Johannesburg — Africa’s logistics corridors – from east to west and north to south – are receiving infrastructure investments, with billions being spent on transport corridors, high-speed rail networks, and hydropower projects among others.
There’s the Lobito Corridor, which connects Angola’s Atlantic coast to the copper and cobalt mining regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia; Egypt’s High-Speed Rail Network, which will run thousands of kilometres to connect major cities, ports, and industrial zones; while there is also a planned hydropower project on the Congo river that is set to become the largest hydroelectric project in the world.
All of these projects are attracting billions in investment, with just these three costing at least $100 billion between now and 2035, with projects being completed or hitting milestones within that timeframe.
Yet, there is a key deficit that exposes holes in project management during turbulent times, which is a lack of investing in people – investments that are needed for the now and not for the future. While grand projects are in the making with many already under construction and some parts of the Lobito Corridor, for example, already operational, it is an inescapable fact that regional trade corridors are currently facing unprecedented volatility.
Not only do several pressures such as supply-chain realignment, climate shocks, fiscal constraints on African governments, and diverging regulatory environments converge to create volatility but this is taking place in an environment in which there is heightened geopolitical uncertainty, and fluctuating trade flows.
It is under these situations that the true bottleneck is not the physical infrastructure, which is heavily reliant on technological automation, but rather a lack of human resources who are skilled in the ability to synthesize real-time data and turn this into strategic action through deep thinking at speed.
In fact, cultivating advanced human capital is a matter of critical national importance when it comes to infrastructure. A key solution, we believe, is a strategic model that sees the practical implementation of workforce development through Bain & Company’s decision-making framework, RAPID:
Recommend
Agree
Perform
Input
Decide
Through executing RAPID in a War Room environment, real supply-chain problems, such as port congestion, border delays and operational breakdowns, are used as practical training exercises. Teams work together in this central command centre to solve dilemmas in real time, gaining experience much faster than through traditional training.
This is a superior approach to traditional capacity building, which relies on static, classroom-bound modules that are detached from operational realities.
Our War Room approach, implemented under the RAPID framework, brings people from different departments together to solve real operational problems. By working under pressure and making decisions quickly, participants gain practical experience and learn how different parts of the organisation need to work together.
This helps develop skills faster than traditional training and ensures everyone is focused on the same goals. The ability to work thoroughly at speed means that there must be clear decision-making structures and accountability.
The RAPID framework delegates responsibilities when it comes to who provides information, who makes recommendations and which person has the authority to make final decisions. As a result of this clarity – taught through the practical war room experience – employees can take greater ownership of problems and contribute more actively to supply chain management.
We recently tested this approach in a training programme that received a 96% approval rating from those who took part, including executives, academics and public-sector leaders. There were three key outcomes:
- Participants developed skills more quickly,
- They built stronger leadership capabilities,
- And those who took part felt more comfortable contributing ideas and making decisions within a clearly defined structure.
Functional challenges, those experienced during times of uncertainty as well as any that develop during the commissioning phase of the mega projects currently underway, can be used as effective training opportunities, helping organisations develop skilled logistics professionals while improving operational performance across our continent regardless of the conditions.
