The Business Behind Logistics: A Ground-Level Playbook for Operational Growth in Emerging Markets

In markets where growth is often stifled not by lack of demand, but by fractured systems and poor infrastructure, logistics becomes more than a backend function, it becomes survival. In The Business Behind Logistics, Stella Eshett explores this crucial truth. Her book offers a grounded, systems-level framework for entrepreneurs who are not just navigating emerging markets, but actively trying to scale within them.

Rooted in her hands-on experience of co-building procurement and logistics infrastructure for growing businesses, her framework begins with a bold premise: that most business breakdowns aren’t due to lack of vision, they happen when operations don’t evolve with scale. Rather than offering a glossy overview of supply chain theory, she takes readers inside the friction points, where missed deliveries, opaque vendor relationships, and unmanaged costs quietly sabotage growth.

Across chapters, she breaks down the inner workings of logistics through the lens of business discipline. From vendor onboarding and fulfillment bottlenecks to real-time tracking and procurement workflows, she uncovers how operational intelligence can either compound value or quietly erode it. But this isn’t a book about automation for automation’s sake, it’s about intentional structure. It’s about showing entrepreneurs how to build backend systems that anticipate problems, not just respond to them.

Her case studies and strategies are tailored to the messiness of real-life entrepreneurship in Africa and other emerging economies. She addresses the challenges of working without consistent infrastructure, managing unpredictable timelines, and navigating fragmented supplier markets. For founders, operators, and even policymakers, her work serves as a practical toolkit, not just for surviving logistics, but for transforming it into a driver of business agility and margin protection.

The book has already found utility far beyond traditional supply chain circles. Accelerator programs and executive learning cohorts are referencing it to help early-stage businesses move from product obsession to operational maturity. It’s also becoming a conversation-starter among funders and ecosystem builders rethinking what ‘scale-ready’ actually means in economically fragile markets.

Through The Business Behind Logistics, she delivers more than process design, she delivers perspective. Her contribution lies in re-centering logistics as a leadership function, not just a backend task. In doing so, she’s helping a new generation of African businesses grow not just faster, but smarter, with systems that can stretch, adapt, and hold the weight of real progress.