Sustainable Distribution in Emerging Markets – African Perspective

The paper focuses on studying the impediments for new entrants into emerging markets from a perspective of the African economies and proposes a conceptual framework for a sustainable distribution system. While there is a lot of research on emerging economies, African markets have remained relatively untouched, more so from the distribution perspective. Further, the speed at which business transformations are happening in these markets, academic research needs to keep pace with such changes. The paper proposes four broad impediments to distribution and eleven sub-dimensions i.e. political and security, cultural, ethnic and economic diversity, infrastructural gaps, channel structures and Governance, to name a few. The proposed conceptual framework defines four strategic interventions, namely, connecting with the masses, inclusive growth, leveraging existing networks and financing micro enterprises to build a sustainable network in the African markets. The methodology for the study is an integrative analysis of existing literature, case examples and personal experience on entry strategy advisory in Africa and other emerging markets by the lead author