Boabab Express: Business with impact

b a o b a b

Powering CSR through collaborative social business

For more than 20 years, Frief, the CEO and founder of the 3D printing company Materialize, ran CSR projects in Africa, supporting local hospitals. But in 2012, he spotted an opportunity to change the approach.

Five African countries top the global lost of highest road fatalities, and Fried realized that rather than supporting doctors, his company could deal with the causes of accidents, and address the way transportation is operated.

A business opportunity Transportation systems, in Benin, combine a derelict, dangerous float of vehicles, inefficient service, and poor road infrastructures. To make an impact, the charity approach used with hospitals could not work. The model, here, would be social entrepreneurship. But how do you build a social business from the ground?

Our approach was to use the same collaborative, empathic, co-creative ways that allow us to make different groups perform together in a corporate context. But here, in a broader ecosystem. Humanizing business, hands on.

Building with people, not for people We started by finding committed investors for the African Drive venture, all of whom wanted to invest in a business which could further social progress in rural Africa. We approached the investors as people, recognising not just the value of their capital, but also the value of their trust, long-term commitment, and their desire to be part of the unfolding narrative of creating value, people to people.

Then, we ran immersive conversations in Benin – spending time in villages and with travellers. They helped us put human sense behind travel: our customers didn’t just need to get from point A to point B in a timely manner – they wanted to take hold of their own destinies. Better transportation in Benin is not just about less accidents, but about enabling more exchanges, more commerce, and ultimately more social development. Shared social development, to be precise.

In Benin, the community needs to progress, not the individual on his own. With this in mind, “Move and win together, c’est bon” became the brand motto, while the Baobab tree, symbolising community prosperity in Africa, was used to design our branding. A business plan was set-up, buses were ordered, transport lines were mapped out, and a team recruited locally.

The essence of the business was to offer fixed-time, safe travel, in the place of the “leave when the bus is full, come back when possible” present option.

The critical part was to foster an entrepreneurial spirit with the African Drive team in Benin. At first, we were surprised by the lack of entrepreneurial culture in Benin, where having a fixed-income job is viewed with more respect than being an entrepreneur. As such, we adapted to these local conditions, reworking our approach with an emphasis on making it less intimidating to transition from a salaried job to an entrepreneurial ownership.

“Bouger et Gagner ensemble, c’est bon “ Within a year, we built a group of 25 committed investors, and started a business.

At the moment, African Drive has 48 employees running 12 buses, providing a living for 50 families. But the ecosystem around the company is creating further impact: an informal network of moto-taxis is ferrying the travellers to the bus stops, caterers offer services around them – jobs that are made possible by the reliability of arrival and departure. The operations reached financial break-even in July 2014, allowing us to plan for expansion. A new recruit has joined the team to take the responsibility for expansion.

For Materialize, it’s a new approach to what could have remained a CSR program. An approach that is collaborative, business driven – and hence sustainable.

INNAT E TO Social Start u OL: p CATEG Process Transp ORY: orta COUN tion TRY: Benin

Hello!

We are business humanizers who dare to care about helping brands and businesses create more value for the people they serve.

Our company has no bricks, borders or bosses, just a simple belief that generosity pays: the more we give, the more we will get.

We’ll love to tell you more about our work in person! Find us at www.in8motion.com