How a Kenyan entrepreneur's data-driven vision is reshaping African businesses
Alex Mativo’s name is quickly becoming synonymous with innovation in Africa’s business scene. With his company Duck, he’s setting new standards for how businesses use data to drive growth and efficiency.
Starting with eLab, Mativo focused on reducing waste and showcasing how creative approaches can generate new income opportunities. Building on this experience, he founded Nanasi shortly after completing university.
Nanasi was designed to address the need for digital tools to manage inventory and payments. Initially serving restaurants, the app quickly expanded to a wider range of small and medium-sized enterprises.
As Nanasi evolved, Mativo recognised a new challenge, businesses needed better tools to forecast customer behaviour and optimise their inventory and pricing strategies. This insight led him to launch Duck, a data analytics company that helps larger businesses make informed decisions based on real-time data.
"And what we do is that we provide real-time data to large businesses to help them figure out you know, how to price their products as well as where to distribute the products," Mativo told Global South World in an interview.
A report from Edge Delta states that most businesses analyse 37% to 40% of their data, and 97.2% of companies invest in big data solutions.
According to Mativo, Duck was birthed from a mixture of conversations with businesses as well as, being able to identify that there was a problem, that businesses needed to solve.
He found that many companies struggled to access the data necessary for effective pricing and distribution. Duck’s mission is to bridge this gap, providing actionable insights that help businesses refine their strategies.
"As a good entrepreneur, I believe you should be able to identify opportunities. So how I identified this opportunity was through customer feedback," he explained.
"So, for example, think of a product like Coca-Cola that's being sold in a market like Africa. Coca-Cola would struggle to price its product competitively, given that there are other you know, consumer brands or drinks in the market. It would also struggle to know where exactly they should distribute those products." Mativo added. "So what I realised was there was an information gap or a data gap where businesses don't really have an accurate picture of their products and competition in the market."
Mativo was surprised to find a strong demand for data-driven insights, a shift from his initial scepticism about whether businesses would invest in intangible assets like data.
Two-thirds of C-level executives at least sometimes ignore data and make decisions based on intuition, according to The Alation State of Data Culture Report.
"So it makes sense to sell a physical product to a business. However, when you think of an intangible asset like data you're not really sure whether businesses can actually pay money for information. So I was surprised that businesses are actually willing to pay for information about their products," Mativo expressed his disbelief.
Through Duck, Mativo is not just offering a service but empowering businesses with the tools they need to succeed.
Watch the full interview:
