7/16/2008

First brainstorming sessions

Today morning was very interesting as we sat down and exchanged our ideas about the companies we visited yesterday. Our approach was very much about analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each company and identifying opportunities and risks. We decided to follow the same framework to structure our working sessions. After 1.5 to 2h gathering our thoughts about GIE Mountaga Tall, Marché.com and Restaurant Chez Maye, we defined our next steps, especially deciding if further analysis would be necessary, and which kind.

Lunchtime is usually late, around 2pm or 2:30pm, but very good since we now eat Senegalese food prepared for us at the office. 

In the afternoon, we had an appointment with Ecobank. The agency 
manager, Sanou, provided us with a good overview of her bank, and the Senegalese banking system in general. Our overall perception was that the Senegalese banking system today is not ready to offer credit to anybody or any entity without strong guarantee, especially to small and middle-size companies that are at a pre-growing stage and are not mature enough. What we learned from that interview confirms that WOW is uniquely positioned to assist the most promising ones among those companies, and therefore contribute to the development of the Senegalese economy.

~Laurent

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