The answer is teamwork. I have noticed that Asians – Indians and Chinese work more as a team than Africans. In all countries where Indians operate, they live better lives and run successful businesses.
Their success is attributed to a better understanding of how the world works. They do not believe in individualism. A father will allow the children to marry in their home. For example, you have a very rich man like Sudhir Ruparelia, having his son to marry and live in the same house! Yes, the house is big. Much as Sudhir is Ugandan, his practices are teamwork focused and leverage from family skills and partnerships.
But not a typical pure African or Ugandan.
An Indian family with say three boys and two girls will likely succeed better than a typical Ugandan family because Indians work together than Ugandans. One of the Indian family children will buy land at say the US $20,000. The rest will invest in developing the land. Within two years, the land becomes productive.
However, for typical Ugandans, each will work alone. You find that each person has land valued the US $5,000 and takes over 10 years each to develop! By the time they develop the land, they are too old, and many things have changed and there are no benefits from developing the land.
When I was in Asian, I noticed many families sharing homes, houses, and businesses. For local people, each person wants to own. They want to be 100% owners of a business worth just US $10,000. Yet for Asians, their approach is to spread risk, invest in many businesses, but above all, own 10% of a business portfolio worth over the US $10m. You cannot win such people.
Ugandans, families must learn the art of teamwork and family cooperation. Until such is done, we shall continue admiring the drivers of the economy. Capital follows organized people.
A story told of Chinese in Europe. They formed one company as a conglomerate entity and pooled all their capital into that one company, thereby raising over US $10bn fund. They started doing business under one investment vehicle, and ‘diversified’ into so many sectors. To the country’s leadership, the conglomerate was very solid and highly capitalized. Yet it brought with it so many shareholders each contributing small capital. The conglomerate got access to all power brokers and top leaders, including getting investment opportunities and local players only dream about. The partnership has several advantages than working alone.
Copyright Mustapha B Mugisa, 2020. All rights reserved.
