Filed under: Africa, Multinationals, Rapidly Developing Economies | Tags: Africa, Airtel, Barloworld, Caterpillar, China, Ecobank, Geely, IBM, India, Lenovo, Mahindra, MTN, Multinational, Rapidly Developing Economies, Tata, Unilever
The debate around corporate citizenship has a very Anglo-American flavour – possibly a mistake, when you think about the rise of a new generation of multinationals from rapidly developing economies.
Iconic Western brands like Jaguar and Land Rover are now owned by Tata Group of India, and the middle-class comfort-car Volvo is owned by Geely International of China. The world’s biggest telecom company is Bharti Airtel, with businesses in 19 countries. IBM’s PC business is now owned by Lenovo Group of China.
Maybe we should broaden our horizons a little, stop obsessing with the neocolonial multinationals (Unilever, Nike, PepsiCo,etc) and pay some attention to the next generation. Some of them have interesting stories. Here are my four top examples:
1. MAHINDRA
Mahindra is a vast conglomerate operating in 100 countries, working in every industry you can think of: aerospace, agriculture, automotive, defense, energy, financial services, to name a few. Mahindra is a champion of the emerging market story: “We are many companies united by a common purpose—to enable people to Rise“, is the opening sentence on its corporate website. Rise is a corporate narrative developed by my old friends at Strawberry Frog; it’s an ambitious program to mobilize the business into a kind of cultural movement. This isn’t standard corporate language. As the website puts it:
Rise is a call to action. It’s the challenger spirit that leads us to build ourselves better lives. The thirst for a brighter future is something shared by people around the world. Rise is a movement of determined people who are working towards goals of all sizes, every day.
2. BARLOWORLD
South Africa’s Barloworld makes Caterpillar and NACCO trucks, and has operations in 110 countries. Barloworld was hit hard when the already fragile South African economy was faced with the fallout from the Soweto riots. Their response, according to Article 13, was a groundbreaking Human Rights code which embedded the right to non-discrimination. This was counter to the prevailing political wind: for example, the code gives everyone the right to use the same toilets, which was at the time illegal in South Africa. I thought that deserved a gratuitous image of a monster mining truck:
3. ECOBANK
Ecobank is Africa’s largest banking multinational, operating in more African countries than any other bank – and driven by the slogan, “Taking Banking to the People”. It’s was chosen as a case study by Business In The Community, for local community involvement: a children’s hospital next to it’s Ghana HQ was in poor repair; the business permanently “adopted” the hospital. A small example, but an interesting response. Here’s the bank’s recent Rhythm of Africa TV spot:
4. MTN
MTN is the largest African mobile provider, working in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. It has a history of overcoming the exclusion of the poor through innovating new models – most recently, mobile banking, which it’s launching in all markets. According to NextBillion, access to banking is crucial to economic development, and MTN are confident of the consumer benefit: “It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s unintimidating,” Jenny Hoffmann, head of MTN Banking, told NextBillion. “And if you live on a hill in (rural Africa) you don’t have to go to town to make a payment.” Here’s a launch ad from Cote d’Ivoire (source):
