“I sound like Trump, but that is what is happening now,” said business magnate S’thofeni Ginindza, arguing that businesses can no longer afford to wait for customers to create demand.
Ginindza, an African Alliance Group (AAG) partner, says the traditional approach of establishing a business only after identifying sufficient demand is becoming outdated. Instead, he believes companies must anticipate future needs, create new offerings and in the process, generate their own markets.
Speaking during a recent media briefing at Malkerns Square, Ginindza said this philosophy is central to the group’s expansion plans, which he insists should not be viewed simply as aggressive growth.
“The old style of trying to set up a business because there is demand for it is gone,” he said.
According to Ginindza, the thinking behind Malkerns Square was never based solely on the existing size of the local market. He pointed to the development’s residential, retail and future hospitality components as examples of investments designed to attract people rather than merely serve an established customer base.
“When they set up this complex, we did not have the numbers,” he said, referring to the early thinking behind the development.
For Ginindza, the conventional relationship between supply and demand needs to be reconsidered. While basic economics suggests that demand creates the incentive for supply, he argues that businesses can also create demand by introducing products and experiences that did not previously exist.
“What we have learnt, you can create something that is not there and then people will come, hunt and get it. That is the new way of thinking,” he said.
He believes Malkerns Square illustrates this approach. The group’s residential development is ultimately targeted at 850 apartments, a scale Ginindza acknowledges may appear ambitious given the country’s relatively small population. Yet he says the response to the development so far supports the strategy.
The apartments are being absorbed, with the development approaching 200 units and according to Ginindza, existing units fully let, including its higher-priced Embassy units.
His argument also challenges the frequently repeated perception that Eswatini’s small population limits the potential of major investments.
“You do not measure things like that. You measure things by the continents, by the global sphere that we live in,” he said.
Ginindza sees Malkerns not simply as a development serving locals, but as a destination capable of attracting visitors from across the region and internationally.
“That tells you that your demand function is not only skewed towards Emaswati. It is everyone,” he said.
This global outlook also informs AAG’s plans for a hotel at Malkerns. Ginindza acknowledged that the obvious question is where the occupants will come from. His answer is that the accommodation itself will help attract them.
“We are going to build a hotel here. And that hotel, we do not know where occupants are going to come from. But I can tell you now, it is going to be full,” he said.
He linked the planned investment to local tourism ambitions, arguing that increased tourist arrivals will require adequate accommodation and facilities capable of meeting international expectations.
“When you come here, you should not feel the difference,” Ginindza said, referring to the standards expected by international visitors.
For AAG, therefore, expansion is not simply about chasing existing demand. It is a calculated attempt to shape where future demand will come from and to position Malkerns Square to capture it.
