By Patrick Asea
Uganda missed the Starbucks revolution. Starbucks is the ubiquitous coffee shop chain that did for coffee the opposite of what Bill Gates did for software.

Starbucks took a simple, cheap beverage enjoyed by very few people and turned it into an expensive, complicated drink enjoyed worldwide.

Bill Gates took an expensive, complex set of computer code used by very few people and turned it into the cheap, user-friendly Windows program used worldwide. Different business models but the same bottom line. Billions of dollars for the founders and happy shareholders worldwide.

Today, Starbucks attracts a near-cult following, serving 25 million drinks a week to caffeine addicts at nearly 7,000 locations worldwide. In a four-week period ending January 1, 2006, the company reported revenues of $1.93 billion. That is almost equivalent to the entire Uganda budget for 2005/06.

Starbucks seems to be wherever there is money to be made. A cynical cartoon shows a toppled Saddam statue next to a small sign: “Coming soon, on this site, a new Starbucks.” The message is that corporate America is salivating to rebuild Iraq and reap the profits. However, in a startling role reversal, Ugandans have spotted a lucrative business opportunity in Iraq and moved in well before the nimble Starbucks. Ugandan bomb-sniffing dogs and their handlers are a common sight in the Green Zone where they protect high value targets like the US and British embassy. But their numbers are small — less than 20.

According to Sunday Vision of April 30, 2006 Ugandans armed with M-16 rifles, helmets and body armour took control of perimeter security at Camp Victory — a U.S military base that includes Baghdad International Airport.

I confirmed this as I made the mad dash from my office in the heavily fortified Green Zone to catch a flight home. It’s always a huge relief to make it safely to Baghdad Airport. For starters, getting there is no joke; coming from the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad requires a high-speed, armoured convoy along one of the most dangerous roads in the world, frequented by suicide car bombers and snipers. It’s a short drive, only seven miles, but from under your helmet you can spy the charred carcasses of dozens of cars. However, this time, my relief quickly turned to joy when I found Ugandans in control of the entrance to Camp Victory.

The Ugandans are contract workers for EOD Technology, an American company. At $1,500 a month with free accommodation, free food and medical care, these jobs are a far cry from the traditional “BBC” (British Buttock Cleaning) jobs that Ugandans have flocked to over the years.

Opiyo Oloya’s concerns (New Vision, April 26) about sexual exploitation are unwarranted. The US has legal jurisdiction over contractors in Iraq and the rule of law is strictly enforced. The top US commander in Iraq, General George Casey, has established rules for contractors that prohibit human trafficking. He has promised harsh action against violators.
The success of Ugandans in Iraq proves that the world is “flat”. Meaning that the lowering of trade and political barriers and technical advances now allow businesses across the planet to work together. A few years ago, who would have imagined that a US-based company could work with Ugandans to provide armed security in Baghdad? Today the sky is the limit. Ugandans can answer the phone in a call-center just as well as Indians in Bangalore. Ugandans can design newspaper layouts just as well as graphic designers in London.

Uganda took a tragic wrong–turn with coffee. Sticking with selling beans and ignoring the value-chain was a colossal blunder. Starbucks saw the business opportunity and turned our simple coffee bean into a huge money making machine. So much so that ordering a cup of coffee in the USA is now so complicated that you need a special language: “Give me an iced short schizo skinny hazelnut cappuccino with wings” (meaning a small iced hazelnut coffee with one shot of regular and one of decaf, plus skim milk with foam, to go.) At $2.50 a cup, Starbucks prices seem to defy gravity while the price of the bean keeps sinking.

Every businessman wants a product that is addictive. That’s why cigarettes, coffee and oil do so well. God blessed Uganda with coffee but we failed to take advantage of the world’s caffeine addiction. Today the world is addicted to oil — one of the reasons the multi-national coalition is in Iraq. We need to harness this addiction using our comparative advantage: cheap and abundant labor.

The lesson for us here is that a small country like Uganda can prosper in the flat world by learning to act really big. Thomas Friedman in his New York Times Bestseller: “The World is Flat” points out that the key to being small and acting big is being quick to take advantage of all the new tools for collaboration to reach faster and farther. All the way to Iraq if necessary.
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