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Mohammed Dewji has built his family business from a $26m trading and distribution company importing goods into Tanzania into a manufacturer of multiple products and one of Africa’s few companies with revenues of over $1bn. His next target is to generate $5bn of revenues by 2020 and employ 100,000 people across Africa.
Dewji is unassuming and doesn’t seek the limelight. However, this quiet demeanour should not fool you. Dewji is direct and to the point. He was voted Business Leader of the Year at the African Business Awards in 2015 and headed the Institut Choiseul’s list of leading young African economic leaders in 2016.

As one tracks his career it is obvious to see why. His major feat has been to oversee generational change in the family business and, along with this, its complete transformation, growing its revenues from $26m in 1999 to over $1.5bn last year.
He acknowledges the head start he received from being born a Dewji. The family business was very successful, essentially a trading house buying and selling soft commodities and finished products from tomato paste and bubble gum to tractors and motorcycles. The family was well off and Dewji was afforded the best schooling before going to Georgetown University.

On returning to Tanzania he served as an MP, although that chapter has long closed and he does not foresee a return to politics any time soon. However, Dewji still has strong political views and is a passionate patriot. Tanzania has often been criticised for being slow at adopting regional integration and opening up its markets. This is something Dewji acknowledges but an approach he is also quick to defend.
He puts it down to issues of land and jobs. Tanzania had inherited a socialist system and its economy was not as developed, for example, as that of Kenya. Given that the country makes up 52% of the land mass of the East African Community, it could not just open up its markets, he argues.

Its weaker educational system could also compound issues in terms of employment. He therefore defends the gradual approach the last few administrations have taken, such as reducing tariffs over a five-year period to create a tariff free zone.

Today he is the principal shareholder, although it remains very much a family affair. His father is chairman of the group and other relatives occupy senior positions. They have grown the business organically without the help of private equity or foreign ownership.
The tipping point, he says, came when they moved from being an import/export business to a manufacturing one. To encourage businesses to produce locally, the government had imposed import taxes on finished and semi-finished goods. Where the business had imported edible oil, they decided to import crude palm oil and set up a refinery, and likewise with soap and many other products.

MeTL, as the group is known, produces foods and goods across 21 different categories, outselling the global brands and often outmanoeuvring the multinationals. Dewji has his own drinks brand, Mo Cola, his own bottled water company and even supplies maize to the World Food Programme.

Logistics and distribution are key

The key to success .......

Read more @https://businessafricans..com.ng/2017/03/mohammed-dewji-made-in-africa-success.html