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 might efficiently promote merchandise, insufficient supply infrastructure meant these items often failed to achieve patrons. To resolve this native supply hole, he began the corporate with two scooters and a Fb web page.
Immediately, PAPS serves almost 90% of Senegal’s banking sector, strikes items throughout borders in a area the place addresses don’t at all times exist, and operates a partnership with UPS. In 2024, Lo was one of many high 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 remedy for its shoppers?
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 shopper would wait. The package deal would arrive late, or by no means. 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 making an attempt to construct an actual enterprise, that may be a elementary blocker. So we determined to construct it ourselves beginning with two scooters.
Earlier than PAPS, I used to be operating a name centre, promoting subscriptions and doing outbound gross sales. We have been respectable at producing curiosity. However then one thing saved taking place: clients would say sure, they’d need the product, after which they simply 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 totally 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 cellphone name when one thing goes flawed. And when issues do go flawed – and in logistics, they may – nobody takes accountability. We have now changed all of that with one built-in stack: storage, decide and pack, last-mile, intercity freight, cross-border, customs. One platform – MyPaps – so shoppers have visibility throughout every part. One group they name. One associate accountable for the end result. That’s PAPS.
What have been the preliminary hurdles you confronted after launching PAPS in Dakar?
The early days have been humbling in the absolute best means. We began with two scooters and a Fb web page. My co-founders and I have been doing deliveries ourselves – bodily on the highway, studying town, studying what might go flawed.
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 likely to be: “third home previous the massive mango tree on the left.” That’s not a joke – that’s the fact. So earlier than we might construct any type of tech-enabled logistics, we needed to remedy a human, cultural, geographic downside first.
The second problem was belief – each from shoppers and from the Papsers, our impartial supply riders. Companies didn’t imagine we could possibly be constant. Papsers didn’t know whether or not we might pay pretty. We needed to earn every part, on daily basis, by execution. There have been no shortcuts. However these early constraints have been instructive. They pressured us to construct for the precise actuality of our market – not for some idealised model of it. That’s nonetheless how we function right this moment.
A PAPS supply driver.
Why did you determine 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 shopper, the shopper loses belief in the entire ecosystem, and commerce slows down. What made me imagine this was value every part? The dimensions of the hole. In West Africa, an estimated 80-90% of retail nonetheless occurs informally – partially as a result of the infrastructure to help formal commerce is lacking. E-commerce can’t scale if supply is unreliable. A financial institution can’t distribute playing cards if last-mile execution fails. A pharmaceutical firm can’t guarantee drugs reaches sufferers within the rural areas and not using a cold-chain-capable associate. Logistics isn’t glamorous. However it’s the basis of every part. In the event you repair the infrastructure, you unlock commerce. You unlock progress. You unlock inclusion. That’s not a small guess – that is among the highest-leverage issues you possibly can work on on this area.
Clarify the primary 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 have been excellent 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 tougher, 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 global degree, entry to greater than 220 international locations for our shoppers, and a sign to the market that PAPS operates at a unique tier. It modified how conversations began.
Spotlight a number of the major difficulties of increasing your community throughout borders.
The toughest half is that there is no such thing as 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 totally different regulatory frameworks, totally different infrastructure high quality, totally different cost behaviours, totally different shopper expectations. The error a number of firms make is to develop earlier than they’ve actually understood the brand new market. They export their mannequin and surprise why it doesn’t land. We have now tried to withstand that temptation – to reach with humility, construct native partnerships, perceive the particular constraints earlier than we scale. What I’ve realized is that the basics switch, however the execution must 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 shopper in Abidjan – that requires native intelligence.
The place does know-how have the best operational affect on the enterprise?
“Digitising logistics” is a kind of phrases that may imply every part and nothing. For us, know-how has to resolve actual operational issues – or it’s noise. In apply, the most important affect is in three areas.
First, visibility: our shoppers can see in actual time, by MyPaps, the place their shipments are, what’s of their warehouse, what their efficiency metrics seem like. Earlier than PAPS, they have been calling drivers on WhatsApp. That’s not a system – that’s improvisation.
Second, dispatching. PapsOps, our inner operations software, permits us to optimise routes, assign missions, and handle our fleet in a means that may be inconceivable manually at our present scale. We will plan dozens of runs concurrently, and adapt in actual time when one thing modifications.
Third, the Papser App – our platform for impartial Papsers. It provides them readability: what mission, what route, what cost. That readability drives efficiency. A Papser who is aware of precisely what he’s doing and what he earns is a Papser who delivers properly.
Logistics includes many transferring components – transporters, customs, shoppers. How do you construct belief in a system the place so many issues can go flawed?
You construct belief by not pretending that issues is not going to go flawed. They’ll. A package deal will probably be delayed. There will probably be a customs difficulty. A shopper may have an pressing request at 9pm. The query is: what occurs when one thing goes flawed? For us, belief is constructed by two issues: transparency and possession. Transparency means the shopper 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 group that has context on their operations. Possession implies that when one thing goes flawed, PAPS owns it. We don’t blame the transporter. We don’t inform the shopper to type it out with customs. We’re the only level of accountability. That may be a dedication we take severely – and additionally it is what separates us from a market mannequin the place nobody is actually accountable. Belief in logistics isn’t constructed with advertising and marketing. It’s constructed supply by supply, cargo by cargo, over time. We have now shoppers 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 one among your shoppers?
I take into consideration one among our banking shoppers – right this moment 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 group, documented proof of supply, SLA commitments, and a dashboard to watch 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 unhealthy expertise can destroy a model’s repute. The primary-attempt supply price isn’t a logistics metric – it’s a enterprise metric.
PAPS provides a spread of logistics companies.
What has been essentially the most tough a part of constructing PAPS?
The early years of increasing exterior Senegal have been tougher than we anticipated. When you will have constructed one thing that works properly 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 shoppers. The place we underestimated the complexity of a brand new regulatory atmosphere or the time wanted to construct the best native group. What that taught us – and what shapes how we function right this moment – is that excellence in a single market must 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 progress is slower – however it’s the solely type that lasts.
What are a number of the enterprise classes you will have realized whereas constructing the corporate?
That the infrastructure downside comes earlier than the know-how downside. I see a number of founders rush to construct apps, to digitise, to automate – earlier than the essential operational infrastructure is working reliably. Know-how amplifies what you will have already constructed. If the basics aren’t 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 repute are the true infrastructure. Your first 50 shoppers will determine your subsequent 500. The way you deal with an issue at 11pm on a Friday will probably be talked about. Constructing a logistics firm in Africa is partly a relationship enterprise – and you can’t outsource that.
And the third, which I imagine deeply: the market is larger than anybody thinks. The casual economic system isn’t the enemy – it’s the addressable market. Each casual commerce move that formalises is a chance. PAPS exists to be the infrastructure that makes that formalisation doable.
What does success seem like to you?
For PAPS particularly: success seems like being the logistics layer that any critical enterprise in West Africa – and finally throughout the continent – trusts as default. Not as a result of we’re the one choice, 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 shoppers, their progress – and belief PAPS to deal with the remaining.
At a bigger scale, success for African commerce seems just like the elimination of the infrastructure tax that each enterprise at present pays. Immediately, logistics friction is a hidden value that slows progress, 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 imagine this technology of African infrastructure builders – in logistics, in fintech, in power – is laying a basis that can change what is feasible on this continent. PAPS desires to be a necessary a part of that basis. That’s what retains us going.
This text is an tailored model of a chunk initially printed by Africa’s Enterprise Heroes.
