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The Villager is essential reading for brand owners wishing to conquer new markets.

When Feyi Olubodun, CEO of one of West Africa’s leading creative agencies, witnessed one too many cases of brands failing in the African marketplace he began to ask himself questions: Why did brands, both global and local, so often fail to connect with the African consumer? And, what was it about the African market that brand owners were not seeing?

He began to reflect on his own marketing experiences and out of this emerged the framework for The Villager. In Feyi’s view, the African consumer begins his life’s journey by moving from the village, his rural dwelling, to the city, carrying with him not only his own dreams but also the dreams of his community. He is a highly aspirational consumer, motivated to succeed, and he becomes the economic portal for the rest of his community back home. But although he may be exposed to global influences and technology, his essential identity remains largely intact. This is why Feyi calls the African consumer a Villager. The Village is no longer a physical space; it is a psychological construct that defines him and the filter through which he engages with and consumes brands.

In developing his construct, Feyi posits that if you wish to engage successfully in a market you may not understand, you must have the right lenses to view a people. He believes the secret lies in applying these lenses at the confluence of commerce, culture and consumer. Data is not enough to understand the vagaries of a particular market. Drawing on his wide experience and wealth of astute observations, he provides a highly readable and indispensable guide to the mindset of the African consumer today, yet it is true to say that his insights apply, albeit in a more nuanced way, to consumer behaviour across the globe.

Publication Year: 2018
Publisher: Tracey McDonald Publishers, South Africa
Availability: Donald Publishers, Amazon and leading booksellers

Victor Kgomoeswana, well known as an African business expert with a profile on radio and television, shares 50 stories of innovation and opportunity behind the business headlines of the last ten years on the African continent, with some revised content since the first edition of the book in May 2014. From the introduction of M-PESA in Kenya to changing the image of Nigeria as Africa’s fraud capital, and from Rwandan coffee farmers to other remarkable stories in between, Kgomoeswana criss-crosses the continent to highlight and revisit the most fascinating business stories and their impact on the future of Africa.

Africa is Open for Business contains a dynamic and different view of the opportunities available in Africa from those usually portrayed in the news and in other media. Kgomoeswana focuses on the stories behind the headlines as well as sharing his personal experiences of Africa while travelling and doing business in a way that is as entertaining as it is informative.

Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Pan Macmillan, South Africa
Availability: Pan Macmillan, Amazon and leading booksellers

An organic book on design, creativity and innovation, with QR Quotes to the 26 letters of the alphabet, each representing a design thinking principle emerging from my PhD research on exploring the application of design thinking and creative problem solving in business, projects and product development. It entails palatable simple design thinking principles to nudge the reader to start thinking differently.

A network of international experts contributed video clips that comment on each principle and share their views that can be watched using the QR Quote.

The book was launched at the Creative Problem Solving Institute on New York in June 2016 and was given to every delegate at the South African Innovation Summit 2016. It was also presented at the SA Sustainability Summit 2016.

Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: The Alchemy Inspiration
Availability: The Alchemy Inspiration, Amazon and leading booksellers

The Definitive Guide to Doing Business in Africa

For global and Africa-based companies looking to access new growth markets, Africa offers exciting opportunities to build large, profitable businesses. Its population is young, fast-growing, and increasingly urbanized--while rapid technology adoption makes the continent a fertile arena for innovation. But Africa's business environment remains poorly understood; it's known to many executives in the West only by its reputation for complexity, conflict, and corruption.

Africa's Business Revolution provides the inside story on business in Africa and its future growth prospects and helps executives understand and seize the opportunities for building profitable, sustainable enterprises. From senior leaders in McKinsey's African offices and a leading executive on the continent, this book draws on in-depth proprietary research by the McKinsey Global Institute as well as McKinsey's extensive experience advising corporate and government leaders across Africa. Brimming with company case studies and exclusive interviews with some of Africa's most prominent executives, this book comes to life with the vibrant stories of those who have navigated the many twists and turns on the road to building successful businesses on the continent.

Combining an unrivalled fact base with expert advice on shaping and executing an Africa growth strategy, this book is required reading for global business executives looking to expand their existing operations in Africa--and for those seeking a road map to access this vast, untapped market for the first time.

Publication Year: 2018
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, United States
Availability: Harvard Business Review, Amazon and leading booksellers

High-growth, high-return Africa, with much improved trading conditions, is the most sought after frontier destination for global investment today. However, there are 54 countries on the continent and even rigorous business plans can run aground on the unique and complex set of circumstances found in each of them.

Business in Africa: Corporate Insights takes the reader to the coal face of doing business on the continent in articles by and interviews with people at the forefront of developments. They offer unique insights into the challenges and peculiarities of operating in Africa, and point out trends and likely future opportunities. Drawing on McKinsey & Associates, the Brenthurst Foundation and the Gordon Institute of Business Science for a picture of Africa’s economic performance and future trends, contributions to the book also come from individuals such as veteran Africa analyst Dr. Duncan Clarke, Nigerian business leader Tony Elumelu, economic commentator Greg Mills of the Brenthurst Foundation, South African publisher Khanyi Dhlomo and Africa branding expert Doug de Villiers. The book also includes insights from global companies such as GE, Coca-Cola, Actis, Du Pont, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, Nando’s and Anglogold Ashanti and household names in Africa such as MTN, MultiChoice, UBA, Webber Wentzel, Imperial Logistics, TBWA, Liberty Properties, Seed Co, Wilderness Holdings and SacOil.

Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Penguin Random House, South Africa
Availability: Penguin Random House, Amazon and leading booksellers

This book focuses on strategies for developing consumer markets in Africa using concepts and techniques from marketing, entrepreneurship, and project management. The authors argue that entrepreneurial activity in Africa is rapid, but limited, and requires a structured approach to drive success.

Beginning with an introductory chapter that frames the socio-economic and technological developments in Africa, readers are introduced to the conceptual model that provides this structured approach in four logical parts:

• The creative stage
• Entrepreneurial and enterprise activities
• Understanding consumer behavior and market segments
• A project management-based framework.

This multidisciplinary approach is supplemented with many examples and cases from a variety of sectors including health care, wind and solar power, and mobile technology. Through these, readers are able to understand how the model is implemented in reality to drive innovative economic and social development. Marketing Management in Africa will prove a valuable companion to any student of marketing or entrepreneurship with a particular interest in Africa.

Publication Year: 2018
Publisher: Routledge, United Kingdom
Availability: Routledge, Amazon and leading booksellers

Be inspired by the experiences of Africa’s most dynamic entrepreneurs.

Gain insight into the continent’s business opportunities.

Find the courage to make your own dreams and ambitions become a reality.

Discover why Ken Njoroge is building a billion-dollar pan-African digital payments company (it is not because he wants to drive a Ferrari); Find out how Jean de Dieu Kagabo grew a Rwanda-based industrial group from a simple product: toilet paper; And be inspired by the extraordinary tale of Hassan Bashir who created a booming insurance company from nothing but grit and persistence.

Each entrepreneur’s story is told in an honest and sober manner, not shying away from the mistakes made and the considerable hurdles they had to overcome. And there were many tough times: from being betrayed by long-time senior managers to losing vast sums of money because of poor market research. Pursuing their business ambitions also had a toll on their personal lives: one entrepreneur was too broke to afford diapers for his baby, while another had to sell her house to keep the company alive.

Publication Year: 2018
Publisher: Maritz Africa, South Africa
Availability: How We Made It in Africa, Amazon

Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice was the ground-breaking first textbook to provide an overview of this recently established but fast-growing practice, in which the principles of brand management are applied to countries rather than companies. Many governments have invested in nation branding in order to strengthen their country's influence, improve its reputation, or boost tourism, trade and investment.

This new edition has been comprehensively revised and its influential original framework modified to reflect the very latest changes to this still-developing field. It remains an accessible blend of theory and practice rich with international examples and contributions.

Updates to this edition:

• New international cases of countries as diverse as China, United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Cuba, India, Great Britain and many more;
• New contributions from distinguished scholars, diplomats and businesspeople providing a range of case studies, practitioner insights and academic perspectives;
• New Companion Website to support the book featuring instructor aids such as PowerPoint presentations for each chapter and an instructor manual;

This much-anticipated update to an influential book is an essential introduction to nation branding for students and policy makers.

Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Routledge, United Kingdom
Availability: Routledge, Amazon and leading booksellers

Why doesn't the world work? Why, despite all the power, technology, money and knowledge that humanity has accumulated, are we are still unable to defeat global challenges like climate change, war, poverty, migration, extremism, and inequality?

Simon Anholt has spent decades helping countries from Austria to Zambia to improve their international standing. Using colorful descriptions of his experiences--dining with Vladimir Putin at his country home, taking a group of Felipe Calderon's advisors on their first Mexico City subway ride, touring a beautiful new government hospital in Afghanistan that nobody would use because it was in Taliban-controlled territory--he tells how he began finding answers to that question.

Ultimately, Anholt hit on the Good Country Equation, a formula for encouraging international cooperation and reinventing education for a globalized era. Anholt even offers a "selfish" argument for cooperation: he shows that it generates goodwill, which in turn translates into increased trade, foreign investment, tourism, talent attraction, and even domestic electoral success. Anholt insists we can change the way countries behave and the way people are educated in a single generation--because that's all the time we have.

Publication Year: 2020
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, United States
Availability: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Amazon and leading booksellers

Brand New Justice, now in a revised paperback edition, systematically analyses the success stories of the Top Thirteen nations, demonstrating that their wealth is based on the 'last mile' of the commercial process: buying raw materials and manufacturing cheaply in third world countries, these countries realise their lucrative profits by adding value through finishing, packaging and marketing and then selling the branded product on to the end-user at a hugely inflated price. The use of sophisticated global media techniques alongside a range of creative marketing activities are the lynchpins of this process.

Applying his observations on economic history and the development and impact of global marketing, Anholt presents a cogent plan for developing nations to benefit from globalization. So long the helpless victim of capitalist trading systems, he shows that they can cross the divide and graduate from supplier nation to producer nation. Branding native produce on a global scale, making a commercial virtue out of perceived authenticity and otherness and fully capitalising on the 'last mile' benefits are key to this graduation and fundamental to forging a new global economic balance.

Anholt argues with a forceful logic, but also backs his hypothesis with enticing glimpses of this process actually beginning to take place. Examining activities in India, Thailand, Russia and Africa among others, he shows the risks, challenges and pressures inherent in 'turning the tide', but above all he demonstrates the very real possibility of enlightened capitalism working as a force for good in global terms.

Publication Year: 2005
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann, United Kingdom
Availability: Butterworth-Heinemann, Amazon and leading booksellers

Africans Investing in Africa explores intra-African trade and investment by showing how, where and why Africans invest across Africa; to identify the economic, political and social experiences that hinder or stimulate investment; and to highlight examples of pan-African investors.

Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom
Availability: Palgrave Macmillan, Amazon and leading booksellers

With more than 900 million consumers, the continent of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing markets. In Africa Rising, renowned global business consultant Vijay Mahajan reveals this remarkable marketplace as a continent with massive needs and surprising buying power.

Crossing thousands of miles across the continent, he shares the lessons that Africa’s businesses have learned about succeeding on the continent...shows how global companies are succeeding despite Africa’s unique political, economic, and resource challenges...introduces local entrepreneurs and foreign investors who are building a remarkable spectrum of profitable and sustainable business opportunities even in the most challenging locations...reveals how India and China are staking out huge positions throughout Africa...and shows the power of the diaspora in driving investment and development.

• Understand that Africa is not a “media dark” continent From Nollywood to satellite to broadband, media is exploding on the continent.
• Recognize the hidden strength of the African diaspora
  The African diaspora brings resources and knowledge to African development and expands the African opportunity beyond the continent.
• Build Ubuntu markets
  Create profitable businesses, sustainable growth, and social organizations by meeting basic human needs.
• Recognize that Africa is richer than you think
  Africa is richer than India on the basis of gross national income (GNI) per capita, and a dozen African countries have a higher GNI per capita than China.
• Aim for Africa Two
  Opportunities exist in all parts of the market, particularly the 400 million people in the middle of the market.
• Find opportunities to organize the market
  From retailing to cell phones to banking, companies are succeeding by building infrastructure.
• Develop strategies for the most youthful market in the world
  Companies are recognizing opportunities from diapers to music to medicine in a market growing younger every day.

Publication Year: 2008
Publisher: Pearson Prentice Hall, United States
Availability: Prentice Hall, Amazon and leading booksellers

Africa is ready for lift-off. The multiple challenges of the continent have fast become the catalyst for innovation on an astounding level - forming new technologies, new infrastructure, new ways of doing things, and a new narrative. Africa is a continent full of creativity, energy, and change - and much of it is thanks to the miracle of the mobile phone. In "Disrupting Africa: The rise and rise of African innovation", Nnamdi Oranye looks at increasing innovation in Africa, showing how modern technology and digital payment services bring it all together to create a new kind of infrastructure the world has simply not expected. The African narrative is changing. Today's Africa is an exciting, creative continent, packed with amazing potential. THIS SECOND EDITION CONTAINS THREE CHAPTERS FROM NNAMDI ORANYE'S FOLLOW UP BOOK, "TAKING ON SILICON VALLEY: HOW AFRICA'S INNOVATORS WILL SHAPE ITS FUTURE."

Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: Nnamdi Oranye
Availability: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and leading booksellers

Today's Africa is an amazing place full of change and creativity, and its tech innovators are at the forefront of its transformation. That is why Silicon Valley has woken up to its massive potential and clearly has its eyes set on the continent. And not only is Silicon Valley interested, but China as well. But what will it mean when the tech "big boys" of Silicon Valley and China, who have repeatedly disrupted industries all over the world, set up shop in Africa? Will this bring positive or negative change? And how can African innovators not only compete with the world's tech giants but even take them on? These are the questions Nnamdi Oranye seeks to answer in his thought-provoking book, "Taking on Silicon Valley," a follow-up to his previous book, "Disrupting Africa: The Rise and Rise of African Innovation." Africa has an amazing future, and it is its innovators who will shape it. There is a way Africa can take on Silicon Valley. It requires for eyes to be opened to the past, the present, and the future; for dreams to be taken seriously; and for African innovators to keep steady on the path they are so passionately forging.

Publication Year: 2017
Publisher: Nnamdi Oranye
Availability: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and leading booksellers