You have recently been appointed as a consultant of a company called Leano Capital, which is a South African medium sized entity to advise management on intra Africa-trade matters particularly around the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement. You are called to a meeting where the Managing Director of the company expresses a need for the company to expand beyond South Africa into other parts of Africa. He informed management that he has done a preliminary market potential analysis and concluded that the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) seems to provide good options. “Given that we already know how to do business in South Africa – it is just a matter of choice which other AfCFTA countries to enter next ”. He further mentions that he has intentions of having a market presence in 50% of the AfCFTA countries by 2030. You explain to the MD that there still exist considerable cultural, administrative, geographic and economic differences between South Africa and SADC countries. Further to this, you emphasise that the decision to enter some of the markets on the continet is not that simple based on what you learnt as a Global Business student at the SBL. You base part of your explanation on an article you read, “Distance still matters: The hard reality of global expansion”, as well as on other academic sources. You explain that it will be better to first do an analysis to see which of these countries have the smallest CAGE distance relative to South Africa. You also explain to him that by understanding these differences it will be much easier to deal with them when entering any of the markets. The MD then asks you to do an analysis and provide him with a report and recommendations of which 4 countries to enter first and why.

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