Understanding How Addis Ababa’s Textile Businesses (SME) Can Enter Global Markets

(Beza Aramde ,Yabi Wolde,Nikhil Shenoy)

Design Space:

The design space in question revolves around contemporary textile and apparel businesses that have the potential to expand their operations into international markets. Our primary objective in this exploration is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the constraints and barriers that these businesses confront as they set their sights on selling and shipping their products globally.

Our inspiration for delving into this design space was ignited during a visit to Salem Design, a small-scale textile and apparel business in Ethiopia.. During our visit, we had the chance to engage in a candid conversation with Salem, owner of Salem Designs.  The discussions spanned various critical aspects, including employment practices, Ethics, international logistics, and the formidable challenges posed by the unpredictable global climate in a specific context of Ethiopia.

Data Collection Methods: We decided to conduct formal interviews with business owners of small textile businesses in Ethiopia. We did also have some informal interviews with small business owners while attending vendor events.

Stakeholders: (list or table)

Stakeholders are divided into 3 categories : Primary (those directly involved in the day to day business operations and whose actions directly affect the business) Secondary ( They play a crucial role in shaping the business environment but are not involved in the day to day activities of the business ), Tertiary ( They indirectly support and are not directly involved in production and distribution) 

Primary:

1. Ethiopian SMEs : The Businesses that are directly engaging in manufacturing and exporting of textile goods.
2. Manufacturing & production units : Responsible for producing textile goods and ensuring quality control.
3. Exporters & Distributors : directly involved in export & distribution of textile products to international markets.
4. Customers : They dictate the demand in the market and hence are a crucial aspect of the success of a business.

Secondary:

1. Government Regulations : Not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of SMEs but can significantly impact them through policies & incentives
2. Production Planning & Management : Support the core manufacturing process by ensuring efficient production planning & quality management. 
3. International Market Research : Provide essential information for strategic decisions.
4. Financing & Funding support : Critical financial support to SMEs

Tertiary:

1. Export support : Support to exporters such as financial assistance and trade counseling.
2. Manufacturing process control & Quality Management : ensuring product quality and process efficiency within the manufacturing units.
3. Logistics & Distribution : Tertiary stakeholders play a crucial role in logistics and distribution of textile products but are not directly involved in the manufacturing process.
4. Marketing & sales Strategies : Crucial for reaching international markets but not directly involved in the core textile production process.

System Diagram

Intervention Narrative: (Journey map)

In our intervention narrative, we crafted a comprehensive user journey map. We synthesized insights from interviews with small business owners to depict their journey, starting from their initial motivation to launch their business and extending all the way to their expansion into international markets. This map effectively spotlights the challenges they encounter along the way, which we gleaned from these interviews.

Limitations: One aspect of our intervention for our primary stakeholders was to place a team outside of Ethiopia to handle logistics of running a business from a place with less constraints to fulfill items internationally. This idea is doable for some businesses however a limitation that this puts on these businesses is an excessive dependence on outside resources that could rapidly change due to Ethiopia’s unpredictable political climate.  Time is another constraint we had due to the nature of our study abroad program being only 3 weeks. Cultural barriers were a constraint. Ethiopians tend to hesitate to give private information because of Ethiopia’s historical issues with privacy/surveillance.

Next Steps:
Our appropriate next steps would be to interview different stakeholders, not just business owners but also employees of the business, shipping/fulfillment companies, government institutions  that grant business licenses. We would also diversify our research method, by including questionnaires and surveys in order to gain a higher volume of people to participate in our research. We would like to somehow build a community platform that connects these small businesses to each other so they can discuss barriers they face and brainstorm how they can combat them.