Giving Wings to African Businesses

When you empower SMEs, you empower a society. KleosAfrica is an online consulting platform which reduces the failure rate of SMEs by linking business owners with MBA consultants and skilled professionals all over the world. Our dream is to increase business acumen in Africa and the world.

Studies have shown that small firms play an important role in the growth of any economy. However, many small businesses suffer critically high failure rates. The major reason inhibiting the growth and competitiveness of SMEs, according to extensive studies by SMEDAN (2012) and Onugu (2005), is managerial incompetence. This incompetence is brought about by low quality of skills critically needed for successful business operations. These skills include proficiency in Finance, Operations, HR, Marketing etc. This leads them to make sub-optimal competitive decisions, ignore strategic threats and fail to use scarce resources maximally.

• Input: Consultants and business owners register on the platform
• Assumptions: Business owners are willing and able to use the platform. Consultants are willing and able to execute consulting projects that add value 
• Output: Consulting projects successfully executed
• Assumption: Better business advisory services and consulting leads to better business success 
• Outcome: More businesses are successfully started, grown and scaled
• Assumption: The growth of SMEs has a definite causal link to economic outcomes (World Bank). Profits from the businesses are ploughed back into the economy
• Impact: Increase in successful business growth, jobs, per capita income, consumption, GDP, well-being

Target Outcomes: 

• Increase in the number of businesses which are successfully started, grown and scaled
• Increase in successful business growth
• Increase in jobs
• Increase in per capita income
• Increased consumption
• Increased GDP

Beneficiaries: Entrepreneurs in developing countries

Channel: Online platform

Track number of consulting projects succesfully executed - Increase in the number of businesses which are successfully started, grown and scaled

Track client profitability - Increase in successful business growth

Track number of consultants registered on the platform - Increase in jobs

PLATFORM BUSINESS MODEL: Our platform is Africa's first online consulting platform. The idea emerged after I participated in the Africa Platform Management course delivered by the Centre for Global Enterprise and anchored by MIT Visiting Professors Geoff Parker and  Marshall Alstyne. We are proud to be pioneering the platform revolution in Africa.

BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY: The main cause of high consulting fees is high overhead and running costs. Because our consultants are not employees of Kleos, but are highly skilled freelancers, they will provide differentiated services at lower costs (due to absence of overhead)

There are thousands of SMEs across Nigeria, who can benefit from our services. However, in the pilot phase, we intend to focus on 30,000 SMEs within Lagos. We will reach them by leveraging our relationships with collaborative partners such as the Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan-Atlantic University. We aim to reach out to 100 SMEs within the first month of operations, and start working with 10 of them immediately. The primary industry that we will focus on is Agriculture (crop farming, fisheries and aquaculture, forestry and livestock) which will have a multiplier effect on the economy. 

My company will unlock new sources of value for SMEs by providing them with access to the same premium talent who work for McKinsey, Accenture etc. At the same time, because these services are provided online, remotely, as-and-when-needed, we will be able to offer reasonable rates. This is made possible by largely eliminating overhead costs – expensive facilities, marketing. Hence, we will pursue a blue ocean strategy and also a second-tier strategy where we differentiate ourselves mostly on price, while offering similarly high quality

We will plough back our retained earnings into the business. We will also seek for grants (We have already been nominated for the African Entrepreneurship awards) or investments from venture capitalists (We are already pitching to VCs in Africa)

Trust and Credibility: Firstly, as an online company, it will not be easy to build trust and credibility without a physical presence.

Customer Experience: The risk of customer dissatisfaction is another critical factor, particularly since we will be unable to micromanage the delivery of every project on the platform.

Duplication and Attrition: The nature of our business is not highly innovative and can be easily replicated.

Financial Risks: Lastly, although financially our business model offers a very lean operation with very minimal operating and infrastructure investment cost, our potential financial risks come from bad debts and non-payment of our services.

I hope to increase my skills, branding and network, and thus enhance the growth of KleosAfrica

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Multinational and local consulting firms