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December 07, 2004
A Perilous Journey
Opportunities seem everywhere when looking at global markets. Technologies, products and services can be introduced into markets that are hungry for such offerings. However, Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge offers a story that highlights the risks of business formation in developing countries.
"When Liberia-born Monique Maddy (HBS MBA '93) started Adesemi to offer users throughout Africa a wireless system of pagers and public pay phones, she believed that tremendous pent-up demand would launch her company to success. But in fact, the company eventually had to be liquidated, a casualty not only of internal miscalculations but also of the bureaucracy, corruption, and environmental factors faced by start-ups in Africa and other developing countries."
This article offers a candid Q&A about this would-be global entrepreneur's perilous journey.
Thanks to my colleague Howard Cochran for passing this story along.
Posted December 7, 2004 10:43 AM
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Comments
I am currently in Mr. Howard Cochran's class and I have to admit that that I once would have imagined, like this lady,that many ideas of my own would be cash cows. We recently did a Country Risk Analysis Paper and one of the countries that I chose to report on was India. The cultural, political, economical, and administrative differences we reported on were tremendous when compared to that of the U.S. I can understand now as well through this paper that countries around the world, smaller countries have a much larger corruption index. It was all very enlightening and a wise professor once told me it is best to fail on paper so that is exactly what we did with our pearls in India!
Posted by: Mary Beth Groce at December 9, 2004 10:11 PM
at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. He consults with a variety of businesses on start-up and growth related issues, and with larger corporations on re-establishing entrepreneurial cultures within their organizations. Dr. Cornwall's current research interests include entrepreneurial finance and entrepreneurial ethics. He has authored or co-authored four books.
