The Diary Of African Football

The Diary Of African Football

The feats of African footballers are among the most positive images that Africa has to offer to the world in this era of globalization. But football has also been an important asset in African history since the beginning of the colonial era.

Icons Of African Football

Icons Of African Football

The presence of Africans in the transfer market of football players in the European richest clubs has become a very common fact. African Football has listed 647 African players in first league European clubs.

Cameroonian Music Scene

Cameroonian Music Scene

Cameroon is located in Central Africa, in the Gulf of Guinea. It has several large cities including Yaounde, the country s political capital and Douala, the economic capital. Its cultural and ethnic diversity (over 240 ethnic groups, with 240 different languages) made Cameroon a nest of talent, not only in sports but also in music.

Cameroon Economic Situation

Cameroon's Economic Situation

Cameroonian people experience great frustration with their economic and social difficulties. With an unemployment rate that continues to grow, a private sector that is almost non-existent and some states that try somehow to limit the damage by recruiting fresh graduates in the public sector, in short there are very few offers for a huge number of job seekers.

Entrepreneurship in Africa (Problems / Solutions)

Entrepreneurship in Africa (Problems / Solutions)

As you know, set up a business in Africa, large or small, is sometimes a long and difficult road to walk into. It takes knowledge, resources, tools, and ideally a mentor or a sponsor to support you and give you that helping hand to progress into this administrative and financial jungle.

Why Be An Entrepreneur In Africa

Why Be An Entrepreneur In Africa

Africa is not going well, its entire economy is at risk, plus, Africa appears to be abandoned by the international community who s looking at Africa dying. It is time for us Africans to fight against this scourge.

How To Start A Successful Business In Africa

How To Start A Successful Business In Africa

Africa offers vast potential markets, and significant natural and human resources for business. In this article, I will highlight some fundamental principles and best practices for business creation in Africa.

Why Marketing Is So Important For Your Business

Why Marketing Is So Important For Your Business

In this article, I am going to walk you through the basics of marketing that all entrepreneurs and business owners should master to hopefully reach the goals and growth needed for their business.

Investing In Africa's Emerging Market

Investing In Africa's Emerging Market

Now that energy prices and commodity prices are up all over the world, Africa is becoming a strategic location for all parts of the world. With the demographic explosion of middle class, with lots of resources and commodities that are attractive to the world, with lots of investment commitment in the infrastructure sector, we believe that these opportunities can translate to investment opportunities and that Africa will rise and contribute to the rest of the world.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Fally Ipupa aka Dicap La Merveille, A Musical Genius

Faustin Ipupa Nsimba known as Fally Ipupa is a singer, songwriter and respected guitarist who was born on  December 14th 1977 in Kinshasa and raised in Kingshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He is one of the children of Ipupa Ebombo  and Bolotuli Mbo. Having a Catholic education, he began by singing in the choir of the Church. Like many young performers of his generation, music was not considered more than a hobby and studies were forced to take priority over the young man’s passion.
 As a teenager, the young Fally began his musical career while still a student in various small groups in Kinshasa , in the mid-1990s. With his honeyed voice, and his amazing dance abilities, Fally soon attracted attention and eventually integrated small groups in his neighborhood, including the "New City" or "Nouvelle Alliance".  But it was not until the late 90's that the young Congolese artist will join a group of nationally recognized "Talents Latents", with whom he recorded a first album.  Fally becomes an artist and aspiring musician, its versatility: singer, guitarist and skill dancer.
In the late 90s, a key meeting sealed the beginning of a long musical success, the one with the group Quartier Latin International of Koffi Olomide a huge public figure in african music. Fally will find its place immediately and will become one of the leader of the well known group. He made key featuring in classic songs like Attentat, Force de Frappe, Effrakata, Affaire d'État, Monde Arabe and Danger de Mort.
The first album "Droit Chemin"
In 2006 he recorded his first solo album "Droit Chemin" produced by David Monsoh Obouo of Music. Thanks to collaborations with musical icons like Maika Munan, Krys, Mokobe and Ben-J, this album had quick and great success and his legendary status was manifested when Fally receives a gold record for more than 100,000 copies sold (this is huge in a continent devastated by piracy).
Here is the music video of the first hit single. Droit Chemin featuring Krys.



The second album "Arsenal de belle mélodies"
Three years after the release of "Droit Chemin" Fally Ipupa returns with a second album "Arsenal de belle mélodies". Once again he has set the bar very high, presenting this time an album beyond the borders through the participation of Olivia Longott, American singer (former member of the G-Unit 50 Cent), in the song electric chair and Krys for the second consecutive time. He won his second gold disc with this second album with over 100,000 copies sold, including 40,000 in one week, a record for a Congolese artist.
Here is another hit single from this second album. Chaise Electrique featuring Olivia.



Success stories
The artist has enjoyed the success of this album by delivering a concert at the Zenith in Paris January 2, 2010, with over 6000 people. On Saturday, June 11, 2011, he participated in the African night at the Stade de France with other African stars.   May 16, 2009, at the Creole Night organized by the group Kassav ', Fally runs a fine performance on his own to the group Kassav' and ignites the Stade de France filled with 90,000 people. He participated in a gesture to Haiti.  He participated in Spread the word.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Why Marketing Is So Important For Your Business

From creating a business plan, to a network strategy, lots of small and medium enterprises continue to fail and close their doors. Often times, this happens because of bad management or not having an audience targeted marketing plan to actually bring revenue to the company. In this article, I am going to walk you through the basics of marketing that all entrepreneurs and business owners should master to hopefully reach the goals and growth needed for their business.



What Is Marketing?There are tones of definitions to the word marketing, and in the fast-moving world of business, it’s understandable that definitions rarely stay the same. But in short terms, marketing has been described as the process of interesting potential customers and clients in your products and/or services.
As a practice, it consists in coordination of four elements called 4P's:
  • Identification, selection, and development of a Product,
  • Determination of its Price
  • Selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's Place
  • Development and implementation of a Promotional strategy.
The marketing concept is a philosophy. It makes the customer, and the satisfaction of his or her needs, the focal point of all business activities. It is driven by senior managers, passionate about delighting their customers. It is founded on the belief that profitable sales and satisfactory returns on investment can only be achieved by identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs and desires.
Why Marketing Is So Important?
Are you starting a business, or are you already an entrepreneur? Either ways, if you are serious about building a brand and achieving success for your organization, you have to start marketing you business if you are not doing it yet. Marketing is a very important aspect in business since it contributes greatly to the success of the organization. Production and distribution depend largely on marketing. There are lots of benefits in having the right marketing strategy for the good product and not pushing more some products and disregard their wants and the value they can really bring to the customer. Here are some important reason why marketing is important:
  • Marketing Promotes Product Awareness to the Public: You cannot afford to just let people find out about your business themselves. You have to advertise, promote and educate the public about the goods of your business. This is why a company must invest in marketing so as not to miss the opportunity to be discovered and sell its products. It’s good to have a great product but if nobody knows about it, you will make no profits. 
  • Marketing Helps Boost Product Sales: If your company aims to increase the sales percentage and double the production, the marketing department must be able to come up with effective and strategic marketing plans. This is critical not only to generate sales, but also to build a brand and a strong reputation for a company.
Business Marketing Plan
The most effective way to grow and expand your business is by focusing on organic growth. And basically, you can increase organic growth in four different ways. They include:
  • Acquiring more customers
  • Persuading each customer to buy more products
  • Persuading each customer to buy more expensive products or up selling each customer
  • Persuading each customer to buy more profitable products
To achieve all these goals, and bring your business to success, you need to develop a proper business marketing plan, and then gauge its performance for your business growth. Here are some points that your plan should have:
  • What Are Your Business Marketing Goals:This is simply what you want to achieve through your marketing plan. It can be sales, growth, reputation or something else. 
  • What Is Your Target Audience: It is important to have and know the target for you marketing campaign, this will not only identify the scope and range of your marketing but also prevent you for marketing your product to the wrong audience and therefore wasting your money and not getting the results that you have set for you business marketing. 
  • What Business Marketing System To Use: Internet has made business marketing a whole new concept, apart from the conventional advertisement systems in newspapers, magazines; internet or online marketing is the most used marketing system, since it is inexpensive when examining the ratio of cost to the reach of the target audience. In fact, companies can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets. Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales; it includes Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, email marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies like social and mobile applications.
Famous Internet Marketing StrategiesIn the variety of solutions that offers the web, and depending on the marketing goals and target audience, these forms of marketing prevail:
  • Search Engine Marketing: It is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of, paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. It is different from Search Engine Optimization which aims at "optimizing" web site pages. Other parts of SEM are Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimisation (SMO). 
  • Affiliate marketing: Where a third party advertises products or services on behalf of a retailer in return for an agreed commission for a sale or lead. This method has proved very popular due to its' "pay for performance" model which allows a large number of affiliates to be taken on, but only rewarding those which return results. 
  • Email marketing: It is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fund-raising messages to an audience. It involves sending email messages, adding advertisement in email messages. 
  • Pay Per Click: It is an Internet advertising model used on websites, where advertisers pay their host only when the ad is clicked.
One last important thing is to not forget to track your marketing efforts. You will be spending money and energy on your marketing so its worth the investment to make sure everything is working as planned. If not don’t be afraid to change your strategy and make some adjustments to your marketing plan.

How To Start A Successful Business In Africa

For business, Africa offers vast potential markets, and significant natural and human resources. But the continent now accounts for only two percent of global economic activity and encounter serious financial difficulties. As a result, millions of people continue to face hunger and lack of opportunity to improve their lives in our beloved continent. In previous articles: Article 1 and Article 2, I talked about the importance of entrepreneuship for economic growth and have also shown how this was achieved by countries like China, India and Brazil. In this article, I will highlight some fundamental principles and best practices for business creation in Africa.

How to start your own businessAlthough the idea of entrepreneurship can be exciting, it can also be intimidating and this even for someone who already has a successful career behind him. But nevertheless, by following some basic principles, starting a business is simpler than you think. It is a simple process, but not easy at all. It’s simple because the steps you have to go through are known, but each step in itself is complex and difficult to implement and complete.

You have an idea or a project more or less precise about your future business and want to get started, here are the general steps for starting a business in:
  • Choose a niche or a product: Business creation is a task that requires perseverance because you probably will encounter many difficulties along the way, it is important to choose a niche that fascinates you, so that your love will overcome the difficulties and tedium of hard times. It is not necessary to be an expert in the field or sector in which you want to create the company. But one must know enough to have the necessary perspective to manage and direct your business and your employees. 
  • Do market research: Market research does not need to be complicated, but it is important to ensure that there is a need for the product or service you are intending to sell because it is useless to invest money and ressources in products that no one will buy. Depending on the chosen area and your product or service, you may be face competition. But if your offer is unique and fills a particular demand in the market, you have a good chance of success. For example, you may be able to offer a transport service in an academic area off the road or public transport to develop a new kind of healthy snack when there is demand but no supply. 
  • Make a business plan: Writing a business plan is the designing of a roadmap, a kind of route. Because you are not likely to reach your destination if you do not know where you are going and what you'll need to get there. You need three or four pages of detail information that will give your company operational and financial direction to follow.  
  • Choose an investor: When looking for investments, choose a company that has specialized knowledge of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in the community and the industry in which you intend to work. This could be one of the most important decisions you’ll have to make for you and your business. 
  • Have the right people: Not all start-ups recruits from the beginning, but if you do, it is important to wisely choose your employees. In a small business, people spend much of thier time together, if you need to have employees that you feel you will be able to work with. Also, choose the people who have experience in the area of your business. This will give you a valuable support system. But remember that as a leader, you have to be able to engage and motivate your work force continuously. 
  • Promoting Your Business: Marketing is the most important aspect for the success and prosperity of a business, because you can have the best product of the world, but if nobody knows then nobody will buy it. Even the smallest business needs marketing to promote its goods and services. We can therefore for example, place ads in local newspapers, distributibute leaflets, display ads in malls, recreation centers and schools and develop special offers for special needs or opportunities.

          But the points above are only recommendations for starting a business, but in the reality of business in Africa, the process of finding good customers is a very tedious process. Being such a big continent, with more than 53 countries, marketing products and services in African markets is indeed a difficult task. However, for a successful marketing effort, it is imperative to identify and partner with business partners reliable and effective in key African countries. This marketing should also be very focused to be effective, taking into account the needs of the prospects and respond to a specific problem or a special fustration.