Sekhar Suryanarayanan - Guest Blog

Joel, my predecessor in Tanzania for the last several months, described Africa to me as “an entrepreneur’s dream”. This description piqued my interest – as a former consultant to Multi-National Corporations (MNCs), an entrepreneur’s dream was exactly what I hoped to find here. After my first month on the ground, I see that Joel was absolutely right.

I had expected to have a few skills to offer and many lessons to learn through the challenges that I would face in Tanzania. The most significant challenge and learning experience has been the struggle to balance MNC practices – which are geared toward efficiency in large-scale settings – with local entrepreneurs’ practices. I may have a tendency to revert to MNC practices for the sake of efficiency, but the need to develop relationships with local entrepreneurs requires me to adjust in a variety of ways:

§ Uncertainty of timelines: Uncertainty is ubiquitous for both MNCs and Tanzanian entrepreneurs, and timelines are always unpredictable. The difference here is in the response to uncertainty. MNCs tend to respond to uncertain timelines by making assumptions, setting deadlines, and adjusting as the assumptions are proven or debunked. Many of our business partners in Tanzania respond to uncertainty by waiting to find out more information. This sense of waiting is something that I have never been comfortable with, so I am learning to balance both approaches

§ Informality: MNCs, naturally, tend to have a more formal culture than small organizations, but there is another layer of informality to entrepreneurs in this region. This informality is refreshing in some ways, but certainly takes some adjustment for someone from the MNC world. Communications are ad-hoc, records are sparse, and the concept of action items is foreign. The result is that projects require close monitoring to ensure success

§ Tolerance for approximation: Decisions here are often made based on approximation, or even gut feel. Since I am used to substantiating every decision with a financial model and PowerPoint presentation, I welcome the reduction in carpal tunnel-inducing activities, but am uncomfortable with the wide ranges of estimates that can come from entrepreneurs’ guts. This is an area in which there is certainly some benefit to additional rigor

§ Role of trust: Our Tanzanian counterparts are able to succeed in spite of all the above, because of the role of trust. When a long-standing customer and close friend tells an entrepreneur that he will pay “soon”, the uncertainty, informality, and lack of precision are smaller considerations than the fact that there is a pre-existing trust-based relationship. These relationships play a critical role for entrepreneurs, and it is our responsibility to develop those relationships as well. Since my priority has always been to trust a number on a spreadsheet rather than the person with whom I am working, this is where I must learn to adjust most

It is clear that MNC practices can be beneficial to entrepreneurs in Tanzania, but these practices cannot be imposed upon them. The proper balance is something that I am still eager to discover.