By Sara Leedom
This week, as investors and policy leaders land in Rwanda for
the annual World Economic Forum on Africa, the spotlight will be on the
hundreds of Rwandan entrepreneurs who are contributing to the East
African nation’s rapid and sustained economic growth.
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| Kigali |
Across the globe, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the lead drivers of job creation and economic development. In Rwanda,
the statistics are on par. According to the Rwandan Ministry of Trade
and Industry, 98% of businesses are considered SMEs, contributing 41% of
all private sector jobs in the nation.
Rwanda’s government has created a supportive environment for these
SMEs to thrive. Often cited are Rwanda’s policies which speed
entrepreneurs through an online formal business registration at a record
four hours. Protections for investors, practically non-existent
corruption, infrastructure for online payments, access to energy,
and an increasingly educated workforce are all hallmarks of a nation
that is both smart and serious about economic development.
Yet, we know that small business growth is downright hard. Businesses
fail. Entrepreneurs fail. Ideas fail. But, by overwhelming majority,
the spirit of innovation and tenacity is practically baked into the
Rwandan attitude towards business growth as a key to national
transformation.
My company, African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC), works with dozens
of young entrepreneurs in Rwanda who are taking big risks to see their
ideas come to life. In Rwanda the business development community is
largely split between investing in agriculture, the primary base of Rwanda’s economy and the largest driver of new jobs, and the ICT sector, which holds the promise for modernisation and lifestyle improvements for millions.
At AEC, we work with both. Here are some of the Rwandan entrepreneurs who inspire us:
Shekina Enterprise
Nearly ten years ago, Rwandan women traders in the local market threw
away the cassava leaves they were not able to sell each day, as the
plant spoils quickly. Pierre Damien experimented with methods of drying
cassava leaves for improved storage, and his curiosity led to an
innovative dried cassava leaf product that retained the nutritional
value of the fresh leaves and was at least four times faster to cook.
Today Shekina employs over 100 permanent staff and works with more
than 1,000 farmer suppliers – both groups are approximately 70% women –
to produce a dried cassava product for domestic and export markets.
Isombe is a staple food of East Africa, and the dried and instant
cassava product not only brings higher value for the farmers and jobs
for processors, but it saves thousands of hours of time for Rwandan
women cooking for their families.
Hollanda FairFoods
Pascal Murasira, co-founded Hollanda FairFoods and its signature
brand Winnaz crisps in 2014 with initial capital investments from IFDC.
Hollanda purchases and processes Rwandan-grown Irish potatoes to sell as
potato chips. By using a contractual farming approach to engage with
farmers and cooperatives, Hollanda now is a profitable Rwandan company,
with a strong domestic and export market.
Hollanda’s presence in East African markets is growing, as sales for snack foods in Kenya
in 2010 reached US$44.4m, growing at an average rate of 8% annually. In
Rwanda, packaging is one of the more expensive elements for the
company, as Rwandan law prohibits the use of plastic bags. So the
special Winnaz package not only is full of awesome chips, but it’s
environmentally sound as well.
Academic Bridge
In the ICT realm, we’re checking out the young and promising Academic
Bridge, an ed-tech company connecting parents to teachers for the
benefit of communication about student progress. From tracking school
fees to exam marks, the team at Academic Bridge has assembled an
inspiring package of features, recently recognised by Tigo’s Reach for
Change programme.
Academic Bridge’s CTO, Christian Ikuzwe, has been previously awarded
accolades by the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
for his SanMob app. Other team members, including Miriam Muganga and
Yves Iradukunda, are serial entrepreneurs bringing networks from Nigerian start-ups and Rwandan ecosystems to build an app that is sure to succeed.
SafeMotos
And no conversation about Rwandan tech is complete without a nod to
SafeMotos, the ”Uber” for motorcycle taxis in Kigali. With 5,000 users
on their Android and iPhone apps, co-founders Peter Kariuki and Barrett
Nash have created a taxi-hailing app that not only delivers convenience
and mobile payment options, but also allows customers to select drivers
based on ratings of driver quality. The SafeMotos team has been securing
accolades across the continent – from a feature in the Economist last week to awards from Pivot East, the team has created serious traction with less than $200,000 investment.
We believe it’s a special combination of a positive enabling
environment, practical hands-on support from partners like AEC, and a
thriving entrepreneurial spirit that make Rwanda’s SME scene a
trendsetter for the continent.
Sara Leedom is the co-founder of the African Entrepreneur Collective, a network of business incubators and accelerators with the mission of creating jobs through private sector development.
Source: How We Made in Africa
By Michael Mankins
It’s a time-honoured precept of good management: Teach your team members or direct reports to take on some of your responsibilities. Doing so builds their skills and expands their horizons; it also frees you up to focus on higher-order or longer-term issues.
One key to successful delegation is to coach team members on making and executing critical decisions. If people can learn the craft of decisions – making good choices, making them quickly and implementing them effectively – they will find their work far more satisfying. And your unit will be far more productive, because every decision won’t depend on you.
Many people, of course, don’t handle decisions well. They may act too quickly, failing to think through the options and implications. They may try to deflect responsibility or pawn off the decision on someone else, often their boss. (“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”) So to build your team’s decision capabilities, you’ll have to start from the very beginning. Here’s what’s involved:
Work with your team to identify the most important decisions.
Every unit or function in an organisation must make critical decisions. Some of these are big, strategic choices, such as determining the allocation of marketing dollars or choosing which IT system upgrades to buy. Others are everyday decisions that add up to a lot of value over time, such as how to handle customer service requests. A useful coaching tool is to create a decision architecture with your team that captures your unit’s critical decisions. Begin by listing all the decisions your unit must make; then winnow the list by determining which ones involve the most value and which require the most attention. Those that make the cut will be your critical decisions – the ones that absolutely must work right if your team is to be successful.
As a group, assess how those decisions are made and executed today.
Are they made in meetings, or by individuals? Do you yourself have to make most of them? Figure out not only who makes the decisions but who plays other key roles, such as creating a recommendation or offering input. Then analyse the decision-making process itself. What sort of information is required before anyone can make a decision? Do decision makers get that information at the right time and in a useful form? A good way to help team members answer these questions is to evaluate each part of the decision process. Ask them whether the decisions in question are usually right – that is, whether they typically result in the desired outcome. Ask whether they are made and executed in a timely fashion, and whether they involve too much or too little effort, given the decision’s value.
Define key roles for your critical decisions going forward. Your team members may not understand that every major decision usually involves several key roles. There’s the recommender, who gathers input from people with knowledge about the issue and proposes a course of action. There’s often someone who must agree to the recommendation before it can go forward. There’s the decision maker, and there are the people who will implement the decision. We like to assemble all these roles into an out-of-sequence but easy-to-remember acronym – RAPID®, for Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input and Decide. Once people get used to the language, you’ll find they use it easily, as in “I have the R for that decision – Sheila has the D.” The common language makes it easy for the group to agree on who should play each role.
Coach team members on good decision disciplines.
Every major decision needs to be framed correctly – not “what should we do?” but “what are the best options in light of this specific goal?” A significant decision is likely to require a robust set of facts before it can be made. Gathering this information can take time – time that will need to be accounted for to keep the decision process on track. Decisions should be made according to criteria that are agreed on in advance. A leader shouldn’t jump in and make a decision the first time people get stuck, but should instead reinforce his confidence in the team that they have the expertise and skills to work it out. Setting guidelines for a decision – “as long as you stay within the guidelines you have full responsibility” – will help keep escalation to a minimum. Put these disciplines together, and you can reset each major decision accordingly.
Helping people learn the craft of decisions is a significant investment of time. You will have to role model the right behaviors and decision disciplines to make sure that they stick. But coaching your team to make and execute critical decisions well not only makes you a better boss; it also leads to higher productivity and engagement. Because your people are more effective and engaged, you can focus more on the big picture than on the daily details of management.
Michael Mankins leads Bain’s Organization practice in the Americas and is a partner in the firm’s San Francisco office. He is coauthor of ‘Decide & Deliver: 5 Steps to Breakthrough Performance in Your Organization’ (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010). Cornelia de Ruiter is manager of the Organization practice for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. She is based in London.
