By Koketso Mamabolo
It has really helped me share my message, especially on non-supply chain and non-leadership topics. The more I understand the supply chain, the more I understand life. Because I believe the supply chain is life and, at the same time, the more I can actually dissect issues, looking at them from different perspectives and I can learn so much from. I think some of my conversations I’ve had on my podcast, and the conversations I will be having in the future, suggest that Africa is going through its own form of a renaissance in this particular time, and a lot of people are actually sharing their thoughts about it. These lifelong lessons - and how you can deal with different situations - that's what makes sense. I believe that if one or two people's lives are changed by the podcast, I think the podcast definitely has its purpose.
The African Continental Free Trade Agreement is initially going to expose the weakness within African supply chains. A lot of gaps within African supply chains will be identified. As I've said many times, trade and supply chains are two sides of a coin so you cannot have one without the other. The trade will not happen between countries without supply chains being in order; without the ports being in line with other ports; without different roads flowing into others; without intermodal forms of transportation; without establishing demand signals across the African countries; without having different trade routes; different ship routes; different supply routes establishing different trains. All these things have to happen.