Bamba Lo, co-founder and CEO of PAPS
Interview with Bamba Lo
CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, PAPS
Lives in: Dakar, Senegal
Bamba Lo based logistics firm PAPS after observing that whereas companies in Dakar may efficiently promote merchandise, insufficient supply infrastructure meant these items incessantly failed to succeed in patrons. To resolve this native supply hole, he began the corporate with two scooters and a Fb web page.
At this time, PAPS serves almost 90% of Senegal’s banking sector, strikes items throughout borders in a area the place addresses don’t all the time exist, and operates a partnership with UPS. In 2024, Lo was one of many prime 20 finalists within the Africa’s Enterprise Heroes entrepreneurship competitors.
On this interview, Lo discusses the realities of constructing a logistics community from scratch.
What challenges does PAPS clear up for its purchasers?
We tried the supply choices accessible in Dakar on the time. None of them labored the best way a enterprise really wanted them to. No monitoring, no accountability, no consistency. The consumer would wait. The package deal would arrive late, or under no circumstances. The sale was misplaced. That’s the second I understood: the issue was not promoting. The issue was the infrastructure that ought to flip a sale right into a supply. That infrastructure merely didn’t exist. And in case you are in West Africa attempting to construct an actual enterprise, that could be a basic blocker. So we determined to construct it ourselves beginning with two scooters.
Earlier than PAPS, I used to be working a name centre, promoting subscriptions and doing outbound gross sales. We had been respectable at producing curiosity. However then one thing stored taking place: clients would say sure, they’d need the product, after which they only wouldn’t present up. Not as a result of they modified their minds. As a result of they may not get to us, and we couldn’t get to them. PAPS is the infrastructure that makes commerce work in Africa. When a enterprise must get one thing from level A to level B – whether or not that’s throughout a metropolis, throughout a rustic, or throughout a continent – we make that occur reliably, with visibility, with one level of contact. The issue we’re fixing is fragmentation. In most markets, an organization has to sew collectively 5 or 6 completely different suppliers: one for storage, one for last-mile supply, one for customs, one other for cross-border freight. Each is a separate contract, a separate bill, a separate telephone name when one thing goes unsuitable. And when issues do go unsuitable – and in logistics, they are going to – nobody takes accountability. We now have changed all of that with one built-in stack: storage, decide and pack, last-mile, intercity freight, cross-border, customs. One platform – MyPaps – so purchasers have visibility throughout all the pieces. One staff they name. One associate accountable for the consequence. That’s PAPS.
What had been the preliminary hurdles you confronted after launching PAPS in Dakar?
The early days had been humbling in the absolute best manner. We began with two scooters and a Fb web page. My co-founders and I had been doing deliveries ourselves – bodily on the street, studying the town, studying what may go unsuitable.
The primary problem was essentially the most primary one: addresses. In Dakar, as in most West African cities, formal addresses barely exist. Your supply instruction is perhaps: “third home previous the massive mango tree on the left.” That’s not a joke – that’s the fact. So earlier than we may construct any type of tech-enabled logistics, we needed to clear up a human, cultural, geographic downside first.
The second problem was belief – each from purchasers and from the Papsers, our impartial supply riders. Companies didn’t consider we may very well be constant. Papsers didn’t know whether or not we may pay pretty. We needed to earn all the pieces, daily, by means of execution. There have been no shortcuts. However these early constraints had been instructive. They compelled us to construct for the precise actuality of our market – not for some idealised model of it. That’s nonetheless how we function immediately.
A PAPS supply driver.
Why did you resolve to decide to fixing this particular downside?
I believe folks underestimate logistics as a result of they don’t see it. When it really works, it’s invisible. You order one thing, it arrives. You don’t take into consideration the chain that made that occur. However when it doesn’t work, it prices everybody – the enterprise loses a consumer, the consumer loses belief in the entire ecosystem, and commerce slows down. What made me consider this was value all the pieces? The dimensions of the hole. In West Africa, an estimated 80-90% of retail nonetheless occurs informally – partly as a result of the infrastructure to help formal commerce is lacking. E-commerce can not scale if supply is unreliable. A financial institution can not distribute playing cards if last-mile execution fails. A pharmaceutical firm can not guarantee drugs reaches sufferers within the rural areas with out a cold-chain-capable associate. Logistics will not be glamorous. However it’s the basis of all the pieces. In case you repair the infrastructure, you unlock commerce. You unlock development. You unlock inclusion. That’s not a small wager – that is without doubt one of the highest-leverage issues you may work on on this area.
Clarify the principle turning level for the corporate.
There have been just a few, however a very powerful one was the choice to cease being a supply firm and begin constructing infrastructure. In our early years, we had been superb at last-mile. However as we labored extra intently with bigger companies, we noticed that their logistics downside didn’t begin at supply – it began at storage, at planning, at customs, at cross-border. They wanted somebody to personal the entire chain, not simply the ultimate kilometre. So we made a deliberate option to construct upwards and outwards: including warehousing, including worldwide freight, including a proprietary tech platform. It value us extra, it was more durable, it slowed some issues down. However it’s what remodeled PAPS from an area courier into an actual logistics infrastructure firm.
The second turning level was our partnership with UPS. That gave us credibility at a world stage, entry to greater than 220 nations for our purchasers, and a sign to the market that PAPS operates at a unique tier. It modified how conversations began.
Spotlight a few of the most important difficulties of increasing your community throughout borders.
The toughest half is that there isn’t a copy-paste. What works in Dakar doesn’t essentially work in Abidjan. What works in Abidjan doesn’t mechanically work in Cotonou or Luanda. Every market has completely different regulatory frameworks, completely different infrastructure high quality, completely different fee behaviours, completely different consumer expectations. The error a number of corporations make is to broaden earlier than they’ve really understood the brand new market. They export their mannequin and surprise why it doesn’t land. We now have tried to withstand that temptation – to reach with humility, construct native partnerships, perceive the particular constraints earlier than we scale. What I’ve discovered is that the basics switch, however the execution needs to be native. The model values, the tech stack, the requirements – these are constant. However the way you recruit Papsers in Ouagadougou, the way you deal with customs in Cotonou, the way you construct belief with an enterprise consumer in Abidjan – that requires native intelligence.
The place does expertise have the best operational influence on the enterprise?
“Digitising logistics” is a type of phrases that may imply all the pieces and nothing. For us, expertise has to resolve actual operational issues – or it’s noise. In observe, the largest influence is in three areas.
First, visibility: our purchasers can see in actual time, by means of MyPaps, the place their shipments are, what’s of their warehouse, what their efficiency metrics appear to be. Earlier than PAPS, they had been calling drivers on WhatsApp. That’s not a system – that’s improvisation.
Second, dispatching. PapsOps, our inner operations device, permits us to optimise routes, assign missions, and handle our fleet in a manner that might be unattainable manually at our present scale. We are able to plan dozens of runs concurrently, and adapt in actual time when one thing adjustments.
Third, the Papser App – our platform for impartial Papsers. It provides them readability: what mission, what route, what fee. That readability drives efficiency. A Papser who is aware of precisely what he’s doing and what he earns is a Papser who delivers effectively.
Logistics entails many transferring components – transporters, customs, purchasers. How do you construct belief in a system the place so many issues can go unsuitable?
You construct belief by not pretending that issues is not going to go unsuitable. They are going to. A package deal can be delayed. There can be a customs problem. A consumer can have an pressing request at 9pm. The query is: what occurs when one thing goes unsuitable? For us, belief is constructed by means of two issues: transparency and possession. Transparency means the consumer isn’t at nighttime. MyPaps provides them visibility. If there’s a delay, they learn about it earlier than they need to name us. And once they do name, they attain an actual staff that has context on their operations. Possession implies that when one thing goes unsuitable, PAPS owns it. We don’t blame the transporter. We don’t inform the consumer to type it out with customs. We’re the one level of accountability. That may be a dedication we take severely – and it’s also what separates us from a market mannequin the place nobody is actually accountable. Belief in logistics will not be constructed with advertising and marketing. It’s constructed supply by supply, cargo by cargo, over time. We now have purchasers who’ve been with us since 2017. That’s the actual proof.
Are you able to share an actual instance of how PAPS has modified issues for certainly one of your purchasers?
I take into consideration certainly one of our banking purchasers – immediately we work with almost 90% of the banking sector in Senegal. Once we first engaged with banks, their card and doc distribution was an actual downside: delicate supplies delivered by casual couriers, no monitoring, no proof of supply, vital safety danger. After implementing PAPS, they’d a devoted staff, documented proof of supply, SLA commitments, and a dashboard to observe efficiency by department. The operational danger went down considerably.
Extra broadly, I’ve seen what dependable logistics does for e-commerce companies. When supply works, returns go down, critiques go up, repeat purchases improve. When it doesn’t, one dangerous expertise can destroy a model’s fame. The primary-attempt supply charge will not be a logistics metric – it’s a enterprise metric.
PAPS presents a spread of logistics companies.
What has been essentially the most troublesome a part of constructing PAPS?
The early years of increasing exterior Senegal had been more durable than we anticipated. When you will have constructed one thing that works effectively in a single market, there’s a pure confidence that transfers. However that confidence could make you much less cautious, much less affected person – and growth punishes impatience. We had moments the place we moved too quick, the place the operational infrastructure was not able to help what we had promised purchasers. The place we underestimated the complexity of a brand new regulatory setting or the time wanted to construct the suitable native staff. What that taught us – and what shapes how we function immediately – is that excellence in a single market needs to be earned once more in each new market. We now go into growth with extra construction: correct due diligence, a phased method, native partnerships constructed earlier than the industrial launch. We’re extra affected person. Sustainable development is slower – however it’s the solely variety that lasts.
What are a few of the enterprise classes you will have discovered whereas constructing the corporate?
That the infrastructure downside comes earlier than the expertise downside. I see a number of founders rush to construct apps, to digitise, to automate – earlier than the fundamental operational infrastructure is working reliably. Know-how amplifies what you will have already constructed. If the basics usually are not strong, tech will simply make your failures quicker and extra seen.
The second factor: don’t underestimate the price of belief. In markets the place formal programs are weak, relationships and fame are the true infrastructure. Your first 50 purchasers will resolve your subsequent 500. The way you deal with an issue at 11pm on a Friday can be talked about. Constructing a logistics firm in Africa is partly a relationship enterprise – and you can not outsource that.
And the third, which I consider deeply: the market is greater than anybody thinks. The casual economic system will not be the enemy – it’s the addressable market. Each casual commerce circulation that formalises is a chance. PAPS exists to be the infrastructure that makes that formalisation potential.
What does success appear to be to you?
For PAPS particularly: success appears like being the logistics layer that any severe enterprise in West Africa – and ultimately throughout the continent – trusts as default. Not as a result of we’re the one possibility, however as a result of we’re essentially the most dependable, essentially the most built-in, essentially the most linked to the worldwide community. An organization mustn’t have to consider logistics. They need to take into consideration their product, their purchasers, their development – and belief PAPS to deal with the remaining.
At a bigger scale, success for African commerce appears just like the elimination of the infrastructure tax that each enterprise at present pays. At this time, logistics friction is a hidden value that slows development, reduces competitiveness, and retains companies smaller than they need to be. When that friction goes down, commerce accelerates. When commerce accelerates, economies develop. When economies develop, alternatives multiply. We aren’t there but. However I consider this technology of African infrastructure builders – in logistics, in fintech, in vitality – is laying a basis that can change what is feasible on this continent. PAPS needs to be a vital a part of that basis. That’s what retains us going.
This text is an tailored model of a bit initially printed by Africa’s Enterprise Heroes.
