Henley Launches Business Case Studies Covering Africa

Henley Business School Africa is launching a series of case studies covering businesses that were initiated in Africa and will be made available to anyone wanting in-depth African business case studies, which until now have not been easy to access.

“There have been increasing requests from MBA students for case studies of successful businesses in Africa. As a result, we will be introducing a series of in-depth case studies that cover businesses operating from Africa with the pre-requisite that they are sustainable businesses in their third-generation and successful. Some of our initial case studies include Maponya, Food Lovers and Dangote,” said Adri Drotskie, MBA director at Henley Business School Africa.

The case study of Mr Maponya explains how he began working for a clothing manufacturer and developed a skill to distinguish between different fabrics and the European origin of garments. He began trading clothing on his own and delivered milk and basic food stuffs. This expanded into household goods, his first BMW dealership in Soweto and fuel stations. On the social side he owned a horse called ‘Another Colour’.

He acquired contracts and licences to operate large Coca-Cola bottling plants and in 1978 developed a 65 000 square meter shopping mall in Soweto. The Group continues to grow based on Mr Maponya’s business philosophy of ‘self reliance’.

Dangote was started by Aliko Dangote who was acknowledged in 2014 by Forbes as the African Person of the Year. He began with a small transport business and then imported agricultural commodities into Nigeria.

Mr Dangote advises aspiring entrepreneurs to start small but to dream big, “In the journey of entrepreneurship, tenacity of purpose is supreme”.

By doing the right things, such as working hard, observing corporate social responsibility and venturing into partnership deals, the final break for Aliko came when he secured the import licence to bring cement into Nigeria.

His business empire in Africa has thirteen subsidiaries. In 2005 his estimated fortune, as published by Forbes was $3,3 billion, but by 2014 that fortune has grown to $25 billion. The Dangote Group was the first ever Nigerian company to reach a worth of $20 billion. In 2015 the Dangote Cement Company’s value comprised 25% of the total value of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. His business empire exports to most countries in Africa and has established a stable institutional presence in Nigeria.

“The focus of the cases cover entrepreneurship, leadership and the role of culture and ethics,” said Ms Drotskie. “The aim is to write on a variety of business types in six cases that will be completed towards the end of 2017 and then published and used as study material within the business school context.”