Mutsa Chironga - Africas business revolution : how to succeed in the worlds next big growth market

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Copyright 2018 McKinsey & Company

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Leke, Acha, author. | Chironga, Mutsa, author. | Desvaux, Georges, author. | McKinsey Global Institute.

Title: Africas business revolution: how to succeed in the worlds next big growth market / by Acha Leke, Mutsa Chironga, and Georges Desvaux.

Description: Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press, [2018]

Identifiers: LCCN 2018017711 | ISBN 9781633694408 (pbk.: alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Business enterprisesAfrica. | Economic developmentAfrica. | AfricaEconomic conditions1960- | CapitalismAfrica.

Classification: LCC HD2917 .L456 2018 | DDC 330.96dc23b LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017711

ISBN: 9781633694408

eISBN: 9781633694415

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Publications and Documents in Libraries and Archives Z39.48-1992.

From Acha

To all those who are building and growing businesses across the continent, creating jobs, delivering value for their shareholders, and making a difference in peoples livesthis book is for you. I hope it inspires others to do the same.

From Mutsa

To all the entrepreneurs building businesses in Africa, however large or smallwere only getting started!

From Georges

To my familyPascale, Audrey, Agathe, and Eleonoreand to all the young Africans and Asians who, like you, embrace global diversity and want to make a difference.

As global business interest in Africa has blossomed, we have found ourselves traveling the world to help executives understand where the true opportunity lies, and how their businesses can seize that opportunity before their competitors do. A few years back, one of us (Acha) found himself in Seoul, presenting to the chairman of one of the largest Korean conglomerates. At that stage, the company had almost no presence in Africa and its executives were concerned that their Chinese competitors were stealing a march on them.

As always, the McKinsey team arrived at the meeting armed with a PowerPoint presentation, the first page of which was a map of Africa. Wed intended to flip quickly past it, but the chairman stopped us in our tracks. Youve made a mistake, he exclaimed. You have two countries called Congo! In fact, there are two countries named after the mighty River Congo. One is the mineral-rich but conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with a population of around eighty-seven million and a land area eighty times that of Belgium, its former colonial power. On the other side of the river is the Republic of the Congo, with a population of just 5 million but a GDP per capita ten times that of its neighbor, reflecting its position as a significant oil producer.