12.10.2022

Exciting research trip to East Africa

“Doing Business in Africa” research project goes to East Africa

At the beginning of October, Dr Simon Züfle travelled to Uganda and Rwanda to conduct expert interviews and expand the university and company network of the Doing Business in Africa (DBA) research group at ESB Business School of Reutlingen University. At his first stop in Kampala, he talked to locally based German companies about the business climate and the opportunities and challenges for German companies in Uganda. In cooperation with Gauff Engineering, he gave a presentation on 4 October entitled: "Jumping on the Bandwagon: Business implications of China's activities in Africa", in which he discussed China's growing role in Africa over the past twenty years and outlined the impact on operational business activities of German companies. He explained that Chinese companies are not only competitors, but also cooperation partners and customers of German companies. The presentation was met with great interest among the companies present and the subsequent discussion underlined the relevance of the research topic. Another appointment in Kampala took Dr Züfle to an Innovation Hub. There, he had the opportunity to gain insights into the production of local companies and to talk to young entrepreneurs about their business models.

On 5 October, Dr Züfle travelled on to Kigali, the second stop on his trip. The focus was on talks with the University of Rwanda about joint research cooperation and teaching exchanges between ESB Business School and the College of Business and Economics. He also visited innovation hubs in Kigali and had interesting discussions with academics about business models and business model innovations of start-ups in Rwanda. In addition, Dr Züfle conducted discussions and expert interviews on the success factors of distribution partnerships between German companies and their local distributors in African markets.