‘African Startups, Firms Must Leverage Partnerships For Business Growth’

A partnership consulting firm, Hackapath has emphasised the need for startups and organisations across Africa to leverage partnership in scaling their businesses.

This was part of the key take away from ‘The Deal Room’, an initiative targeted at helping businesses to break partnership barriers and expand.

The Deal Room, a three-day B2B Matchmaking event held in Lagos recently which played host to various organisations, enabling them to identify appropriate partners, brainstorm on possible areas to collaborate and sign partnership agreements.

The engagement at the event is expected to lead to a cross-border expansion plan for participating businesses.

Founder of Hackapath, Chinenye Patrick Kalu described the B2B Matchmaking event as a gross success, citing collaboration with The International Trade Centre and The Netherlands Foreign Affairs as a catalyst.

According to her, the matchmaking initiative was designed to engender partnership deals among businesses of various scales across diverse sectors for their survival, expansion and better returns.

Kalu emphasised that impactful collaboration is key to business growth in today’s rapidly evolving business landscape to fulfil the quest to create more legacy business entities in Nigeria and in the African continent.

According to her, “Hackapath has realised that businesses would always need to collaborate with others to hasten pace of growth and expansion plan irrespective of their sizes. What we are trying to do is bring businesses from diverse sectors together and find that common thing that bring them together and collaborate for scaling up and the general growth of their businesses. We are glad that we have many businesses here today and the engagement has been fruitful.”

She added that Hackapath has put in place simple actions that will help participating companies to move from just conversation after meeting potential partners, to follow up with multi-dimensional conversation until there is a final close of business that they have signed with their partners.

“What this means for you is that being in this room gives you the opportunity that meet that particular person or partner that you need to move your business to the next level. You will not only meet your partners here and identify them, we will work with you to make sure that a partnership deal is completed,” she said.

She added that the initiative is not limited to a particular sector or business size, adding that Hackapath is working to remove partnership barriers that frustrate business growth and expansion.

“Our focus is not on size or sector, it is on value addition. A big enterprise can always need something that a small company can provide and vice versa. The whole goal of this event is making sure that we build legacy companies in Nigeria and in Africa that are owned by indigenous people. Through collaborations, businesses can go far,” she said.

According to her, Hackapath in its future engagements would collaborate with the Nigerian government as well as the governments of various other countries, especially in Africa, to deliver more value through its initiatives.

While delivering a keynote address at the grand finale of  founder and CEO of Dinku Transnational, Tega Ogbosa, warned that, as much as partnership is critical to business growth, it must be implemented the right way to get the right results.

He encouraged African businesses to undertake partnership with sincerity, common vision, legal documentation and clearly spelt-out dissolution plan.

Ogbosa said: “you need to be careful in choosing your partner. You need a partner that shares the same vision as yourself. You cannot be looking at going into partnership with someone who wants to go north while you want to go south.

“So, there has to be an alignment of objectives. You need someone who compliments you, helps you to become stronger and more resourceful.

“My message here today is that 100 per cent of nothing is still nothing. So, you should not be weary of collaborating. That is one of the reasons I’ve noticed that lots of people do not get the right support that they need, because they’re worried about sharing.

“But in truth, partnerships and collaboration, especially when you do it strategically, actually boost your business way more than you would have.”

He stated that documentation of partnership terms is important, but working with the right partner is more vital, stressing that documentation cannot prevent a partnership deal from crumbling if the wrong parties are involved.

“While documentation is critical and making sure that you have the right legal representation is vital, if you are not like–minded or sharing similar visions with your partners, your partnership will still crumble.

“The only difference will be whether it will crumble peacefully or acrimoniously. Partnership that is not founded on common vision and common goals with transparency and integrity at the heart of it will not survive,” he warned.

As a cross-sectorial B2B matchmaking event, The Deal Room sought to redefine the way businesses perceive collaboration.

The first day of the event was a closed-door activity exclusive for Netherland Trust Fund Cohort 5 Companies from Ghana and Potential Partners in Nigeria; day 2 was a continuation of exclusive engagement with Cohort 5 Companies and Partners while day 3 was open to the general public and C-level executives from various sectors invited for a day of networking and collaborations.