Despite the fact the article talks about how African start-ups are surviving despite the odds,I think the start-ups should consider taking up the lean start-ups which reduce the chance of failure of blooming businesses. Abasiama’s Wild Fusion, a digital firm is one of those lucky start-ups that managed to get through tough challenges faced by start-ups in Africa. For the first few months he did not earn anything because his company was struggling to survive. Chances are that if he had adapted the lean start-up technique, things would not have been so difficult for his firm. Research has shown that start-up businesses face significantly high costs of getting first customers.This problem would have easily been solved by the lean strategy whereby the founder comes up with a business model plan and have customers comment on factors like pricing of goods or services and product features. The founder is easily able to identify what his target market wants without going through a trial period which will cost a lot.

The other problem that is identified with tech start -ups in Africa is the long technology penetration cycles. The internet is not will established in African countries and this is a huge challenge of up-coming tech firm like Wild Fusion. However, despite this various companies have been mentioned in article to have made through the turmoil of start-ups. For instance the Kenyan mobile money transfer by Safaricom which made revenue of about $145 million at the beginning of this year.

It duly noted that those start-ups that made it through did so because they received funding from huge developed companies an example mentioned in the article would be Ghana’s Rancard who received funding from Intel Capital. Majority are not lucky to get this funding because Africa does not have enough venture capital funds to help out start -ups.

Sources:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/african-and-mideast-business/african-tech-startups-held-back-by-lower-internet-penetration-scarcity-of-early-stage-capital/article15424220/

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=a913e837-00c6-4479-9f1a-76ee8588b09a%40sessionmgr14&hid=25&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bth&AN=87039866

Motivation is one of the key things that drives anyone to do a particular task and achieve their intended objective. Less productivity can be attributed to employees not liking their jobs. Recent statistics by a Conference Board in the U.S showed a decrease in the percentage of people who liked their jobs from 61% to 45%. Organisations are therefore taking motivational strategies very seriously in order to increase their productivity. Motivation can be done through actions from a little as making employees feel valued to just as much as paying them an extra amount of money for the work they do. Elise Lelon, owner of a leadership-consulting firm, has seen the importance of motivating her employees because it makes them happy because they feel valued and therefore they are willing not because they have to but they want to. The old perception of giving employees bonuses is slowly being out faced by new strategies that cost almost nothing but achieve the goal of motiving workers. Elise has taken up this by giving employees job titles and adopting autonomy whereby employees have the freedom to choose working hours that are convenient for them. Mr. Mills of Prime Debt Services has also adopted these strategies by enforcing feedback sessions whereby his employees are able to vent out and forward their complains. Mr. Mills wishes to motivate his employees so much that he offers them free breakfast just to make things lighter for them. However, despite the fact the motivation is a good way of encouraging workers, employers have to be careful of the “folly of rewarding A” as this will result to dysfunctional rewarding.

Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704362004575000911063526360

http://www.executivemanagementskills.com/pdf/folly.pdf