The keys to encouraging African businesses to adopt new technologies
African businesses are increasing their use of new technology to protect against disruption and establish new capabilities that will drive their growth and innovation activities.
While technology use in African firms lags that of the developed world, this trend is changing. According to a PwC survey, 87 percent of CEOs in Africa’s financial services sector are facing major technological disruption to their business models, compared to only 50 percent globally.
Africa’s development is largely dependent on the growth of knowledge-intensive industries like fintech and technology-based services, according to a UNCTAD analysis. The report emphasized how critical it is for African economies to prosper and create value by utilizing the revolutionary potential of digitalization.
Key factors driving enterprise tech adoption
Africa’s rapidly growing youth population and substantial economic growth are the main causes of the continent’s faster adoption of new technologies. Because mobile technologies are widely used across the continent, the youth population on the continent—which is the largest and fastest-growing demographic of any region—is becoming more tech-savvy. This has increased demand for digital services and customer experiences.
Businesses are undertaking digital transformation projects at the business level in an effort to modernize their processes and adjust to shifting market conditions. This involves making use of data analytics, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and—increasingly—business artificial intelligence. African businesses can accelerate their development and achieve cutting-edge capabilities that can increase their competitiveness on the global stage by utilizing the newest technologies.
Rapid technological adoption can also be considered a protective factor against persistent geopolitical conflicts and other exogenous shocks like the pandemic. African businesses are prioritizing technology investments as a means of preparing for potential operational disruptions, since digital technologies have been shown to increase resilience and company continuity during turbulent times.
A toolkit for accelerated tech adoption
Businesses are competing to develop the capabilities required to spur efficiency, optimization, innovation, and growth while keeping up with quickly changing customer expectations as the rate of change keeps accelerating.
Effective corporate integration and collaboration are now crucial in this climate. Businesses that can effectively combine teams from various departments and roles will be better able to get the most out of their technological investments. System and process integration that works seamlessly also improves productivity, organizational agility, and efficiency.
Enhancing vendor management skills is another important step that businesses should take to forge closer ties with outside suppliers. Through the utilization of tech suppliers’ and their partners’ worldwide skills and learnings, African businesses can obtain resources, support, and expertise that improve the entire technological landscape.
Additionally, companies ought to work to instill a culture of innovation and ongoing development at every level of the company. Organizations may speed up the adoption of technology and open doors for optimization and value creation by fostering an environment that encourages the investigation of novel concepts, technologies, and use cases.
Keys to ongoing value realisation for new tech
After a company implements new technology, the emphasis should move to continuing to reap the benefits of the investment. Here, a company’s ability to maximize the value gained from technology is determined by five critical elements, which are as follows:
- Setting clear objectives and ensuring close alignment between business and IT;
- Conducting continuous evaluation and monitoring to assess whether the expected value is being realised, and identifying areas for improvement at a business and user level;
- Taking an agile approach to technology implementation that allows for flexibility and responsiveness to changing business needs. By breaking down digital transformation projects into smaller, more iterative steps, organisations enable quicker delivery of value, with the added benefit of easier course correction should existing approaches not deliver the desired value;
- Prioritising user adoption and training which can significantly limit the success of new technology deployments. Care should be taken to ensure employees are proficient in using the new capabilities through effective and ongoing change management; and…
- Leveraging data-driven decision-making through data analytics and business intelligence tools that help organisations identify areas of improvement and opportunities to deepen innovation and value-creation efforts, all based on accurate, real-time business insights.
By unlocking the value of the new capabilities for end-users, African enterprises can drive adoption and ensure the business benefits from its investment into the latest technologies, building greater resilience, efficiency and growth.
