Relocation Africa – a Brief History

A Brief History

As the New South Africa was being born and South Africa was on the world stage, Relocation Africa started in 1993 in Johannesburg, South Africa, providing homefinding services to expatriates moving into Johannesburg. In 1997 the Cape Town branch was opened and Immigration services were included into the offering to support the client’s needs and in 1999 the international payment service was incorporated to support international clients needs to transact expatriate’s payments in South Africa.

In 2000 the Relocation Africa head-office was consolidated to Cape Town and an internal web-based system was developed to support the needs of the business and facilitate the centralised head office business model. The business decided to register a sister company called Global Expatriate Management (GEM) to take over the payments services as well as starting a payroll solution for clients who had regional offices across Africa but with a centralised payroll head office in South Africa.

Africa
In 2002 we made the strategic decision to expand relocation services into Africa. The network of consultants being recruited across Africa were able to provide housing data so in 2004 GEM formalised this housing data into a formal housing survey. We now run these biannual surveys across most countries in Africa. In 2005 GEM expanded to collect cost of living data with a network of field workers across Africa.

In 2006, due to client demand, we started expanding immigration services into other African countries. Our next key step was formalising a training department within the business in 2008 – prior to that, it had been the responsibility of the account managers to recruit and train consultants. The business has grown organically over the interleading years due to some key staff who always worked above and beyond what was asked of them.

In 2013 Relocation Africa rebranded into the Relocation Africa Group incorporating GEM’s services to formalise the service offering to clients with our four divisions, being Mobility, Immigration, Research and Remuneration.

Each division has a colour, icon and animal assigned with it and we use this branding to differentiate our services.

Immigration Services

Destination Services

Research

Payroll & Payments

Africa is an exciting space to be working and we strive to deliver a consistent quality of service to all clients no matter where the services are delivered in Africa.

Being a cog in the machinery facilitating the development of skills across Africa is what drives the management of Relocation Africa to help upskill Africa.

In 2016 we discovered an inspiring organisation called Generation of Leaders Discovered or GOLD for short (www.goldpe.org.za). The are based in Cape Town near our head office, and they have an inspiring model which gives hope and skills to Africa’s disenfranchised youth. They identify young opinion leaders in communities and invite them to go through their program, they give them hope, give them skills and enable them to become peer educators and role models within their peer groups. The results of their programs is astonishing. Please email us if you would like to know more about GOLD and what they do.

We are currently developing an internship program with GOLD and we are building a relationship with them as what they do fits in with our philosophy of helping to develop skills across Africa.

Our Promise

Embracing the Unknown

Our Vision

Our vision is to be the preferred supplier in Africa of trusted seamless relocation services to our clients to ensure their assignees become effective employees quickly.

Our Mission

Our mission is to remain a reliable and consistent quality managed provider of a comprehensive range of services to companies moving assignees into Africa, by removing the fear of the unknown continent.

Blog

Six Things to Consider When Doing Business in Sub-Saharan Africa

Over the past two decades, Sub-Saharan Africa has caught the attention of an increasing number of investors who are looking for new and promising opportunities. While growth has slowed in some of the region’s oil exporting countries, the “Africa Rising” narrative continues due to the region’s youthful population of 1 billion people (70 percent are under 30), rapid urbanization, and ongoing improvements in democratic governance, economic management, and peace and security. Sub-Saharan Africa remains ripe with potential and opportunity but there are important factors to consider when seeking to do business in the region.

Market Boundaries Don’t Necessarily Map Onto Country Borders

When looking to define the market, it is important to remember that not only is Africa a large and heterogeneous continent but that market boundaries do not necessarily map onto country boundaries. Moreover, there are approximately 50 cities in Africa with one million or more people. As a consequence, one can define the market in terms of regional blocs, or countries (especially if the country is particularly populous, like Ethiopia or Nigeria), urban corridors, or sub-markets within or across countries. In certain cases, trading communities that exist on both sides of a border, or along a particular trading route, are economically similar and might be considered when defining the geography of the market. Similarly, it can make sense to look at an entire sub-region as one market; for example, the East African Community is trying to encourage precisely this outlook as it works to harmonize tariffs and standards across its five members.

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A Few Key Things to Keep in Mind when Living in Morocco

CASABLANCA, Morocco—A stable country in a wobbly region, Morocco has long attracted foreigners thanks to its growing and stable economy.

As a native Moroccan, I have seen numerous foreigners, namely French, Spanish and Americans, settling in the North African country to learn Arabic or get a first experience in the Arab world.

That’s a great idea, although expats moving to the North African kingdom should bear in mind a few tips.

1. It is not cheap.

Morocco is more expensive than you think. Many foreigners think of the Morocco of the souks, the traditional markets, where things are cheap. But the rent in big cities, such as the economic capital Casablanca, is higher than in Boston, according to Mercer’s 2014 Cost of Living Survey.

Real estate prices in cities like Marrakesh can be as high as in Western Europe. Morocco is an emerging market that expanded by 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2015.

However, there is a significant difference in real estate prices between big cities, like Rabat and Agadir, and the towns. Jean Pierre Cogitore, a Frenchman who retired in Morocco, pays 4,000 dirhams (about $370) a month for a two-person house at the outskirts of Essaouira city.

While vegetables, fruits, meat and fish, especially in traditional markets, are cheaper than in the U.S. or Western Europe, wines and spirits are more expensive in this Muslim nation. A good bottle of wine—which might cost $20 in the U.S.—costs up to $30. You can only find them in large supermarkets.

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It’s official, South Africa is the most beautiful country in the world

This country sweeps international travel prizes and has travellers raving about its beauty so much that it has the highest repeat tourism of any long haul destination in the world! Considering how crazy people are about the place, it’s not surprising that South Africa takes the top spot in the beauty stakes.

Not only does the country have stupendous natural beauty, but it’s urban-amazing too. The town of Franschhoek has been named amongst the five loveliest in the world, and the metropolis of Cape Town is more often than not picked as the most beautiful city on earth by travel lists and tourists alike, because of both its unparalleled natural setting and gorgeous architecture.

This setting is on a coastline hailed as the most beautiful on earth. In fact the country has three of the world’s ten most beautiful coastal drives including Clarens Drive and Chapman’s Peak. These were number one and number two most beautiful coastal drives respectively.

South Africa also has an astonishing variety of marine life, with almost twice the number of marine species as the whole Mediterranean in a coastline only 2000 miles long. It’s the best place in the world to view whales from shore, and to swim with great white sharks. The world’s largest migration of Ocean life occurs here, and is one of the two largest migrations of any kind on earth.

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