This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Rwanda. It highlights Rwanda's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2023 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating in the country, high transportation costs, some of the most expensive electricity tariffs in sub-Saharan Africa and high levels of government bureaucracy, contrasting these with the efforts undertaken by the government to improve the country's business climate. This is illustrated through the discussion of a business dilemma in which e-mobility startup Ampersand has to assess the extent to which Rwanda's high openness could mean a high threat of competition or plenty of opportunities for growth partnerships.

This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Nairobi, Kenya. It highlights Kenya's economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2023 in the context of its history, culture, and politics. The case gives an overview of some of the main obstacles faced by businesses operating in the country and contrasting these with the efforts undertaken by the government to improve the country's business climate. This is illustrated through the discussion of a business dilemma in which Enda Sportswear is looking to grow its sales in Kenya through increased domestic production.

The Pay As You Go solar power company in East Africa had sales of $71 million in 2019. It wished to grow to $300 million by 2025. M-KOPA, founded by three entrepreneurs in 2011, had grown nicely in Kenya and Uganda to reach nearly 750,000 households with an innovative direct sales force model. Jesse Moore, the founder, wished to scale the company through organic growth as well as geographical expansion into Nigeria. The strategy called for decisions on product/service offerings and go-to-market options. On the product side the company had increasingly migrated to larger in-home connected electronic and electrical devices. It had to decide how much further to go. On the go-to-market side its innovative Direct Service Representative network was hard to create and manage, and it had to think if there were viable alternatives.

The setting for this case is the Sian Flowers, a company headquartered in Kitengela, Kenya that exports roses to predominantly Europe. Because cut flowers have a limited shelf life and consumers want them to retain their appearance for as long as possible, Sian or its distributors used international air cargo to transport them to Amsterdam, where they were sold at auction or trucked to markets across Europe. The Covid-19 pandemic caused huge increases in the cost of shipping, so Sian launched experiments to ship roses by ocean using refrigerated containers. Chris Kulei, the Executive Director, was interested in not only the potential costs savings, but whether he could also market the reduced carbon footprint.

On March 10, 2021, Ralph Mupita the new CEO of MTN Group, Africa largest telecommunications company, presented the group's 2020 annual results and unveiled a new strategy to "drive growth and unlock value." Despite MTN's leadership in most of its markets, the company's share price was trading at 15-year lows putting Mupita under pressure to accelerate a turnaround. The case considers his plans to execute against the new strategy by spinning off MTN's fintech business and creating more shared value in its markets while at the same time building valuable technology platforms and delivering industry-leading connectivity. Could MTN's leadership team achieve all four priorities within five years as promised, or were they trying to do too much too quickly? Did they have the right structure and team in place to do so? Although Mupita was convinced that swift action and dramatic change were needed to succeed, there were skeptics both inside and outside the firm.

BUA Group must decide between investments in cement, road building, power generation, or sugar. Private businesses are important to economic development in Africa. Students must assess the competitive nature of each of these industries, the magnitude of capital investments and recurring costs and revenues, and the skills required to lead in each of these sectors. Additional considerations include federal and government policy to either regulate or stimulate each of these industries, the competitive set, and the relative size and impact of risks and uncertainties in each industry.

Founded by Mosunmola "Mo" Abudu in 2012 with a mission to bring high-quality African stories to the world, EbonyLife was the company behind many of Nigeria's biggest films and TV shows. The company began as a television channel on the Africa-wide direct broadcast satellite service DStv. By 2020, EbonyLife had produced over 5,000 hours of television content and Nigeria's top-three highest-grossing movies. With a need for greater control over its production schedules and following the end of its relationship with DStv EbonyLife launched EbonyLife ON (EL ON), an on-demand streaming service. However, EbonyLife struggled to grow its subscribers of EL ON. Abudu started to rethink whether to continue fighting to grow EL ON. Should EbonyLife focus instead on co-production deals with international media distributors such as Netflix, Sony and AMC?

The case opens in August 2021, as Habib and Shahysta Hassim, husband and wife co-founders of the data labeling company SmartOne, contemplate the strategy of the high growth company. Between 2016 and 2021, SmartOne had kept doubling its size every two years and now, with its workforce of 1,000, it was annotating data for global tech clients. The case provides a background on SmartOne's journey from call center operations to data labeling and elaborates on the company's operating and business model, providing details on processes such as: recruiting, training, managing the workforce, project management, and quality control. The case also provides a background on data labeling, data pipeline and the AI factory (a term explained in the case which represents the AI industry value chain) for larger context and gives an overview of the competitive environment. In August 2021, the co-founders needed a strategy to shape the company's future. Where in the AI factory could SmartOne position itself to remain relevant and take a piece of the evolving pie? Should the company grow upstream, to become a full data pipeline provider, or downstream into developing algorithms?

The Pay As You Go solar power company in East Africa had sales of $71 million in 2019. It wished to grow to $300 million by 2025. M-KOPA, founded by three entrepreneurs in 2011, had grown nicely in Kenya and Uganda to reach nearly 750,000 households with an innovative direct sales force model. Jesse Moore, the founder, wished to scale the company through organic growth as well as geographical expansion into Nigeria. The strategy called for decisions on product/service offerings and go-to-market options. On the product side the company had increasingly migrated to larger in-home connected electronic and electrical devices. It had to decide how much further to go. On the go-to-market side its innovative Direct Service Representative network was hard to create and manage, and it had to think if there were viable alternatives.

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.

The case opens in September 2019 as Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, co-founders and co-CEOs of Jumia, the leading Pan-African e-commerce platform, are contemplating the company's path to profitability in the aftermath of a fragile investor sentiment, as the company announced two internal issues in August 2019. The case chronicles the founding and expansion of Jumia and the iterations of its business model and describes its competitive outlook. The case then provides a detailed overview of how Jumia built its three pillars-its marketplace, logistics, and payments arms-and how the co-founders decided on the company's strategic, customer, and product scopes over the seven years in which Jumia spread across 14 countries in Africa since its founding in 2012. The case also provides an overview of Jumia's vertical scope, its technology, marketing, and payments systems, and how the company's localization strategy brings complexities to its business model, as Jumia tries to adopt its approach, website, products, and services to each country to increase profitability. While there is for the most part no single competitor that serves the same geography as Jumia does, Jumia strives to educate the African market about shopping online and overcome various infrastructure problems in the continent to improve its margins and become profitable. While its second quarter 2019 financials show continued GMV and customer growth, the co-founders need to convince investors of the company's path to profitability and answer questions such as: Is Jumia's existing product-service mix and geographical coverage the best use of the company's financial and managerial resources, or does the company need to make some eliminations? Can Jumia's expansive approach be sustainable as the geography becomes more developed and the inevitable specialized players come in?

Twiga is a leading agricultural produce supplier in Kenya offering services to mostly informal retailers. Under Peter Njonjo, a co-founder and Twiga's new CEO, the company is considering multiple options for expanding its business, including offering packaged foods and services like insurance. Njonjo must also decide the ideal team and organizational structure for supporting Twiga's growth plans.

The aspiration of addressing maternal deaths in Nigeria, which were mostly caused by blood shortages, led Temie Giwa-Tubosun to found LifeBank in 2015. LifeBank developed an online platform that enabled hospitals to connect and purchase blood from local blood banks and fulfilled those orders through an around the clock team of dispatch riders. Over the years, LifeBank delivered a range of essential medical products including blood, medical oxygen canisters and medicines. However, the company had yet to break even and now needed to raise additional funding. LifeBank aimed to become profitable by 2022 and planned to grow its revenues 24x over three years. To achieve such growth the company needed to raise 10x more than the total amount raised since its inception. Giwa-Tubosun wondered how to achieve such growth and funding targets. What were LifeBank's growth options? More importantly, what kind of funding opportunities were available to the company?

In late 2017, Satrix, one of the largest passive asset management firms in South Africa and a pioneer in the industry since 2000, had to decide its strategy going forward in a market where passive asset management had become increasingly commoditized and competitive. Over the previous three years, as a result of increased competition and changing investor expectations, Satrix had faced increased pressure to reduce its management fees. The total expense ratio (TER) of the Satrix 40, Satrix's flagship ETF, was 38 basis points (bps), more than double that of many of its new competitors. To maintain the company's position in the industry, Satrix's leadership was considering cutting the TER on its flagship ETF by almost 75% from 38 bps to 10 bps. The fee change would dramatically lower Satrix's margins, but the company's leadership was concerned that Satrix couldn't afford to not make the change; nearly 10% of assets the company managed came from the Satrix 40. What should they do?

Trust Merchant Bank (TMB), a leading bank in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), needs to decide whether to enter the soon-to-be-liberalized insurance industry. Since its founding in 2004, TMB has played a pivotal role in reshaping the DRC banking landscape by focusing on retail customers and thus promoting financial inclusion in the DRC. In 2018, the Congolese government decided to open up the insurance industry, formerly a state-owned and mismanaged monopoly. TMB is considering applying for the newly available insurance licenses as the bank is well-positioned to capitalize on its existing banking infrastructure to begin selling insurance. The bank's leadership team is assessing the opportunities and challenges with such a move. What is required of TMB to make this move a success? How will TMB's customers react? How should the bank grow in an increasingly competitive environment?

This case discusses the Kenyan government's decision to increase excise taxes on wines in 2007. The tax increase would cause an average increase in price of 367% on Keroche's fortified wines. Meanwhile, Keroche's competitor EABL had effectively lobbied the government for its Senator beer to receive a zero-tax rating. Since Keroche's wines targeted low-income consumers, Tabitha Karanja knew they would no longer be able to buy its products after the price hike. To make matters worse, Keroche was in the middle of building a brewery, with plans to enter the beer business in 2008. Now Tabitha Karanja had to decide how to react to this tax increase. One option was to lobby the government for a repeal of the tax increase (a long and costly process). Another was to abandon the wine business altogether, either in favor of the vodka Keroche already produced or another alcoholic drink.

This case describes Keroche co-founder Tabitha Karanja's 2012 decision to invest in additional production capacity. In November 2012, with a loan from Barclay's bank, Keroche began constructing a new state-of-the-art beer brewery using German technology. The new plant, completed in March 2015, greatly increased Keroche's beer production capacity. The company also made investments to increase capacity for its Viena Ice and Crescent vodka drinks. The case describes Tabitha Karanja's aggressive production, marketing, and distribution strategy, and the company's resulting growth by 2017. It also describes Keroche's ongoing competition with EABL, including a 2016 EABL lawsuit against Keroche, and Keroche's continuing struggles with the Kenyan government.