https://kenyanbusinessfeed.com/jumia-abandoned-by-its-owners-the-fall-of-an-african-giant/
So much bile! One would be forgiven to think that any co can be listed at the NYSE.
Is the kenyan one still working,kuna kitu nataka kununua
I guess it’s still working for now
A couple of issues will continue to plague local startups for the foreseeable future. These are mainly culture and work ethic. They are intertwined so, I’ll just say its culture.
1 - consumer culture (internet use penetration and habits are yet to be fully embraced locally)
2- workforce culture (not much to say here but laziness, impatience, greed etc)
I wont say that we’re bonobos but I do not foresee successful tech startups particularly in retailing standing out.
As an aside…twiga will also collapse. For similar reasons.
Twigs pia?! If it’s culture how does safcom do it?
AI buda…unajua tech startup nikusema aje
Laziness is laziness. If the issue is Kenyan laziness then safcom would not be making money. Safcom have innovated alot of things. I disagree with the laziness aspect. It’s poor management ama lack of patient capital. Not laziness. There are pockets of excellence and this is proof that pointing to general laziness among Kenyans is a lazy way of explaining business failure.
So what is shocking here!
That a billion dollar company that was heralded as the future of Retail in Africa failed due to something as ridiculous as fraud.
Buda…you’ve picked one success story. Do you think our corporate culture exemplifies success or failures? Over to you.
E
Equity…Bidco…Kevian…Ramco…Doshi…Cytonn…Tile and Carpet…Brookside…Pwani Oil…Healthy U…Riara School…Orbit… Interconsumer…Mabati Rolling Mills…Java…Sarova…KCC… Brown’s…Tuskys…Naivas…Chandarana… Zucchini…Vivo Fashions…Lyntons…Village Market…Express Auto…Citizen TV…Saj Ceramics…Serena… Jubilee Insurance…AMS real estate group. The flower farms…it’s safe to say that by and large the corporate culture in Kenya while not perfect does have alot of success stories. Painting all these folk as Lazy…and incompetent is to do them a great disservice. Equity changed banking in Kenya mpaka the Multinationals had to follow suit. Lazy folk cannot achieve that.
true, these people who are always calling people lazy are the exploiters… wanataka watu wakufe wakifanya kazi for peanuts…
Like some client i had, every meeting i had with him , was a 1hr degrading of black Kenyans ,saying how we are greedy and lazy and expensive compared to the Indians and Chinese…
One day i found myself asking, kwani mimi ni Chinese/Indian… then i realized it was a trick to pay me cheaply, he always made me feel like its a favor
he has granted me for working for him…
FUCK HIM …I STOPPED DOING BIZ WITH HIM
As someone who works in eCommerce, i can also add that Africa offers an incredible challenge for last mile delivery because of the lack of proper mapping of residential addresses and road infrastructure. This in turn creates delivery issues for sellers and customers alike.
Attempts to manage delivery SLAs by maintaining fulfillment warehouses where all sellers have to house their inventory also adds overhead for both the seller and platform. One of my friends was approached to sell but had to store most of her inventory at their warehouse and it would then become unavailable for her kiosk where she made good money by over the counter sales. They also insisted that all inventory stored at their warehouses had to have that KRA/KEBS sticker to show taxes had been paid on it.
Sawa baba.