![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2019\/05\/hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/a>2\/3 of the world\u2019s gold, AshantiAmerican (we\u2019ve visiting tomorrow), whose pedigree traces back to Cecil John Rhodes, announced it is selling its last mine in South Africa. That mine is 4 kilometers underground, requiring half of an eight hour shift just to get to the vein.<\/p>\nPlus, doing business in South Africa can be costly. Once using coerced labor under apartheid, the mines are now unionized, and the unions are one of the three legs of the ruling African National Congress (the others are the Communist Party and the revolutionary descendants). Strikes are allowable in the constitution, and it\u2019s difficult to fire workers. It costs the company more to mine the gold than the current price on the world market.<\/p>\n
There you have both the alpha and the omega of doing business here. As for Johannesburg itself, it\u2019s unusual to have a major commercial city that\u2019s not on the coast or a waterway. Its population is about 4.5 million. The central business district, when apartheid ended, suffered from violent riots. We\u2019re driving around it tomorrow, but I remember the area had a very high vacancy rate, with the tall buildings having perhaps shops on the ground level, and broken windows above. The major businesses then moved to suburbs like Sandton City. It\u2019s rather like Chicago with all the corporate headquarters moving to River Forest, to take a Chicago comparison.<\/p>\n One of the businesses that presented today I remembered well from three years ago. It\u2019s Discover Vitality, in South Africa, an insurance and financial services firm with a distinctive spin. When you become a member, you get an Apple Watch that you can get for free\u2014if you practice healthier living. While Johannesburg still has some mining\u2014platinum, for example\u2014South Africa\u2019s biggest challenge is the need for social initiatives (to decrease poverty and reduce really high unemployment) and economic initiatives (encourage foreign investment to aid, for example, in the renovation of obsolete power facilities). The system of Black Enterprise Empowerment puts some restrictions on foreign businesses in the South African market. There are requirements for black ownership (26%), black management, use And as he pointed out, \u201cAfrica is a great place to do business\u2026 if you can navigate the drama.\u201d Right now, the drama is probably higher in South Africa than in many other places on the continent. South Africa, once touted as one of the BRIICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa) for the future of business, has had slow economic growth and a slew of problems. The business community is no doubt looking to see what happens as a result of last week\u2019s election. That\u2019s part of the drama here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cAfrica is a great place to do business . . . if you can navigate the drama\u201d May 16, 2019 Sandton City \u201cSchool\u201d started again (loved that four day weekend), and we had a full day of business speakers. The overall theme reminded me of a comment a speaker in India contributed to my repertoire, … Continue reading ““Africa is a great place to do business . . . if you can navigate the drama””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-southern-africa-2019"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1745"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8528,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1745\/revisions\/8528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Potential, some reality, and many problems. As another example of the wealth, we\u2019re located across from the Nelson Mandela Mall, which makes Oakbrook look like K-Mart. If there\u2019s an upscale store anywhere, it\u2019s here. And the mall is multistoried and several blocks long.<\/p>\n
\nFor example, you get points for working out, for eating healthy, for stopping smoking. Your rates go down, and you qualify for prizes, such as plane trips. Discover rolls out new products every year to keep the buzz, and has added auto insurance (your watch monitors your driving) and a bank (get extra rewards for saving more for retirement). Discover has also bought companies overseas (UK), and partnered with or franchised its software to the US (John Hancock) and China (Ping An Insurance company). It reinforced what one of our speakers (he runs a company that consults with various state governments, and American and foreign businesses on how to do business in Africa) suggested was a potential for the future: African solutions to global problems. The global problem is the BIG FAT
\nproblem, which Discover has addressed by changing behavior. It\u2019s not surprising that one of the company\u2019s consultants was Dan Ariely, one of the leading behavioral economists. His book, Predictably Irrational, is a primer in the field.<\/p>\n
\nof black-owned suppliers, skill training, etc., that the GE speaker described as requiring him to plead with corporate headquarters for additional funding and support. We were also told that American businesses, though providing only 2% foreign direct investment, have been responsible for 20% of the \u201ctransformation\u201d of the economy (\u201cI meet a lot with our compliance people,\u201d the GE executive said), demonstrating the challenge of balancing social and economic initiatives.<\/p>\n