Trust Value Chains: A Simple and Successful Way of Doing Business in Africa

In the "Speed of Trust", Stephen Covey writes that trust changes everything. In the current global economic crisis, we can certainly see how lack of confidence is making the situation worse. Until a good level of confidence is restored in the systems, the crisis will linger.

On the positive side, there are still people within our social and business networks that we trust. How can we use this to build, or rebuild, our economic strength by taking advantage of business opportunities. My experience is that there are still innumerable business opportunities. The key is to start with what you have and your strengths. At a time like this, our greatest asset for business might be trust. So, how do we use this?

Use what is called trust value chains for business. The principle is simple. Create a small, simple business supply chain that will deliver your service or product to consumers. The anchor, or glue, for the supply chain is trust. Other principles to support and reinforce trust, are transparency and truth.

The first phase is to identify people within your formal or informal social and business networks to see who you trust. These are individual trust relationships. Openly talk about your business interests. It is often in these dialogues that opportunities appear.

The second phase is to "chain" the individual trust relationships into a single or few business opportunities. This results in a trust value chain to implement business ventures. If you choose the right trust relationships and opportunity frame, you can use this same chain over and over again to provide additional products and services to the same target market.

The third phase is to repeat phases one and two to establish a trust network, which multiples the economic opportunities and growth. In the dynamics of networks, healthy networks will become alive and grow on their own. But you have to start with strategic intent, not a haphazard approach.

In dealing with any global business opportunity but in the context of Africa, it is recommended to work with people you trust locally. You cannot micromanage, nor should you, from a distance. So, trust value chains are one method for conducting business. This method allows quick and effective action with business opportunities.

For example, we recently identified a product in the United States that would be highly useful in Africa. Because we are familiar with the local markets, we have identified several sectors and consumers that would readily use the quality product. We didn´t spend a lot of time in feasibility because we could enter the market for little cost and allow it to grow. However, to make it work, we identified a small investor and supplier from the U.S. to manage purchasing the product and someone locally in Africa to sell it. These were identified and established through individual relationships.

We serve as the intermediaries, which handle facilitation, coordination and business administration. So, we have created a system around the trust value chain concept.

To learn more about conducting business in Africa, using trust value chains and other strategies, visit www.afribiz.info.