There is a growing middle class in many African countries, which offers several benefits and opportunties to us here in the UK.
Firstly, we can look to tap this new market for goods and services of a higher specification and quality than the “cheap” imports from the Far East
Secondly,we can support these people in thier demand for more transparent democracy and the reduction and eventual elimination of corruption.
Thirdly, we can work with these middle class people to ensure that thier children receive a good education and are helped on the first rung of the business ladder: there are may entrepreneurs in, for example, Nigeria or Kenya who lack the basic inernational trade or marketing skill necessary to grow their business localy, regionally or internationally.
To that end, we are working with a number of partners in West Africa to facilitate workshops and mentoring programmes to help the middle classes grow, increase political stability and improve international trade.
Small steps towards a large goal
Category: ‘Segelocum’
African Middle Class
DFiD Promises to engage the SME market
DFiD has finally come to the realisation that SME companies and small entrepeneurs in Africa and other developing world markets require access to small-scale finance. This chimes well with our approach and that of some keyinstitutions such as IFc and recently some smaller investment funds such as Summit Development Group in London. There is, however, a disconnect between the SME clients and the retail banks in Africa: loans are not made purely on merit, but on the basis of contacts and “lubrication”. Furthermore, the skills to put together a good, solid and rigorous bsinessp plan are often lacking. This is where companies such as segelocum and our frieds at mayfair Economics can help: we can prepare good quality business plans and put in place well researched bespoke traing and capacity development programmes.
Free tool to identify your best new markets
Download the Selection Matrix free from our website: www.segelocum.co.uk/downloads.html
This tool is to help you decide logically which of several markets might be the best for you to approach.
The selection matrix will allow you to compare possible new markets by following a few simple steps:
- List your key criteria such as proximity, language, culture, distribution network etc. as appropriate to your product or service.
- Rate each criteria in terms of:
- importance to your business
- ease of market penetration
By marking your selected countries against those criteria, you gain a detached way of comparing markets.
How to Rate your Criteria
On the horizontal axis:
- rate each criteria from 1 to 4 where 1 is unimportant and 4 is very important in terms of your business and products
- rate each criterion from 1 to 5 for each country, where 5 is good and 1 is poor
For example, if language is an important criterion and you are an English-speaking exporter, then other English-speaking markets would score 5 and China perhaps 1 or 2.
Likewise, if terms of payment are important, Germany, with a shorter typical payment term would score higher than Spain, where companies typically take longer to pay.
We will gladly help you use the tool effectively: just contact us using the contact form and we will get back to you.
Andy Gibson
Director, Segelocum Ltd
Littleborough, DN22 0HD GB
International Trade Specialists
Appropriate Skills Intelligently Applied
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