History bears interesting record of trade within Africa dating as far back as the fourteenth century.
From ancient Kano in present day Nigeria, the ancient Nubian Kingdom to Bunyoro in Uganda and beyond, the story goes on highlighting established trade systems that predate the much later conquest of Africa by forces from Europe.
It is recorded for example that the Portuguese first established trade contact with the coast of Africa mainly focusing on trade in gold.
Unfortunately, the commercial relationship thereafter, shifted to slave trading around 1444. Historians would expound knowledge of ancient African commerce more affirmatively and certainly with some wonderful detail.
The formalities of doing business have certainly been changing over time and there would be differences between today’s trade methodology and the mode of business executed by our ancestors in ancient times.
Today’s corporation as we know it possibly traces its roots to America of the late 1700s. As expected, it would differ significantly from trade vehicles of ancient Africa.
The progress of the African corporation can be located within the previous century, and especially in the last half of it.
In recent times though, there has been so much momentum in advancement of the African corporate brand.
There is growing interest and ability by indigenous African companies to spread out on the African continent.
A recent publication by The Economist indicated that two-thirds of African firms surveyed by McKinsey, a consultancy, in 2017, planned to enter new countries in the region in the next five years, compared with half of foreign multinationals in Africa.
According to the Boston Consulting Group, the 30 biggest African companies operated in an average of 16 of the continent’s countries in 2018, twice as many as in 2008.The above constitutes an impressive trend for the indigenous African corporation which has arguably gone through a maturity phase stretching a mere six decades, since the period around the early 1960s when most of Africa transited from colonial control to hand over the control reigns to Africans, and by implication cede control of the trade space on the continent to Africans.Certainly there are African companies that began way before the 1960s, especially in Southern Africa, but in the context of today’s environment, they would possibly not be considered African businesses by virtue of the exclusive nature that their practice would have exhibited in older times.Leading African brands have taken the move to stretch out across the continent, setting a trend for other upcoming […]