I recently met a business leader and we engaged in a one hour conversation that spanned on nothing else but the business environment. For the last five years, the business environment has been in a static state.
First, we’ve not had an entry of any big players in any industry in this country. Take the telecom industry for example. Gone are the days when MTN went head-on with Airtel. Gone are the days when you would speak of an Africell coming into the market and shaking up things. The intense competition here is no more. Again, we’ve not seen a merger or acquisition in this space.
The ripple effects of such hit across the industry. If you’re in the business legal space and you’ve never handled a merger, then you’ve pretty much not done much in your space, and you will probably never have the kind of career leap that comes from an M&A.
You go to the banking sector, and here again, things are pretty much settled. Every bank has accepted its position with no aggressive advertisement on any party.
There’s also this new thinking that everything starts and ends with digital. Thus influencers have taken the space of the traditional advertisers. However this is short-sighted especially in this kind of economy. A huge majority of the population is still not active online, is still not banked, as such, majority of Ugandans do not play in the formal economy and in the digital space as we often assume.
Overall, the business environment is mainly banking on the Oil and Gas industry. This is an industry that’s still in its infancy. So we are in a situation where none of the other industries ever reached maturity, they achieved momentary phases of growth, and then what happened was pull-outs. We’ve gone years without having brands in the line of KFC coming into this market.
In the Foods and Beverages sector, one would never think of a time when a Pepsi would outmuscle a Coca Cola, or when a Riham would roar. Without any big multi-nationals expressing interest to come and play in this market, it means this is an opportune time for a local game changer.
The market has been too silent that MTN for example can afford to do away with the Marathon and not suffer injury. That an Ab-Inbev cut slash its activity and still be okay. If we are to summarize the state of the environment, we say- the giants are sleeping.
The time is ripe for disruption. Every industry in the country is ripe for that. That could mean, a new entrant, it could mean an under-dog choosing to go for the top spot. There’s never been a better time. It’s important to see which under-dogs will be making the try for the top spot, and how they will do that.
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