{"id":14847,"date":"2014-06-05T06:47:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-05T06:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/tech-megatrends-transforming-african-economy\/"},"modified":"2014-06-05T06:46:30","modified_gmt":"2014-06-05T06:46:30","slug":"tech-megatrends-transforming-african-economy","status":"publish","type":"opinion","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/opinion\/tech-megatrends-transforming-african-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech Megatrends Transforming African Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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{{We live in a networked world in which, like it or not, we are all connected to communities that keep us informed and can help us learn, share and consume more efficiently.}} <\/p>\n

Organisations are now inextricably tied into a networked economy, as they are connected more than ever before to digital communities of existing \u2013 as well as potential \u2013 sellers, buyers and suppliers.<\/p>\n

In 2014 and beyond, megatrends will clearly have a transformative impact on the global economy in general as well as Africa\u2019s economy in particular. Andrew Waititu, Managing Director SAP East Africa, highlights some of these trends:<\/p>\n

{{Youth playing pivotal role in Africa\u2019s future}}<\/p>\n

The youth of the African continent are playing a key role in the economy of the region, as half of Africa\u2019s population will be under 24 years old by 2050. Young people are the engine driving society\u2019s adoption of technology and today\u2019s youth are the most connected generation in humanity\u2019s history. <\/p>\n

A vast amount of the modern technologies and communication tools that have become commonplace today, the likes of Facebook, Mxit, BBM and file-sharing websites (made popular by sites such as Napster) are the results of innumerable social interactions between young people.<\/p>\n

Along with the injection of huge numbers of youthful workers into the regional economy, comes the growth and gradual stabilisation of Africa\u2019s middle class. <\/p>\n

By 2030, Africa\u2019s new middle class will number more than 300 million people, translating into huge spending potential, as well big potential for business ideas that. Effectively leveraged this can shape the continent\u2019s future according to Kudsee.<\/p>\n

{{The power of ever-increasing mobility and social networking}}<\/p>\n

Also destined for yet another boom on the continent is mobile business, since there will be an estimated one billion mobile devices in Africa by 2016. <\/p>\n

This steep rise in mobility adoption (there are more mobile devices than toothbrushes on the continent with many Africans owning two to three devices) also has a marked effect on the adoption rates of social networking sites. <\/p>\n

The clear majority of Twitter users on the African continent (68%) will be relying on the popular microblog platform as their primary source of national news, for instance.<\/p>\n

{{Adoption of cloud infrastructure}}<\/p>\n

Popular networks such as Twitter and Facebook, which many people use to run their personal and social lives, have a number of things in common: They are all built on a shared cloud-based technology infrastructure, meaning that there is no need to download software or worry about upgrades, as users simply require a web-enabled device to access a shared experience from anywhere where there is connectivity.<\/p>\n

In addition, these networks are all generating powerful communities of peers, merchants, financial institutions and experts with whom people can efficiently connect, learn and engage. <\/p>\n

Lastly, these networks all deliver unique capabilities that take the form of best practices or class-leading experiences such as Amazon\u2019s one-click shopping experience or Google search.<\/p>\n

These technologies are reshaping the world we live in, changing the manner in which we collaborate, work, educate ourselves (Regenesys Business School), make purchases (Kalahari.com) and transfer money, especially to unbanked individuals through platforms such as the mobile money solution M-Pesa. Simply put, technology will be a key determining factor in how society will be organised in future.<\/p>\n

The power of technology was showcased by unstoppable social networks in the Arab Spring last year. <\/p>\n

Thanks to the mass outreach abilities and speed of communication networks, social activists gained a larger degree of agility during their demonstrations and other street operations.<\/p>\n

They were also able to organise, debate, plan, broadcast and collaborate online at levels that were impossible a few years previously.<\/p>\n

{{Businesses need to adapt to capitalise on new business opportunities}}<\/p>\n

Enterprising, forward-thinking businesses are moving adroitly to capitalise upon these opportunities enabled by network dynamics, because they recognize they can no longer be competitive on their own. <\/p>\n

Technologies have made it possible to perform predictive analysis on ever-increasing data volumes in real time, allowing companies to identify new business opportunities or illuminate previously hidden risks.<\/p>\n

This trend is very much playing out on the African continent. As a result, these organisations are leaning out their inventories, reducing costly infrastructure, outsourcing processes such as Mobile Business Intelligence and predictive analytics and have also stretched their supply chains. <\/p>\n

These factors contribute to making these organisations increasingly dependent upon their external partners. In this context, the sharing of information and co-coordinating processes with these partners has become more critical than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no getting away from the networked economy. A business cannot achieve its cost, revenue and cash flow goals in isolation without being able to efficiently engage with customers and collaborate with their supply chain. <\/p>\n

Many companies are beginning to recognise that they can gain powerful new insights and enable new processes by being connected to a community of their partners and peers. <\/p>\n

Benefits like these are unattainable with isolated on-premise applications and low-scale point-to-point integration models,\u201d concluded Kudsee.<\/p>\n

{author is Managing Director SAP East Africa}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{We live in a networked world in which, like it or not, we are all connected to communities that keep us informed and can help us learn, share and consume more efficiently.}} Organisations are now inextricably tied into a networked economy, as they are connected more than ever before to digital communities of existing \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000052574,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"archived_slugs":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[75],"byline":[2364],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14847","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-homenews","byline-andrew-waitiu"],"bylines":[{"id":2364,"name":"Andrew Waitiu","slug":"andrew-waitiu","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null,"twitter_handle":""}],"contributors":[{"id":2364,"name":"Andrew Waitiu","slug":"andrew-waitiu","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null,"twitter_handle":""}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052574,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14847.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14847.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14847.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14847.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14847.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14847.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/14847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/opinion"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/14847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14847"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14847"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}