Shift Happens

…But What Happens When Shift Hits The Fan?

Holy Shift!

One thing the Asians seemed to be very good at was copy Western innovation quickly then replicate it in their local markets; ultimately selling same products at a lower price point to the rest of the world. They could do this because of their comparative cost advantage in key production components like labor. When China decided to move a large proportion of its population out of poverty by creating jobs — Shift happened.

I read an article recently on Quartz titled “Why 1 million Chinese migrants are building a new empire in Africa” talking about another shift the Chinese are making. One million Chinese can’t be wrong and that shift has already happened.

The Opportunity

The Quartz article looks at the shift from the perspective of an illiterate but determined Chinese entrepreneur, there are other more “enlightened” perspectives, equally as opportunistic.

I saw online recently a report by McKinsey titled “The Rise of the African Consumer”, the first sentence proclaimed:

The single-largest business opportunity in Africa will be its rising consumer market.

Now, statements like that get me really curious and upset at the same time. It goes further to provide some figures in the actual report to estimate the size of the consumer market to be $400Billion by 2020.

I am primarily curious and upset at the same time because nobody talks about the labor side of the African opportunity. Nobody thinks of what Africa can export in terms of manpower, only what Africa can consume.

Nobody mentions that Africa’s consumer opportunity is as a result of a rapidly growing population that comes with attendant social problems if not managed properly.

Nobody really addresses the potential effects of the “Rise of Africa’s population” and how it can be changed positively into a producing force rather than a consuming force. The “Africa Rising” narrative is really “Africa’s Consumer Market Growing”.

It Happens

Shift can happen either way; for good or bad. When you see the Africa’s population figures it can be viewed from different perspectives. I see a demographic shift towards a powerful labor force, others see it as a shift towards large consumer market.

Africa has always had an abundance of that labor and raw materials but everything has remained in the raw state and still remains the dumping ground of Asia and the rest of the world. In spite of our numbers, we have failed to shift. We have not grown our productive base and are net consumers.

The controversial Nigerian born scientist Philip Emeagwali put it very clearly in his blog post aptly titled — “Africa Must Produce Or Perish:

A $100 bar of raw iron is worth $200 when forged into drinking cups in
Africa, $65,000 when forged into needles in Asia, $5 million when
forged into watch springs in Europe. How can this be? European
intellectual capital – the collective knowledge of its people – allows a
$100 raw iron bar to command a 50,000-fold increase! It could be
said, therefore, that a lack of intellectual capital is the root cause of
poverty

When I discuss with other Africans about our complacence, the consensus is is a collective shrug — “it happens”. Then each person goes about their business.

What if this collective “shrug” can be changed to collective “shift”? What if we turn our shrug into a shift? Collective shift can only be achieved when the individuals in the collective become self aware and not dumbed down by self serving and delusional narratives. “Africa Rising” indeed!

I said on Twitter recently that I am tired of “Africa Rising” and I want “Africa Thriving and Dominating” and several voices came up to remind me of the deficits we still have. I agree those deficits are there and a lot of Africans have since shifted abroad because of them. There are also abundant opportunities and that is why Asians are shifting towards our continent.

Individual Asian entrepreneurs are making this move to Africa because of an advantage they have over us and that advantage is “self aware” human capital. What we have in abundance in Africa are herds who are not self aware.

When most Africans become “self aware”, shift will hit the fan.

My new mantra is “Make Shift Happen in Africa” and NOT “Africa Rising”