I speak to so many people on a daily basis that are up in Africa doing their business, investing, trying to get businesses to grow or to get off the ground.

But recently I spoke to a very experienced investor who has been investing into African companies for a long, long time. And he told me something that was right up my alley.

What he sees going wrong with a lot of investors is that when they get into the company that they’ve invested in or they’ve acquired, their focus goes straightaway to the operation and sales side.

So how do we sell as many products as possible against what cost, and how are we going to run the operations? But what he told me, and what he believes in, is that rather than focusing on those things, focus on HR first.

Because if you don’t have the right people in your company, you don’t basically have a company. And I know it’s a bit of an old-fashioned phrase, but I totally agree with that. You need to get those processes up.

You need to get your talent acquisition people in place and have the right procedures. Because if you don’t have the right people and you don’t have the right happy people, you basically don’t have a company and your investment is gone.

So, if you want to chat about setting up you HR structures in the companies that you’ve invested in in Africa, let us know. We’ve recently sourced quite a few HR people, HR managers, HR directors. So, send me a message on Inez@jobnetafrica.com and we can jump on a call. Hoping to see you soon!