the computer software for Zimbabwe’s social security system.
“Eventually I became the coordinator for consulting for the African region for Deloitte and the time came for me to go back and I said there was enough work to do here so we set it up as a member firm of Deloitte. So when senior partners will get together every year to have their annual meeting, I would go as the senior partner for the West African consulting practise,” says Nduom.
Nduom became the chairman for the African region for Deloitte and held that position until the end of 2000. His says his success is down to focusing on long-term objectives, while staying flexible enough to solve day-to-day problems.
“We would look for a place to relax or do some work, we couldn’t find anything and so we set up Coconut Grove. We were looking for people to do some software work for us and we couldn’t find anyone, so we took a bus to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and recruited some students, gave them computers, gave them software to tear apart and build again and then we started a software company. Out of that we set up a software company called TSS, then a hardware company called IBS, and out of that came corporate finance which became Gold Coast,” says Nduom.
The slogan of Groupe Nduom grew beyond expectation and owns a string of companies, from hospitality to entertainment. It has hotels, a football club and an artist management business. In media, it has newspapers, television, radio and advertising; it also owns primary and secondary schools and a university.
Nduom’s intuitive timing helped elbow out competition across his empire; a shrewd strategy that led to his worst day in business.
“I try to forget the date. It was 1995. It is the day I traveled from Ghana to Wharton to speak to graduate business school students about investments in Africa. I was one of the keynote speakers so I traveled from Ghana to Washington and my brother met me with faxes from Ghana, which said number one, I was on the Ghana Airways board at the time and I have been sacked from the board. I had consulting business with Ghana Telecom and it had been canceled. I was doing some consulting business with State Enterprise Commission and it said I was under investigation and in one day I lost over $2 million worth of consulting business,” says Nduom.
He believes this was an attempt by the government of the day to block his businesses for reasons he never found out. The event prompted a passion to be a part of the political system to prevent this injustice from happening to anyone else.
“I didn’t want anybody in Ghana to go through that experience where a government will just get up and, for whatever reason, decide that somebody should not be in business and that they should cancel their contract and just try to move him off the earth. There was a plan to do away with my businesses and everything I was doing in Ghana. They said they would smoke me out and get me to go back to where I came from. This was elevated to an extent that it became a row between the government of Ghana and the US,” says Nduom.
Nduom turned lemons into lemonade and expanded across Africa, leaving trading in Ghana until the impasse was resolved. It was, and 40 years on the business is riding high on its acquisition of Illinois Service Federal (ISF) Bank in Chicago, US. Nduom is older, wiser, with a clear eye for new horizons.
“Working here is like working in our own republic. We are governed by our own rules. You have to send a daily report, monthly report, quarterly report, a mid-year report and a yearly report. The idea is if something was to happen to you, anybody is supposed to look at your business and pick up where you left,” says Richmond Keelson, General Manager of Groupe Nduom Corporate Affairs.
What a journey – from packing canned beans in the United States to owning a bank there – a first for Ghana. The next couple of years will be spent trying to help the bank – the newest entrant into the group – find its feet in the business of its faraway owners.
Nduom is driven by the passion to have a business set up, thrive and succeed beyond Ghana.
That is the legacy Nduom is building; one opportunity at a time.

From Canned Beans To The African Dream Of Owning A Slice Of The States

You don’t have to be there anymore. Last night, 500,000 people rented a roof over their heads in 57,000 cities through the web. Also, 640,000 homeowners and paying guests were matched up by Airbnb, a firm based in San Francisco.
It’s a money maker.
A typical South African Airbnb host, who shares space in his home, can make at least R28,000 ($2,000) a year, according to Airbnb data .
“South Africa is currently the largest market for Airbnb in Africa with 9,400 homes listed. South Africa is becoming an increasingly popular global destination, with the number of people staying in places booked through Airbnb in South Africa increasing by a staggering 257 percent. South Africans are embracing the service as well, with those using Airbnb to travel increasing by 163 percent,” said an Airbnb report last year.
“Airbnb is the worst idea that ever worked,” says Brian Chesky, Co-founder and CEO of Airbnb.
That’s not all.
On the internet, everything is for hire and anyone can make money. It is called the sharing economy. It allows people to make money from under-used things. You can rent out your house while on vacation, or rent out your lawnmower, piano or  car when not using it. It can be anything.
“I travel a lot and whenever I do, I make sure that my entire house in Stellenbosch is rented out for whatever days I would be gone for. I even let them use my helper if they need to and sometimes I even leave them my pets at an additional cost,” says Jean van der Merwe, a sharing economy devotee.
“I also rent someone’s house instead of a hotel when I’m away. This means I get to feel at home and experience the city like a local would at a cheaper fee.”
Van der Merwe says she rents musical instruments for her children, instead of buying.
“Children change their minds. So I just rent to see what they like and when we are done with it, I just return it to the owner.”
The impact is huge. Airbnb in the hospitality sector; Uber in transport; Spotify in media and Poshmark in fashion are leading the way. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), global revenue generated by this growing phenomenon is expected to be worth $335 billion by 2025.
“We’ve definitely seen a shift in consumption habits, specifically as it pertains to music. People are feeling less of a need to own a track of music, which is where Spotify comes into play. They would rather rent or share things instead,” says Amanda Havey, Vice President of On-Air and Brand Creative for VH1.
For Uber, the sharing economy has brought remarkable growth. Since 2013, the online ride-sharing company has taken off in 12 cities in sub-Saharan Africa, with no advertising. Its disruptive nature and low prices has put it on everyone’s lips. It connects customers through a smartphone app that tracks the journey. Leaked financial results show that the company had gross bookings of $3.63-billion in the first half of 2014 alone.
These figures can’t be ignored. But there is a trick to it. It works on trust and reputation. If you hire out your car, you trust someone will bring it back, in good condition.
According to a PwC survey, 51% of people surveyed say they can see themselves being providers in the sharing economy in the next two years, while 72% say they can see themselves being consumers in the sharing economy in the next two years.
“A potential Uber or Lyft driver, weighing the costs of a new car, may choose to spend more for a higher quality, more luxurious vehicle, knowing that it can yield return on investment rather than simply being a depreciating asset. A prospective homebuyer may look into purchasing a three-bedroom home rather than a two-bedroom, mindful that rental income from a spare room can cover the additional mortgage payment,” reads the study.
It sounds almost socialist in nature, but some argue that it leaves a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots.
In Uber’s case, little by little, the dream of dominating the taxi ranks of the world is crumbling in Africa. For a start, many drivers complain they are exploited. Angrily, they have joined the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) and plan to take the company to the Labour Court – the antithesis of Uber’s free market philosophy. That could be a stumbling block in the sharing economy utopia.
The dispute is over Uber taking a cut from every trip; 20% for UberX and 25% for Uber Black.
“I joined Uber because they promised [we could] be our own boss and get a chance to earn up to R10,000 ($700). We have to work long hours for little income. The cost of living is too much, we’re not benefitting from Uber. They just came to Africa to abuse Africans,” says Joseph Munzvenaga, an Uber driver in Cape Town, who has been driving for the company for more than two years.
Julian Wenn, another Uber driver in Cape Town, says exploitation is an understatement.
“When people are desperate they will do anything, when a firm like Uber has you tuned into the channel of desperation you are bound to be exploited. The sad part is most drivers still don’t realize just how much they are being exploited,” he says.
What may stand up in the court, for the defence, in the sharing economy spirit, is that Uber classifies its drivers as independent contractors and not employees, hence they can avoid paying insurance and other costs companies cover for employees.
Uber spokesperson, Samantha Allenberg, says all drivers are independent operators and are free to work when they want.
“Uber is not a taxi, nor is it a taxi or transportation company. Ridesharing apps like Uber make it affordable and more efficient for riders to get around – especially in places where there is little public transport,” says Allenberg.
This paragon of the sharing economy is also controversial.
The Kenya Taxi Cab Association called for a withdrawal of Uber in the East African country, citing the lack of regulation. The call came on the day violence flared, in the capital Nairobi, as taxi drivers attacked Uber drivers. The association’s organizing secretary, Job Nzioka, says Uber is cheaper because they are not subjected to hefty levies, such as inspection fees, parking fees and operating fees.
In the midst of blood and chaos, investors think that Uber will not just survive, but thrive. They have put their money to drive Uber’s valuation up to $68 billion; much higher than Facebook when it was six years old. Uber has also launched UberEATS, an on-demand meal delivery service powered by its app.
Despite its troubles in Africa, Uber’s ambition is to be ubiquitous, just like many sharing economy companies.
It seems the sharing economy is too big an opportunity to miss.

What’s Mine Is Yours,  For A Fee

It’s a gloomy summer’s day in Cape Town. A blanket of never-ending dreariness fills the skies. Bleakness has played a big part in Peter Allerstorfer’s journey to entrepreneurship. On this day, he is dressed in blue much like how he felt three years ago when he – and his partners – went into business.
This is a long way from Austria. He is overseeing the remodeling of their offices in the heart of the mother city, just as he remodeled his life when he travelled 13,500 kilometers to Africa. He swapped his well-paid job at McKinsey &amp; Company for building companies around the continent.
“I was missing something. I felt like doing something hands-on and creating something and seeing the results. I got an opportunity from Rocket Internet to build African operations and I took it,” says Allerstorfer.
He moved to Cape Town to start Zando, one of South Africa’s largest e-commerce fashion stores, and later Jumia, Nigeria’s largest e-commerce shop. He did the jobs well.
“It was a difficult thing to do because I had a promising career ahead of me. I wanted to start something entrepreneurial. We got funding and we just had to deliver the work and run the company. The company was running and we were a fully-fledged retailer.”
It was far from enough.
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“I stood there and saw all these things and realized I have put so much work on something that isn’t really mine. That’s when I realized it was time to build something on my own,” says Allerstorfer.
He co-founded Silvertree Capital, an investment company that builds businesses in Africa by bringing together new and old economy business models, with Paul Cook and Manuel Koser.
Starting his own business was hard. It also ushered in his worst day.
“We just left Zando and we didn’t know exactly what we were doing. We knew we are good in tech and e-commerce so we stuck to that… By the end of 2013, things were looking good. We launched our businesses, found an investor we were making progress,” says Allerstorfer.
They launched HealthCart, an online pharmacy, in 2013, launched an online marketing agency to service it and also launched a price comparison site.
Then trouble started.
“The investor in our e-commerce online pharmacy service business wasn’t delivering what they said they would. Also they had more control in the business and we didn’t, even though they knew less about the ecommerce industry and didn’t understand technology,” says Allerstorfer.
Over time, friction developed. To make matters worse, the investor in the price comparison company disappeared.
“He said he would put more money over time but we couldn’t get hold of him anymore. He just disappeared and didn’t fulfil his promise.”
In about six months, they reached a breaking point. July 23, 2014 was his worst day. He found out the investor in the online pharmacy business had taken over the business completely. He didn’t want to work with them anymore.
“This company was our very first baby. We had worked so hard on it and then it was just taken from us. The investor had the controlling hand in the company and there wasn’t much we could do,” he says.
To make matters more catastrophic, the investor in the price comparison business never got back to them and they were left with nothing but mounting bills.
It took them a year to figure out what to do and wasted money they didn’t have. It was these hard knocks that crafted the company’s approach to investment.
Their whole world was crumbling in front of them, so they decided to take a walk down the road for a burger and cold beer.
“We stopped chatting about what we were going to do. Paul and his wife were expecting a baby and we were wondering if we made mistakes by leaving the company we were at for this. We were stressed. If things continued like that we weren’t going to survive. We had invested a year and a half into this and so much hard work,” says Allerstorfer.
Trying to survive wasn’t easy. But they soldiered on so they could pay their 20 employees and make sure their dream didn’t go down the drain.
“We knew we understood technology, we knew how e-commerce works, but the business was just not working. We just decided to stay calm and focus on the business and keep doing what we are good at.”
Fundraising presentations saved them.
“Our first fundraising PowerPoint went out and within seven days we found investors. Things started turning around.  It reassured us in terms of what we do,” says Allerstorfer.
They worked day and night to make sure it stayed that way.
“From that day ‘til now, our revenue grew 10 times. We are happy we had these things happen so we could learn. The biggest thing was learning that, in whatever we do, we should have complete control over the business so we can make decisions and not be thrown out of projects we have worked hard on. ”
The company has now invested in 15 companies across four countries, reaching three million consumers a month. To garnish sweet victory, they managed to gain back control of the online pharmacy business, HealthCart.
“We later found out that the reason they initially pulled out is because they were going through financial troubles and tried to do fundraising but failed. They said they were closing down the business and we said no don’t and we got the company back,” he says.
Through its business-to-consumer e-commerce platforms, which include Click n Compare, Faithful to Nature, Cybercellar and the recently-acquired PriceCheck, Silvertree Capital reached 25 million unique consumers in Africa in 2015, a 50% increase on the previous year.
Not bad for an entrepreneur whose business was crumbling before his eyes on his worst day.

‘We Worked So Hard And It Was Just Taken  From Us’

When a 10-year-old Dimitri Hadjipaschali started playing computer games his parents scoffed at the idea. Hadjipaschali was housebound, after breaking his ankle skateboarding, when he discovered his brother playing a game called Counter-Strike. This proved to be an existential moment on crutches; gaming became Hadjipaschali’s life.
“I just needed a crosshair and Counter-Strike was the game I kind of stuck with. I decided I was going to be a full-time gamer when I joined [eSports team] Bravado in 2008&#8230; I was doing it full time, trying to win competitions. Every time it came to a tournament I was trying to win. Every time I would come in second or third it was the worst day of my life for me. That’s when I knew,” he says.
Eight years later, Hadjipaschali is one of the rising stars in the next online craze in Africa. In bedrooms across the continent a generation of professionals is playing electronic sports, or eSports, for a living.
Competitive online gaming draws millions via streaming websites and where as much as $20 million can be at stake. It’s a bit like the Olympics for geeks and eSports has its own disciplines. Hadjipaschali is the captain for Bravado’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, or CS GO, team.
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This is a first-person shooter game where a team of five tries to thwart bombers. In tournaments, teams play off in a best-of-three taking turns to attack and defend. The more games you win, the stronger your team becomes.
CS GO is one of the most popular games in South Africa. Globally it is the fourth highest-earning eSports game, with 5,396 professional players competing for $19.16 million in prizemoney at 1,710 tournaments, according to esportsearnings.com.
In Africa, this multi-million-dollar eStory is just beginning. The competition in South Africa is fierce. For years, gamers have battled for a few spots in international competition. That’s where the money is.
This is why Hadjipaschali is at a team boot camp in the cold hills of Meyersdal, south of Johannesburg. The team is here to train for the Electronics &amp; Gaming Expo (EGE) in Cape Town. On the line is a shot at the international arena – an all-expenses-paid spot at the Electronic Sports World Cup and a chance to win $75,000, in Paris at the end of October.
“If we don’t take first place [in Cape Town] we don’t know when this opportunity will come again,” he says.
It’s going to be a long night for the team. On any given day, Hadjipaschali practices nine hours a day, often finishing at dawn. This weekend, with the promise of Paris looming, they will push even harder.
“A boot camp is for us to be more focused, to get more work done. It forces us to work when we are next to each other.”
It has been an historic and lucrative year for eSports in South Africa.
From Johannesburg is Barry ‘Anthrax’ Louzada, one of the old hands – which doesn’t take too long in this business. Involved in the industry since 1999, Louzada is called the South African godfather of eGaming. He slogged it out for 10 years as a competitive gamer around the world.
“Two years ago, you were at maybe a R100,000 ($7,000) total cash prize money for an event, because there was only one event a year. Now you are looking at over R2 million ($142,000) in just one year,” says Louzada.
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These days Louzada is a shoutcaster, in English that means he gives live commentary on the sport.
“When I started out, it was a case of people driving around going to each other’s houses [barbequing] and LANing (network gaming). The internet wasn’t workable in this country for us to actually do any sort of online competing or playing. Now you have got hundreds and thousands of people coming to conventions,” he says.
As Louzada’s days as a competitive gamer are ending, Hadjipaschali’s are just beginning. If you saw Hadjipaschali walking down the street you wouldn’t think he was one of the top online gamers in the country. But those in the know ask for his autograph. For Hadjipaschali it’s more about the rush than the cash.
“In the beginning you can feel that pressure, that big match temperament, where you are not at the comfort of your own home behind your computer at your desk. When you are at home your hands aren’t shaking and it’s easier to play.”
Hadjipaschali’s next step on the road to fame and dollars was at a tournament in the cavernous Cape Town International Convention Centre on July 29. The team strolls in with the ease born of years perfecting their craft. They set up their computers, log in, huddle, and put on their headphones. Once the headphones are on, says Hadjipaschali, they won’t see anything but the screen.
With a crowd of almost a hundred cheering them on, it takes two hours to win their quarterfinal against a team called Energy. The players get up, shake hands and then make their way back to their hotel for some rest.
Hadjipaschali isn’t the only professional gamer in his family. His older brother Andreas, who founded Bravado, also had his shot. Now the team’s manager and coach, Andreas is even more determined to see South African gamers on the international scene.
“You only have one or two options, to make do with what qualifiers we have got [in South Africa] or we go overseas and we try qualify over there, but it gets really expensive. To go overseas, for five days with five players with accommodation, food, drinks we spent easily over R150-R170,000 (around $12,000). It’s different if you are living in Europe and there are qualifiers there all the time.”
Although the industry is booming, it’s not easy for the players of Bravado to play professionally. The team practises online every night. This is to accommodate players like 17-year-old Aran Groesbeek, who is still in school. His parents will allow him to play only once he has finished his homework. Ashton Muller, 24 years old, works part time as a manager at his father’s construction company. He dropped out of university to focus on gaming.
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Robby da Loca spent a year in Sweden, the mecca of CS GO, trying to make it. But, with the high cost of living in Europe and having to work part time, he fell short and returned to South Africa. Da Loca is so captivated that when he first started playing, he would sneak onto his brother’s computer to play with his earphones off, so he could hear if his brother came home.
The final member is Ruan van Wyk, a qualified industrial engineer living in Port Elizabeth.
In Cape Town, the competition moves on to its final day. The atmosphere is intense as Bravado huddle before their semifinal. The auditorium is packed with fans. Shoutcasters blast their commentary. Behind the players is a giant screen, where the action is shown. Thousands more watch online. Bravado scores a crushing victory to get to the final.
South Africa has drawn the attention from teams around the world. One of those is Anthony Nell, manager of the South African branch of international brand Flipsid3 Tactics.
“What [Flipsid3 Tactics] are interested in is the player development in South Africa. They are looking for good players that are from parts of the world untapped by the rest of the world,” says Nell.
If you thought that gamers couldn’t earn a salary you would be wrong. Nell says even basic salaries for a player in a reserve league and lower would be around $5,000 a month, excluding prize money and endorsements.
The most lucrative eSports game is Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2). It attracts total prize pools of $86.7 million. At The International 4 in August, the crowdfunded prizes locked at $20.7 million and the winners, Wings Gaming, from China, walked away with $9.1 million for a week’s work.
Africa might not have as much cash to spare, but the pressure in Cape Town’s final is intense. Hadjipaschali and his team win a contested first set against their rivals, Carbon eSports, from Cape Town, who are playing at home.
Bravado suffers from nerves in the second set, throwing away an eight-point lead as Carbon force a decider. Ten minutes before the crucial final round that will make or break this team, Hadjipaschali gathers outside for a pep talk.
“Play calm and play smart,” he says.
The talk pays off and Bravado wins the final round clinically. The team leaps from their chairs shouting. The elation on their faces is priceless. It’s not the Olympics, nor the World Cup; but for these players it’s just as important. Hadjipaschali is so overwhelmed he cries.
“This is unreal. It may not seem like a lot to people, but this is what most of us do full time,” he says.
Ahead of Hadjipaschali and his team lies Paris and a possible $75,000, and that’s just the start.
How many more young men and women from Africa are going to go out on the international stages in search of millions, earning a living in a way their parents would surely fail to understand. Check your kids in the bedroom.

You  Can’t Get The Kids  Off The Computer

I have taken a sabbatical from corporate life and as I write this I am experiencing, first hand, the cultures, history and architecture of the ancient world in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.
Travelling through Turkey, the Balkans and the new countries born of the collapse of the Soviet Union, one cannot escape the striking diversity of the infrastructure that modern citizens of these countries have inherited. There are important lessons we should have learned from the past, but have we?
Roman engineering and construction techniques laid the foundation for our modern construction technology and methods – they created massive infrastructure across 5,000 kilometers of territory from northern Europe to northern Africa and the Black Sea in the east over a period of around 500 years from 27 BC. The Romans were dedicated master civil engineers and constructors using marble and hard rock, such as granite, transported from all corners of their empire to create cities comprising massive structures, water and transport systems, as well as public facilities that could accommodate thousands in stadiums. They invented concrete and the manufacture of kiln-fired red brick. They recycled materials and large building components as the empire expanded and contracted.
“Why did the Romans build so many ruins?” asked a tourist to our great amusement – fact is that their structures have outlasted most others, hence these are still with us. The Romans worked from a master plan, used detailed design techniques, the best materials, and skilled craftsmen. They mastered logistics, manpower and project management like the ancient Egyptians had done 3,000 years earlier.
The Ottoman Empire usurped the Romans in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor for the next 400 years into the 15th century before Eastern European communities started to win back their countries from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks and re-establish their own art, culture and architecture. During their reign, the Ottomans, while perfecting the construction of large domes in their places of worship, chose interlocking soft sandstone and used simpler construction methods. Their structures have not survived as well, with some notable exceptions, requiring regular restoration and preservation, at great cost.
In Istanbul there are two obelisks a hundred meters apart. One is sandstone from the Ottoman era around 1400 AD, but now a crumbling image of its former self. The second is an Egyptian granite obelisk still in almost pristine condition from around 2000 BC, situated upon a still substantial foundation of a Roman hippodrome built circa 330 AD of solid granite, marble and red brick and mortar (cement).
Fast forward to my visit to Romania and Bulgaria, where the fabulous granite and marble structures of the Renaissance period, through to the 18th century post the defeat of the Ottoman Turks, stand proudly while all around are the crumbling relics of Soviet Russia era multi-story mass housing blocks and public buildings – falling apart after only a few decades. The new democracies in these countries have massive restoration and rebuilding programs – substantially funded with EU contributions, which fuels the British, French and German taxpayer debate on who benefits from the EU.
The contrast with the structures of the ancient and antique world is remarkable.
Spotlight moves to Africa and what has been achieved in infrastructure delivery.
The crumbling RDP houses, the years of time and cost overruns on public sector power plants and pipelines, roads and railways. The lack of infrastructure planning and maintenance across our region is in stark contrast to the world class private sector delivery of mines, toll roads, World Cup stadiums, renewable energy plants, commercial and retail infrastructure and private hospitals delivered in recent years.
It would seem obvious, and history tells us, that infrastructure is best delivered by professionals using proven design processes, skilled craftsmen, the appropriate materials and technologies, effective planning and project management techniques.
Infrastructure delivery should not be controlled by politics, cadre deployment, state institutions that have limited technical capacity, tenderpreneurs, or cobbled-together contractors who may be well-networked.
By nature of their training, demonstrable skills and track record, infrastructure delivery is the domain of professional individuals and companies who should, but still wait patiently, be invited into the inner sanctum of government to discuss the master plan for both South Africa and the regional infrastructure backlog that will unlock the future.
The Romans had this sorted – why can’t we?

Where is caesar   when you need him

Economic gurus say Africa needs to industrialize, but Africa seems two jumps into the future and most of the initial public offerings (IPOs) for 2016-2017 will be technology, healthcare, telecoms and even securities exchanges.
Word on the streets of Tanzania’s coastal city is that the IPO of the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange is oversubscribed. The bourse aimed to raise TZS7.5 billion ($3.49 million) in the IPO which closed on June 3 and results were not available as we went to press. It is Africa’s third securities exchange to go through demutualization and self-listing – target date is July 12 for the listing. The stock exchanges in Nigeria and Ghana are among others in the process.
Ben Nice, editor of TMT Finance, says the high-tech rush continues: “Despite global volatility, regional macroeconomic uncertainty, and a rout on commodity prices, recent forecasts are predicting that the next 12 months could see a rebound with IPOs set to reach their highest levels in Africa since 2010, and several TMT (technology, media and telecommunications) companies looking likely to float in 2016 and 2017.”
Africa Internet Group (AIG) is said to be planning an IPO by 2017. It is parent of the Jumia e-commerce brand, present in 11 countries and linked to online and mobile consumer services such as Kaymu (shopping), hellofood (food delivery), Jovago (hotel booking), Vendito (classified ads), Lamudi (real estate), Everjobs (jobs) and Carmudi (vehicles). In April, AIG announced $85.4million equity investment from phone company Orange and in March $341.5 million from Goldman Sachs, MTN, AXA and Rocket Internet.
IHS Towers, based in Lagos and owner of over 23,300 mobile phone towers in Nigeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia and Rwanda, is expected to float shares within 12 to 24 months. In December, Chief Executive and Founder, Issam Darwish,  a FORBES AFRICA cover in March 2014, said it would be “the biggest IPO ever in Africa”.
Orange Egypt, rebranded from Mobinil in March, is preparing an IPO for the Egyptian Exchange, with an offering of up to 20% of the shares. It has 33.4 million customers and is Egypt’s second biggest operator after Vodafone. In March, it announced Orange intended to invest $281.5 million into upgrading networks and services.
In May, private equity giant The Abraaj Group exited Tunisian pharmaceutical company Unité de fabrication de médicaments (UNIMED) via an IPO on the Bourse de Tunis, the first this year. The IPO valued UNIMED at $150 million and was 32.6 times over-subscribed, a bourse record. Since 2010, Abraaj has helped the group expand and in 2015 exports to more than 17 countries contributed 35% of sales.
“We recognized the healthcare opportunity in North Africa early on, in a market with a growing middle class, rising healthcare expenditure and expanding life expectancy,” says The Abraaj Group’s Managing Director Adel Goucha.
Shares in Cleopatra Hospital Company started trading on the Egyptian Exchange on June 2 after raising $40.5 million through an IPO which closed on May 30. The group, which owns four hospitals, had offered 40 million shares or 25% of the capital. The public offer was 28.6 times oversubscribed and the institutional offer 6.7 times, after roadshows programmed for Dubai, South Africa, Britain and the United States. It remains majority-owned by Care Healthcare, which includes Abraaj, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Germany’s DEG and France’s Proparco as shareholders. Abraaj, which invested in 2014, said the IPO would fund more growth.
Things were not going so well in Ghana, where Agricultural Development Bank (previously owned 52% by government and 48% by the Bank of Ghana) held an IPO between December and March and raised $115.5 million. Four unnamed investors snapped up 72% of the 75.5 million shares in the new offer but the bank’s board rejected all bids at GHS2 per share and the bank failed to raise the GHS100 million ($26 million) required. It was due to return money to applicants and ask Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to reopen the IPO.
In May, Barclays raised $876 million from selling a 12.2% stake in Barclays Africa Group (103 million shares at R126 each, a 6.5% discount to the market) in an oversubscribed offer with the Public Investment Corporation said to be a big buyer. Barclays is considering selling its remaining 50.1% stake to a strategic investor. Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond and his Atlas Mara group may be a buyer.

Industrialization  Ditched For Tech

It’s a hot summer’s day in Sandton, Johannesburg. As we meet, the sun blazes bright like Titan’s fiery wheels. Brightness has played a big part in Johan Botes’ journey to entrepreneurship. On this day, the future is even brighter; he has just opened an office in Fourways, Johannesburg, 254 kilometers away from Mokopane, in northern Limpopo, where he took his first breath in 1962.
“I am so happy that the company is growing from strength to strength and most importantly providing jobs for young people who deserve every opportunity,” he says.
Botes employs 55 permanent staff and 12 contractors in five countries. The average age is 27. The company merges accounting and IT to make businesses quicker and reliant on fewer staff.
“The drive and energy of our team is one reason we’re growing so fast. We recruit entrepreneurial, self-motivated people at a young age and embed them into our business. They’re adaptable, quick to learn and ready to work overseas independently. We’re very strategic in our recruitment process – we’ll only take people with the right cultural fit, business acumen, and energy level to succeed in a global workplace,” he says.
Building a successful business was hard and sweaty. For three years after high school, Botes came face to face with rifles and drill in the army as a conscript.
With teachers for parents, he was inspired to save for university fees. Hard work earned him a career as a chartered accountant, working for Deloitte, before going into private practice as an auditor and then returning to Deloitte for a five-year stint. Here he learned about the enterprise resource planning (ERP) market. Botes swapped his well-paid job to start Consilia Technology Investments – a company that provides technology for business – in 2012.
“First we started the business as Consilia Consult; after a year, we realized we are not a consulting company but a technology business and we changed it to Consilia Technology. We can take all your database services; optimize it to make the business work,” he says.
According to Botes, the management information system integrates areas such as planning, purchasing, inventory, sales, marketing, finance and human resources. He started the business after realizing that clients in South Africa were finding the existing high-end ERP packages expensive and complicated. He decided to build a business around Sage ERP X3 software – a solution designed to be more flexible and affordable.
“Our view is that accountants are a dying breed. Systems are taking over. You can automate almost all the accounting systems in a business today through, for example, barcoding and scanning. It changes the fundamentals of business completely. One of our clients is a logistics company that requires daily costs per vehicle everyday per component such as tyres, fuel and maintenance. We give them a report per vehicle in different categories so they can see which vehicles are making profit, without having to capture one thing. Everything is available on a phone, iPad or computer. You can sit in front of a TV and authorize payments,” he says.
Botes says that the immediate priority for Consilia is to bed down its businesses in its new offshore territories before looking at other markets.
“We’ve been cash-generative since the start and have not had to take on debt to grow our business. We believe that if we offer a skill that is in demand worldwide, and do good work at a good price, we’ll continue to grow strongly in the years to come.”
He says there is a market for businesses like his in the continent and entrepreneurs should take note and keep employees smiling.
“As a young person, to start up a business and get funding is difficult. Since we started, 21 people have gotten shares. They haven’t paid for them yet but they pay from dividends. They have three years to pay up. We give them a discount of 80 percent. If you show someone that you trust them and you give them something, they become involved and want to see the business grow. One of the young guys said to me no one in his life has ever given him anything,” he says.
The future seems bright for Botes.

‘Accountants  Are A Dying Breed

It’s a question that had to be answered sooner or later, the silent question in most entrepreneurs’ minds. It’s a topic I have  discussed privately, but now it’s something I think should be explored publicly.
If you look at the tech capitals of the world – Silicon Valley, Seoul and Tel Aviv – you won’t find any globally renowned black technology entrepreneurs.
It concerns me that a black entrepreneur has not come up with a major breakthrough in technology and gained a personal net worth of over a billion dollars as a result. Bear in mind, I did not say millions as there are many around today who are worth that.
Money is not the defining criteria though. To get to the bottom of this question we need to look at innovation, an idea that took the world by storm like WhatsApp.
Being African is also not in question, the continent has entrepreneurs such as Mark Shuttleworth and Elon Musk who have delivered powerful tech innovations and have billions in their pocket to prove it.
In order to answer the question, we need to confront three issues, cronyism, racism and nepotism. Firstly, they exist; we can’t run away from them.
Nepotism is a global issue. Everyone supports who they know, even people of color. This means that the success of a previous generation cascades to the generation that follows. This continues any race’s probability of success.
Many believe that racism is preventing black Africans from rising to the top. This belief is wrong. Asians and Jews at one point suffered tremendous discrimination, but they succeeded despite that challenge. Today, those two ethnicities are leading the business world.
Another challenge faced by many tech companies started by black entrepreneurs is the moment they come up with an idea, they are immediately thinking of ways to monetize it. You have to make money because you have bills to pay and there is the pressure of friends and family members wanting to see the fruit of what you have been working on.
At the main goal of the most successful tech companies, like Google, Quora and LinkedIn, their main goal was to get  as many people to use their technology as possible. Once that was achieved, they started to figure out how to make money from them. WhatsApp and Quora are still trying to figure this out, but they have millions of users to work with.
Investors in the United States encourage that. You need to attract interest first, monetization will be figured out afterwards and together. The message is that they will give you money if you can show your users have an active interest. Unfortunately, this is not the case in all countries around the world.
I believe Africans are brilliant. We, however, need an ecosystem that can be supportive for all ethnicities on the continent, not just black people. Nairobi and Cape Town are beacons in Africa for the vibrant tech ecosystem they have enabled in their cities. These ecosystems were largely built by the entrepreneurs themselves.
There are two black entrepreneurs who started major technology companies that should be mentioned, David Steward from the United States and Mike Adenuga from Nigeria. Steward runs World Wide Technology, the largest black-owned company in America, with revenue of $7.4 billion in 2015. World Wide Technology is tech service based.
Adenuga, with a personal worth of $3.8 billion, runs telecommunication company Globacom, with over 30 million subscribers. It is not a global brand and it doesn’t have to be.
My point is Africans are created equally and have conquered almost every industry. Competing with the rest of the world should be a challenge, not a competition. Let’s collaborate, with each other and counterparts of all backgrounds, to advance this world technologically.

Where Is The Black Mark Zuckerberg?

It does not matter how amazing your business is, as long as customers don’t know about it, it is as good as a diamond buried deep under the earth.
Technology has led to radical changes in the market; traditional advertising is dying out, and the media companies’ revenue from this is declining. Yet, despite not investing much in advertising, the exposure of companies is at an all-time high.
Are we caught in a middle of a market evolution? Everyone is trying to predict what is going to happen. Reports by the likes of the World Economic Forum, McKinsey &amp; Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers are springing up everywhere. Some are correct, others are dismally wrong.
If you are an entrepreneur in Africa with a fervent drive to conquer a particular industry, whether or not you have a budget for advertising, you need to explore the most effective strategies to market yourself in a world where you can end up drowning amid the plethora of ads and messages in the media. It’s a mad show out there, all you have to do is take a walk along the street or browse the internet to realize this.
Let’s look at some of the effective ways to convert prospective customers to actual clients.
There is a model that many entrepreneurs don’t know about – the freemium model – which is one step below the paid for premium model. Freemium is where you offer your products and services for free and then make money on the other end. Facebook’s monetization strategy is selling advertising to other companies, on the back of the popularity of their service. Bear in mind that the high usage of their service is down to it being free.
Chinese ecommerce company, Alibaba, did the same thing to kill eBay when the American company tried to enter the Asian market half a decade ago. They invited eBay to follow their free model, knowing that the listed company’s shareholders would persecute its senior executives if it did so. Alibaba is now the king of the Asian ecommerce market, while eBay fizzled out.
You need to be creative to stretch a dollar in today’s economy, whether your company is big or small.
Referral is one of the most effective marketing tools for your business. It’s a form of trust transferred by another source you know and respect. Uber has used this method well. The taxi company offers free rides to their existing customers when they refer Uber. In this case, an incentive rewards existing customers for finding new customers.
There are products that go viral without monetary incentive. WhatsApp is the best example in this case. Existing customers were pushing the product themselves because they wanted to use WhatsApp to message everyone else in their phonebook. It helps that WhatsApp is cost effective as well.
Offering your product for potential customers to use over a trial period has been popular in recent years. Most anti-virus and software companies use this as a marketing strategy. It is not a new concept though. William, a young salesman in the 1930s, worked for a company that sold home appliances. He walked from door to door, allowing people to use particular products until he returned to collect them a week or so later. More often than not, when he returned, the majority of those people discovered that the items were useful and refused to give it back. They chose to pay him for the item instead. It led to him becoming the number one salesman in his company.
Some say print media advertising revenues are going down because many marketing campaigns are online. That cannot be the entire reason, only 9.8% of Africans are internet users.
Then internet is not the only answer to marketing these days. Many companies collaborate to leverage each other’s client base. Insurance, retail and healthcare based companies are good at this. Partner with a company that opens your business to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of clients; it could save you piles of money that would usually be spent on ineffective campaigns.

The Art Of The  War

In 1967, there was growing divergence between two parts of Nigeria. Biafra, a secessionist state in south eastern Nigeria, at the time represented the nationalist aspirations of the Igbo people, whose leadership felt they could no longer coexist with the federal government. The desire for a separate state led to up to 30,000 Igbos being killed and around a million refugees fleeing to their homeland in the east. Anambra, the eighth most populated state of Nigeria, provided the base for dangerous relief flights loaded with food and supplies for the war-torn Biafran population. The area was also home to Cosmas Maduka, who was only six years old at the height of the civil war.
“We had a bunker outside our house which we ran into during times where the military opened fire and dropped bombs with their fighter jets. We did not know whether we were going to survive to see the following day,”
says Maduka.
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Once, while on his way to the market, soldiers opened fire, killing a large number of civilians. Maduka narrowly escaped. In a bid to protect her children, Maduka’s mother sent him away to live with his grandparents before he later embarked on the journey that would see him become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Nigeria.
Maduka is the President and Chairman of Coscharis Group, franchise holders of over eight automobile brands and one of the largest distributors of spare car parts in Nigeria. The company also has interests in real estate, banking, technology, medical equipment, petrochemicals, elevators and agriculture.
Like his early childhood, getting his business to this point has been tough. While talking to FORBES AFRICA in his gigantic dealership, which houses over 300 luxury car brands, he is quick to credit someone else for
his success.
“My mother was the lady who inspired me to greatness. At a young age in my life, she looked at me and told me I am going to be successful. She said people will always like me and people will struggle to say no to me,” says Maduka.
It’s easy to see why. He is composed as he sports his trademark Jesus broche. He has a quiet confidence about him without being arrogant. His mother’s “indoctrination” would later be the impetus he needed to turn N200 ($1) into a $500-million conglomerate.
On average the company sells more than 400 cars per month with prices around N150 million ($752,787) for the top end of its luxury fleet, which includes Rolls Royce, BMW, Jaguar, Range Rover and Ford. This year, the company partnered with Ford to build one of the largest manufacturing plants on the continent for its pickup trucks.
Coscharis’ medical supplies business represents GE Healthcare, Philips and Siemens in Nigeria. Coscharis also holds the number two position in the ICT market through its own brand, Coscharis Technologies Limited, and their pool of partners which includes HP, Microsoft and Lenovo. Coscharis Technologies provides hardware and software applications to organizations.
Maduka’s success is all the more remarkable when you consider he lost his father when he was a toddler.
“The best I knew of my father was the day I saw a man lying lifelessly in a suit&#8230; It was like a festival, people were exceptionally kind to me that day and whatever I asked for, I got,” he says.
The four-year-old Maduka didn’t know it was his father’s funeral. The celebrations ceased immediately after this day. Maduka started street hawking to provide for his family. Every morning at 5AM, Maduka would wake up to sell bean cakes with his older brother, Pius, to generate money for the family. True to his mother’s prophecies, Maduka was a better salesman than his brother. As a result, his mother, who could no longer afford the tuition fees for both brothers, took Maduka out of school at the age of six.
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At the age of seven and no longer attending school, Maduka was sent to live with his uncle and serve as an apprentice selling motorcycle parts. It was not a conventional apprenticeship. Firstly, Maduka worked for seven years without pay. Secondly, the shop floor that Maduka traded on during the day would be transformed into his bedroom at night. He would wake up early in the morning to have his shower on the street before customers arrived and then proceed to manage the shop by himself with occasional supervision from his uncle.
In most countries, these conditions would constitute some form of breach of child labor laws. Maduka has a different take on the experience.
“I believe this was the best university any young man can go to because it was a system where there was no contractual agreement. If you did not behave yourself, you were sent back home to the village, but if you performed, your master would give you start-up capital for your own business at the end of your apprenticeship,” he says.
By the fifth year of his apprenticeship at the age of 13, Maduka had already proven that he had what it took to run a business on his own and was consequently placed in a new branch to manage. In Nigeria, as with many African countries, entrepreneurs are trained by trade schools, craft centers and vocational institutes. Proprietors in the small-scale industries also offer training programs based on an apprenticeship system. Whereas the government-established institutions are formal, apprenticeship training in the private sector is often informal. In lieu of this, there is an ongoing debate as to which system yields the best results. Maduka favors apprenticeship.
“I believe apprenticeship is the best university to go to. If you give a formally educated person N1 million and an apprentice N100, 000, I believe in five years, the apprentice will be able to catch up to the university student and overtake him,” he says.
Maduka learned everything about the automotive components industry outside the classroom. He learned about the internal combustion of an engine, carburettors and centrifugal regulators. He also discovered how to provide the best service to clients and where to go to get the best deals as a reseller.
He understood the power of building a trustworthy reputation with your buyers. He knew about cost price and profit margins and ensured the shop was always stocked with the products the customers often needed. That learning process ended when, due to his newly found Christian faith, Maduka closed his uncle’s store so he could fast for three days. He was immediately fired and, to Maduka’s surprise, his severance package after seven years of hard work was less than a mere $400.
“I looked at my uncle in the face and said to him I deserve something better than this, five years from now, you will regret making this decision,” says Maduka.
Adversity is a constant companion for entrepreneurs, but the successful ones learn to push through tough times. Maduka outlined three key targets for himself after being dismissed by his uncle.
“I wanted to get married before I turned 20, have children by 22 and become a millionaire by 24,” he says.
Maduka immediately put his plan into action. He formed a new company, with his brother, called Maduka Brothers, continuing to trade in automobile parts. The pair sourced parts from Lagos and resold them in eastern Nigeria. In just under a year, the brothers went their separate ways due to differing opinions on how the business’ money should be spent. After the split, the siblings became competitors with automotive shops across the road from each other. However, the apprenticeship experience Maduka had gave him an advantage over his brother.
“In business, knowing where to buy is just as important as selling. You need to buy well to sell well and I had a good relationship with all the major wholesalers,” says Maduka.
He used his relationship with large wholesalers to get his supplies at a competitive rate. Within a week, Maduka was selling enough components to get himself a three-bedroom apartment – by the age of 17. With the apartment secured, Maduka set the groundwork to achieve his first goal. At the age of 18, he met a woman who would become integral to the Coscharis empire.
“Her name was Charity and we met in church. I immediately knew she was the one. I asked for her hand in marriage and, after thinking about it for some time, she accepted.”
Maduka got married at the age of 19 and made his first million, as predicted, by the age of 24. The name of his company, Coscharis, was born by combining his name, Cosmas, and the name of the second woman he credits with all his success, Charity. Today, the group has more than 26 branches nationwide, with a presence in Ghana, Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire.
The automobile business of Coscharis Group started in 1983 when the company was incorporated with the business of importation and distribution of automotive parts and accessories of Japanese vehicles. The decision to incorporate the car business provided the breakthrough Coscharis Group needed. At a time where many businesses were choosing to remain sole proprietorships to avoid the bureaucracy and complex framework of a limited company, Maduka decided to break convention. That decision paid off.
“In 1983, the federal government of Nigeria decided to give import licenses only to motor companies and, because I had incorporated Coscharis, they placed me among multinationals like Leventis, even though it was only me and my wife,” says Maduka.
The import licenses granted to Coscharis was crucial. The Nigerian economy back then was dependent on external sources. By 1980, imports had reached a level equivalent to a quarter of the GDP. The federal government deficits had increased from $1.5 million in 1970 to $17.6 million in 1978. Nigeria’s total outstanding debt had reached the $2 billion mark by 1980. These dire economic conditions presented an opportunity for Maduka in a climate where other businesses were closing.
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“It was a seller’s market then because there was scarcity of products. In every difficult situation, an entrepreneur knows that his destiny is not in the hands of his state but in his own hands, he creates his own opportunities,” he says.
Maduka was making margins as high as 200% during this time. The import license gave him protection against the military-run government’s scrutiny and he was able to capitalize on this to grow his business. Maduka had a clear vision for his company from the onset. In the early seventies, the Nigerian motor industry had a lot of major players. Coscharis had to find a way to differentiate itself.
“Leventis was one of the foremost automobile sellers, followed by Mandilas, who were known for their excellent service. We also had some Peugeot dealers&#8230; By the eighties, almost all these companies collapsed and cars were being sold under trees with no service centers.”
Coscharis was responsible for revolutionizing the automobile industry in Nigeria by building showrooms fully equipped with in-house service centers. A second factor for Coscharis was its philosophy towards its employees. Being an entrepreneur at heart, Maduka only hired individuals with strong business acumen to ensure that the culture of innovation and competitiveness continued with the group. Maduka credits this strategy for the success of the group. The company currently has more than N50 billion ($250 million) in shareholder funds, generated in just under 40 years.
Overcoming adversity has always been one of Maduka’s strengths. Four years ago, he was faced with a scandal that threatened to scupper everything he had worked so hard for. In what he considers his worst day in business, Maduka was left with a devastating financial burden of N22.4 billion ($113 million) when he secured a loan for a business associate. At the time, Maduka was on the board, and owned a 25% equity stake, of Access Bank. He was approached by Ifeanyi Uba, the CEO of Capital Oil, for a loan to import petroleum premium spirit. After sympathizing with Ifeanyi’s inability to raise capital to save his business, Maduka took a calculated risk.
“I have never defaulted on any loans. Every bank works with Coscharis at an open credit and we are one of the few companies in Nigeria who have that relationship due to our strong financial position,” says Maduka.
He guaranteed the loan of $278 million for Ifeanyi to secure his goods, which was never repaid. In what was a huge scandal at the time, Coscharis had to repay the debt.
“I don’t think even Bill Gates can walk away from $150 million without it having an effect on him,” says Maduka.
Fortunately, the investments the organization had already made were enough to absorb the heavy shock.
Today, there is a new strategy in place. Maduka has set his organization the target of turning over a billion dollars in the next five years. Ever the entrepreneur, he has identified key sectors to help him achieve this goal. One of these is agriculture.
“Nigeria spent over $3 billion to import rice; almost 90 percent of Nigerians eat rice and we see an opportunity to create a billion-dollar business in rice over the next three years,” he says.
The current government supports Maduka’s decision and has made attempts to curb the importation of rice by raising the duty of the crop to 100%. Coscharis has acquired more than 3,000 hectares of land in Anambra State and is due to harvest the first batch.
These days, life is very different for Maduka. He has six children, two of whom are involved in the Coscharis Group. His family might not exist, however, if it was up to Charity’s uncle.
“When I told her family about my intentions to marry Charity, her uncle was so annoyed he got his gun and shot at me,” says Maduka. Luckily, he missed.
He is a firm believer in each one of his children receiving a Nigerian education before progressing to the classrooms of the United States. This way none of the children will forget their roots.
Maduka is passionate about the potential in Africa’s largest economy.
“Ten years ago, the Dangote you see today was not the same back then. The government showed goodwill and supported Dangote and today Nigeria will be a net exporter of cement instead of being an importer. Vodacom came into Nigeria and left, and now they are trying hard to return to the market without any success. A subsidiary company of a South African independent company, MTN Nigeria, has more turnover than its parent company. The potential in the Nigerian market is untapped. Saudi Arabia is selling over 150,000 units of Ford with a small population.”
“If we unleash the potential of this industry, and the government handles corruption, the true potential of this market will be unmatched anywhere in the world.”
If Nigeria does reach this potential, Maduka will be on hand to make the most out of it.

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