Brief Description
Africa has a mix of informal, hybrid and modern retailing formats which propel diverse career and business trajectories. The continent has a vast and differentiated retail industry with innumerable opportunities, risks, and potential. However, retail professionals and businesses in the continent require the right tools for innovative and responsive performance. The inevitable changes ushered by technological innovations, evolving consumer needs, growing population and urbanisation are speedily changing the African retail landscape, All of which reiterate the need for retail professionals to capitalize on the existing opportunities while being mindful of the socio-political and economic realities of the continent.
This book, therefore, will discuss how businesses can build careers to grow their retail businesses in Africa. Businesses, managers, professionals, retail investors, entrepreneurs, channel partners of retailers in Africa, and other captains of industry will find the book helpful. Chapter contributors should back their arguments and recommendations with statistics, anecdotal evidence and possibly short case studies. Africa is not one market, so chapter contributions should capture the peculiarities of the various sub-regions of the continent.
Tentative Outline of the Book
This book focuses on retailing in the continent of Africa with special consideration on Africa’s retail environment, career prospects, systems for growth and performance management, and competitive advantage and future of retailing in Africa. The book will be structured in six (6) parts, excluding the introduction and conclusion sections.
Introduction
This section of the book will present an insightful background to building a retail career in Africa. It will focus on introducing the book’s content to the readers by giving conceptual clarifications, highlighting the chapters and their relevance to students, faculties, practitioners, investors, and business owners for informed action on the dialectics and trajectories of retailing in Africa.
Part A: Understanding Africa’s Retail Environment
Chapter 1: Evolution of Africa’s retail environment: A brief look at the East and West African retail industries in comparison to the South
Chapter 2: Learning from the South African Experience: The Good & the Bad
Chapter 3: Setting the mission, vision, and strategy for your retail organisation
Chapter 4: Regulatory environment in Africa’s retail
Chapter 5: Transition from traditional to modern retail in Africa
Part B: Exploring Career Opportunities in Retail
Chapter 6: What career opportunities exist? (trajectories, marketing/functional talent in retail) on the continent
Chapter 7: Competencies, knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to work and grow in the retail within Africa
Chapter 8: Developing a suitable climate for a successful career in retail within the continent
Chapter 9: Building a Pan-African footprint for your retail business
Part C: Defining your growth aspiration
Chapter 10: Resourcing for growth in retail within Africa
Chapter 11: Identifying market opportunities for retail in Africa
Chapter 12: Building sustainable structures and systems for growth in retail
Part D: Performance Management in Retail Organizations
Chapter 13: Relevant performance metrics in retail for Africa
Chapter 14: Talent development in retail for Africa
Chapter 15: Motivating talent for high performance in a retail environment within the continent
Chapter 16: Data analytics as a source of competitive advantage in Africa’s retail environment
Part E: Building Competitive Advantage in Africa Retail
Chapter 17: Marketing a retail organisation as a source of competitive advantage
Chapter 18: Market Insights in Africa’s retail environment
Chapter 19: Partnerships, Licenses, Franchises, and Venture agreements in Africa Retail
Chapter 20: Inculcating the dynamics of supply chain management for retail in Africa
Chapter 21: Leveraging technology for competitive advantage in Africa
Chapter 22: Navigating Infrastructural and cultural issues for competitive advantage in Africa
Chapter 23: Applying human capital to build competitive advantage in African retail
Part F: The Retail of the Future
Chapter 24: What will the retail of the future look like in Africa?
N/B: Brief description of the suggested content for each chapter can be found here.
Each chapter should not be more than 2,000 words (including references), single line spacing, font size of 12, and Times New Roman.
Chapter unifying structure
- Introduction/Background
- Focus on key issues around the chapter while highlighting unique phenomena relatable across the continent.
- Include statistics and back them up with short stories
- Offer at least three action points that can help managers, educators, marketers, and retailers in decision making
- Summary and conclusion
Timeline and Submission Process
Schedule for publication of the book:
- Book chapter proposals received: April 29, 2022
- Notification of accepted chapter proposals: May 6, 2022
- Receipt of complete book chapters for review: June 3, 2022
- Review of book chapters and revision feedback: June 17, 2022
- Receipt by editors of the final draft of book chapters: June 24, 2022
- The book will be delivered to the publisher by July 1, 2022
- Anticipated publication: August 2022
Interested contributors are to submit a chapter proposal as a Microsoft Word document attached to an email no later than April 29, 2022. The Editor would be glad to receive a one-page proposal outlining your chapter and the part of the book it fits into. Identify critical issues in the branch while highlighting unique phenomena relatable across the continent and outlining the proposed chapter content (preferably not exceeding 300 words). Please also include as a separate file a brief biography covering your current institutional affiliation and position, a listing of your relevant publications and educational background, and any other pertinent information on your qualifications for contributing to this manuscript (preferably not exceeding 200 words).
Authors of selected proposals will be invited to submit complete chapters for publication in this book titled “Building Careers to Grow Africa’s Retail Businesses”.
Send proposals, complete book chapters, and inquiries to the editors via email (uuzo@lbs.edu.ng)
About the Editors
Uchenna Uzo (PhD) is the Faculty Director and Lecturer at Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria. He is a Research fellow of the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANCOR) and the American Marketing Association. He also served as a visiting research scholar at Stanford University, USA. He teaches courses in Marketing Management, Personal selling, Sales, and Channel management. He has built the managerial and leadership competencies of over 1000 senior managers in Nigeria through his teaching responsibilities. He has also taught executives and CEOs at IESE Business School, Barcelona.
Louis I. Nzegwu is a Professor of Marketing at Lagos Business School and served as the Executive Director of the International Business Resource Center (IBRC) at the University of Wisconsin – Platteville (UWP). He teaches various marketing courses, including Sales Management, Marketing Management, Marketing Research, and Global Marketing courses.
Kindly forward this invitation to others who may be interested. For any further correspondence, please feel free to contact the editor.
Best regards,
Uchenna Uzo (PhD.)
References
LBS African Retail Academy (2021), Five Strategies for Spotting and Reinventing Africa’s Retail Talents. Retrieved from https://lbsafricanretailacademy.com/2021/10/29/five-strategies-for-spotting-and-reinventing-africas-retail-talents/ on April 7, 2022
