Doing Business Where It Counts (and Adds Up)

If you can do business anywhere in the world, but have a core value related to globalism or humanitarianism--where do you think of expanding? There are myriad opportunities to do business in emerging markets. As some of the world's formerly corrupt and unstable nations begin to clean up their acts, they become far more attractive as destinations for first world capital. For example, Nigeria had been busy at work trying to reduce corruption, improve consistency in operations and build financial stability. Economically, businesses in Nigeria are doing 4 times the expected level of growth based on their previous trend. For example, five years ago Nigeria had 8 or 9 banks;now it has more than 20. To catalyze this growth the government began to increase the bank's capitalization requirement -- forcing the disaggregation of the few. That expansion led to more foreign banks entering the market, and brought with it investment capital from the developed world.

In telecom, the government changed the structure of the utility system and caused explosive growth in access (by a factor of over 1 million)-- and therefore, all of the services that accompany available connectivity. Connectivity acts as a bedrock for many other industries. With all of this change, Nigeria is just one example of an extraordinary business opportunity in many different sectors, including financial services, tourism and education.

Africa is an open frontier over much of its breadth. More than 2/3 of African countries have had democratic multi-party elections and the average economic growth is 5% per annum (from 2.5% ten years ago). According to Nigeria's Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to really make a lasting difference in the emerging world, we in the developed world should bring businesses and create jobs. This impact is more profound than feeding the hungry or giving out AIDs medications (although, my own sense is that also makes a vital difference in critical circumstances) --jobs solidify families, improve education and cause generations of change.

This approach would be a great example of Principle-Powered capitalism--expansion due to opportunity that happens also to inject vitality into emerging markets.