Faced with a sharp downturn in global economic growth, continued disruption to global supply chains from the pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine, and continued labour market instability, businesses will have their hands full in 2023.

However, for leaders navigating the turbulent waters ahead, it helps to keep an eye on some of the main risks lying in wait.

While there is no blueprint for how to successfully deal with the following three issues, I believe greater awareness of the task ahead may help leaders develop suitable strategies to ensure businesses and their employees can stay the course in the coming months.

In 2023, the number one task for businesses is learning to adapt to three significant forces shaping the landscape, namely:

1 Dealing with uncertainty and disruption

The challenging economic climate and ongoing uncertainty is calling for greater efficiency across markets and industries.

According to , world output growth is expected to slow to 1.9% in 2023, down from an estimated 3% in 2022. And no economy is immune: GDP growth in the US is expected to be a paltry 0.4% and only 0.2% in the EU. The outlook for developing countries is no better.

For leaders, this instability will force greater focus on keeping the business in balance. Constraints on the global supply chain will require greater investment into technologies that can increase end-to-end visibility, greater predictability and efficiency.

Leaders also need to acknowledge that there is no return to pre-pandemic conditions. Consumer habits have fundamentally changed. The way people purchase products, seek information, and engage with brands will continue to evolve. To meet these challenges, leaders need to improve their ability to deal with uncertainty and disruption.

2 Finding the perfect balance in leadership

The past few years have been especially tough on leaders. Coming to grips with the ‘new normal’ has meant a complete realignment of how to deal with customers, how to manage employees, how to enable remote and hybrid work environments, and how to deal with unprecedented change.

These challenges have taken their toll on leaders, as can be evidenced by the recent resignation of New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern. Leaders, exhausted after several years of disruption and non-stop crisis management, may experience burnout, reducing their leadership capacity and putting additional pressure on organisations trying to navigate turbulent waters.

This year, leaders will need to dig deep, balancing empathy toward employees with the increasingly pressurised requirements of running a business.

This will demand higher levels of collaboration and co-creation, with the optimal leadership approach bringing in different perspectives to build policies and processes that can ride the waves of change while driving the business forward.

However, leaders will need to extend that same empathy to themselves. Leading organisations through turbulent times requires superb fitness and high degrees of physical and mental wellbeing. Much like the pilot of an airliner needs to put on their own oxygen mask before helping passengers during an emergency, so too must leaders take care of themselves to ensure they can stay the course and lead the business through adversity.

3 Helping employees find sure footing in the new world of work

Nowhere has the disruptive effect of the past few years become more visible than in the way we work. Since 2020, nearly every business on the planet has had to radically change their workplace models to accommodate remote and hybrid work.

As pandemic pressures ease, there are growing calls for a return to full office work among businesses. Companies that have seen their cultures diluted, their teams scattered, and their office buildings standing empty will be hungry for a return to the office.

However, employees are unlikely to sacrifice the gains achieved over the past few years. Employees have seen during the lockdown periods that they can remain productive and achieve the desired outcomes outside the confines of corporate headquarters. Why sit in rush-hour traffic for hours only to get to an office to perform tasks that could just as easily be done from home?

This year, leaders will need to embrace a consultative approach and co-create the new world of work with regular input from employees. An openness to shorter workdays, a reduced work week, hybrid and remote work models will give leaders the flexibility to meet employee demands, which must to be balanced with the business’ own interests.

There is no handbook for leaders to follow in 2023 that will allow them to successfully navigate the looming challenges. Instead, successful leaders will need an approach that provides opportunities for co-creating the ideal work environment, one that can withstand the disruptive forces of change while mobilising employees behind common goals that drive the business toward success.

The post With Change the Only Constant, Leaders will Need to be Adaptive in 2023 appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

The US and other developed markets are facing a more obvious foe 鈥� 鈥渢he great resignation鈥� as it has been dubbed. Post pandemic, many people are taking stock of their lives and realising that in the relentless pursuit of career success, they have lost perspective on what really matters. Hours spent behind laptops and steering wheels on long commutes have required sacrifices in other areas of their lives 鈥� family, friends, fitness, hobbies, and happiness.

The forced pause in the frenetic day to day activity created by the lockdowns gave people time to reflect and to see a different possibility for their lives. This, combined with a reality check on their own mortality, led many people to say: 鈥渋t鈥檚 not worth it鈥�. Afterall, a missed school prize-giving ceremony or a significant birthday too busy to celebrate, are moments that can not be recaptured. Throwing caution to the wind, many have simply resigned from seemingly good jobs in the pursuit of something more meaningful, leaving employers with a void they are finding difficult to fill.

In Africa, I believe the situation is different, driven mainly by our enormous unemployment rates and a significant slowdown in economic growth. While people may have shared the same reflections as their counterparts in the developed world, they simply do not have the luxury of throwing caution to the wind. A sense of security is keeping them anchored in their jobs. However, the work flexibility forced by the lockdowns, has set a new expectation amongst employees – one that is not easily reversible.

I view this as the silent war or the rise of the so-called 鈥榪uiet quitting鈥�. In many respects it is a more dangerous foe 鈥� stealthy and destructive. Employees, many exhausted by the long-term effects of the pandemic and often having given more than double the time commitment to their demanding jobs, are also saying: 鈥渋t鈥檚 not worth it鈥�. However, they are voicing this sentiment more subtly 鈥� in the reluctance to come back to the office even part time, and in the reluctance to take on more responsibility than defined by their job scope.

鈥淨uiet quitters鈥� are plodding through their day jobs and, by and large, delivering on expectations. However, they are often disengaged and disconnected from the organisation and its shared purpose. At first glance this may appear relatively harmless, but the long-term effects are disastrous for organisations and for employees.

One of the hallmarks of highly competitive businesses is the dedication of employees to perform their tasks and go above and beyond by meeting additional demands and driving innovation. Companies with a strong workplace culture rely on employees to step up at important moments and bring projects to a successful close. This drives competitiveness and growth. It is also a two-way street with employees having opportunities to shine, to take on stretch assignments, to learn and grow, to build social capital within the organisation.

History has shown us that there are no true winners in war. The only way to successfully navigate through the new normal, and find a win-win solution, is collaboratively. First, leaders need to acknowledge that there is no blueprint for success. The answers lie somewhere between the very real needs of employers and the equally real desires of employees. Success in 2023 and beyond will rely on strong leaders who encourage open dialogue, build trust, collaborate and are willing to fail fast and try again. The successful new world of work will be co-created by employers and employees. It will be one that balances productivity and innovation with enabling employees to thrive in all facets of their lives.

The post The Silent War Between Employers and Employees Will Have No Winner appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

But social impact requires more than just a clear sense of purpose. It requires concerted action to redirect resources and effort toward activities that hold the greatest potential for positive impact. When those actions are a central part of your day-to-day operations, the likelihood of sustained success is much greater.

An ongoing initiative by two enterprising South African 51风流employees continues to inspire me about the potential for purpose-driven employees to drive true change both in their immediate work environment and society at large.

Striking gold with local social enterprises

A few years ago, Kaunain Nurani and Mathiba Phokungoane realised they shared a common interest in making a positive social impact and started seeking ways in which to bring that purpose to life.

The two launched Procurement with Purpose, an initiative that seeks to make it easier for 51风流Africa and other organisations to purchase goods and services from social enterprises that look beyond pure profit and actively seek to address societal problems.

At its core, Procurement with Purpose brings a handpicked selection of qualifying social enterprises into the world’s largest procurement network, Ariba. It increases the visibility of the social enterprises and encourages organisations to divert some of their spend toward these social enterprises, for example for end-of-year gifts, or IT and HR services.

Not just any social enterprise can join: the initiative purposely seeks social enterprises that are aligned to our organisation鈥檚 guiding values. One social enterprise, for example, trains girls for a career in technology, which aligns to SAP’s focus on encouraging greater female participation in Africa’s digital economy.

The program has been a resounding success: all five social enterprises that currently form part of the Procurement with Purpose initiative have benefited from increased visibility and greater opportunity to supply goods and services to 51风流and other global organisations. The five-million-plus organisations that use Ariba for their procurement needs benefit from access to trusted social enterprises that can help them bring to life their own corporate impact initiatives. The intention now is to widen that base and continue to look at opportunities to find local social enterprises that can provide the daily services required to run the 51风流business. For example, all our coffee in our South African offices is now procured from 鈥淚 Love Coffee鈥� 鈥� a Cape Town based social enterprise that supports the deaf community.

This brings me to one of the biggest leadership lessons from the success of Procurement with Purpose: that motivated, purpose-driven employees can make a significant positive impact provided they work in an enabling environment, and that not every impactful initiative needs to be corporate-led.

Multiplier effect of social impact

Corporate social impact has been a growing concern for global businesses over the past decade. According to one report, the percentage of companies listed on the S&P 500 that published a corporate social responsibility report grew from only 20% in 2011 .

There’s good reason: are motivated to purchase from companies that are committed to making the world a better place, while 93% of employees believe .

In order to build a successful business that can grow its customer base and attract top talent, purpose needs to feature highly in the corporate agenda. In a Harvard Business Review study, 58% of organisations that have a clear and strong sense of purpose .

As the Procurement with Purpose initiative reveals, one of the most significant opportunities for organisations to enhance their social impact and drive true positive change is to augment their supply chains with social enterprises.

Social impact through smarter spending

In 2020, 51风流introduced the ‘5 & 5 by 25‘ concept, which formalised the company’s global commitment to direct 5% of its addressable spend to social enterprises and 5% to diverse businesses, with 2025 as the deadline.

This forms part of the company鈥檚 goal of being both an enabler 鈥� through providing the necessary technology infrastructure and strategic insight 鈥� of greater sustainability and social impact, as well as an exemplar in terms of the way 51风流itself conducts its work.

At its core is the understanding that, as a business that not only commands sizeable annual spend but also powers many of the systems that support and enable global commerce, we could make a lasting positive impact by simply changing a few of our own processes.

For example, the Ariba network is the largest procurement network in the world, facilitating $3.75-trillion in trade by 5.3 million organisations per year – more than double the commerce of Amazon, Alibaba and eBay combined.

By increasing access to and visibility of social enterprises on Ariba 鈥� as Procurement with Purpose has done 鈥� we can encourage organisations across the globe to direct some of their spend toward social enterprises to drive greater social impact.

Most importantly, when a business is clear on its purpose and consistent with how it lives up to that purpose, it empowers employees at all levels of the organisation to bring that purpose to life in their own way. And as Kaunain and Mathiba has proven, this holds immense benefits for employees, organisations, social enterprises and society at large.

The post Empowered Employees Walk the Talk on Social Impact appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Notwithstanding the immense impact of the pandemic on the way we work, live and plan our lives, the world has long been in a state of flux due to the transformative impact of new technologies and increased digitisation.

Today, business is IT and IT is business. Even in the public sector, a state’s ability to harness powerful technologies and digitise its interactions with citizens plays a huge role in how effectively that state can deliver its services.

Collectively we will invest $1.8-trillion in digital transformation initiatives this year alone, and a huge jump from the collective . And with spending to continue at a compound annual growth rate of 16.6% over the next five years, the role of digital transformation has never been greater.

And yet, too often the impact and promise of digital transformation initiatives is undermined by a lack of understanding of the role technology plays.

Led by digital dodos

The truth is, many companies are led by executive teams with a limited understanding of technology. One study found that .

While not every CEO needs to be fluent in Python or be able to articulate the inner workings of quantum computing, a basic understanding of technologies and their function is essential in today’s digitally-led economy.

When business leaders are out of touch with technology, it can lead to some embarrassing situations. Just think back to an ageing US congressmen asking Google representatives why negative stories appear when they enter their names into Google’s search bar. Or former IBM president Thomas J Watson’s 1940s comment that “there is a world market for about five computers.”

We may have a quiet laugh at the absurdity of such comments, but when they emanate from the mouths of company leadership at a time when sound technological investment can literally mean the difference between success and failure, they lose their comic touch.

Companies are investing more money, resources and manpower in technology and digital transformation than ever before. When the value of that investment is not clear to the executives leading the business, it鈥檚 unlikely that companies will achieve a positive return on investment or solve the challenges they seek to overcome.

More importantly, the lost opportunity cost could set back companies鈥� growth and innovation plans for years, leaving them lagging competitors at a time when competition is at a peak.

Turning tech investment into executive action

A sad but inescapable truth is that those controlling the purse strings – whether they be investors, boards of directors or finance ministers – will not become advocates of IT if they do not understand the value it creates.

Digital transformation projects that fail to realise value or experience severe cost and time overruns, can undermine the trust that decision-makers have in technology. This creates a disconnect between business and IT that hampers future digital transformation initiatives.

However, when executives do understand and see the value, and are clear on the application of technology in their own business to improve the lives of their customers, there is no limit to the innovation and growth they can unlock.

To start, focus on asking the right questions. Instead of wondering about which mix of cloud technologies is best, or what the scope of their IoT deployment needs to be, executives should focus on the business objectives they are trying to achieve.

“How can I remove friction from my customer experience?” or “how best do I respond to a new digital competitor to my business model?” are far better departure points for digital transformation than “which technologies should I acquire to be successful?”.

Once the objective is clear, business and IT need to collaborate to develop an effective implementation and change management plan driven from the top through middle management and across the organisation. A sustained campaign highlighting the value of the digital transformation project and what it means to business users, customers and the broader organisation can greatly assist with driving adoption of new tools and processes.

A CEO or CFO that is actively involved in the execution of the company鈥檚 digital transformation strategy and understands the close alignment between tech and business strategy can act as powerful role models to the rest of the organisation. It鈥檚 no surprise that some of the most successful digital transformation projects have hands-on involvement from the C-suite, who set the pace for how the business collaborates with IT.

Investing in training and skills development ensures every layer of the organisation – from the top floor to the shop floor – understands the value of the new tech-enabled capabilities and can apply the new tools effectively when performing their day-to-day work tasks.

Critically, executives need to establish a culture of continuous improvement and refinement where technologies, tools and processes are constantly fine-tuned to serve the precise needs of the organisation and its customers, partners and suppliers.

Whether you lead a nimble start-up, large enterprise or an entire nation, as a leader you need a well-developed understanding of the role technology can play in improving lives, developing new solutions to present challenges, and driving growth.

Gaining some technological nous is an essential component of successful modern leadership.

The post Effective Modern Leadership Requires Technological Nous appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Having worked in the tech industry for over 30 years, I still get goosebumps when I consider the positive potential of technology on our continent. Thanks to technology, we are better off than ever before.

However, popular culture tends to accentuate the worst of technology’s potential. Movies glorify hackers that bring cities to their knees. Future humans are enslaved by robots, with rebel groups celebrated as they save the world from ‘the machine’.

Social media, designed to connect people and create platforms for engagement, have been misdirected to spread fake news, perpetuating a mistrust of businesses, governments, and brands.

All of this has done serious damage not only to democracies around the world, but to the relationships we have with one another. This has hampered our ability to come together in the face of the enormous challenges we face.

An era of unprecedented progress

And yet, it’s not possible to think about progress without considering the role that technology plays.

Technology and human innovation have unlocked huge benefits for mankind and have helped usher in an era of unprecedented growth and opportunity.

We are healthier than ever before, and our life expectancy continues to increase, thanks in part to advances in medicine including vaccines that have eradicated previously lethal diseases.

Fewer people live in extreme poverty than before. showed a 50% drop in people living on less than $1.25 per day between 1990 and 2015.

More people have access to education, and most of the world enjoys greater freedom than ever before, thanks largely to the internet and our smartphones that give us new ways of expressing ourselves socially, politically, and creatively.

Solutions to an uncertain future

As we enter an era of uncertainty and rapid change, it is worth considering our relationship with technology and whether we are positioned to meet the inevitable challenges coming our way.

We will face more change in the next ten years than the last century. Our current ways of living and doing business are unsuited for this future.

Futurist Gerd Leonhard believes it’s not a question of whether we will have the technology to solve the world’s most pressing issues – we already do.

What remains a question is whether we will cooperate to use technology wisely and whether we can act in time.

Overcoming the challenges of a changing climate, food insecurity, pollution and waste, economic development and social upliftment require new technologies 鈥� or new and innovative uses for existing technologies.

Let’s take the issue of food security as an example.

The farm as digital enterprise

Food is one of the most basic and fundamental needs. Alarmingly, nearly nine million people die of hunger or hunger-related disease each year. And yet, the US alone spends more on diets every year than would be needed to ensure every hungry person on Earth can eat.

Africa is particularly vulnerable to food scarcity due to its relatively lower levels of development and wealth. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem: data indicates that about 20% of the continent’s population experience hunger.

This makes the agricultural sector, which is responsible for 60% of jobs on the continent, vital to Africa’s fortunes.

According to UN data, food production in Africa is led by 250 million smallholder farmers who collectively produce 80% of food consumed on the continent.

However, the farmers are often at the mercy of the elements with very little in the way of tools, technology, or data to improve their yields or unlock market opportunities.

The introduction of technology tools in the African smallholder farming supply chain has helped farmers mitigate risk and scale their operations to move away from subsistence farming.

SAP’s Rural Sourcing Management tool, which connects smallholder farmers with agriculture supply chains and brings transparency to the sourcing of raw materials, is turning these farms into digital enterprises and the farmers into digital entrepreneurs.

In Nigeria, for example, 850 000 small maize producers have been integrated into the larger agricultural value chain and now enjoy access to weather, crop and farming data as well as better selling opportunities.

Tech as a force for good

Every person and every business have a role to play in helping to solve some of our current challenges. In Ghana, for example, a collaboration between SAP, the World Economic Forum and the Global Plastic Action Partnership is bringing positive change to the country’s plastics supply chain.

More than 2000 Ghanaian waste pickers are being incorporated in a ground-breaking circular economy initiative in a project that measures the quantities and types of plastic they collect.

Through the Rural Sourcing Management tool, data about the plastic waste they collect is analysed and matched to market-related prices in local and global value chains.

Organisations that prioritise sustainability can then opt to pay a premium for more socially responsible plastics, while the waste pickers can enjoy higher wages for their work.

In our own business, 51风流has committed that 5% of global procurement will be with social enterprises by 2025, with another 5% to diverse businesses.

As we journey into an uncertain future, we have the opportunity every step of the way to choose to use technology in the service of good. Whether you are a tech start-up looking for a breakthrough, a social enterprise solving the next big problem or a corporate wondering how to make a difference, think about the future you want to help shape on the continent.

In a world with so many challenges and such an abundance of bad news, technology holds the key to a brighter and happier future – provided we choose to use tech for good.

The post Don鈥檛 Believe the Negative Hype: Tech is a Force for Good appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Much has been written about the pandemic鈥檚 impact on business and its role as a once-in-a-generation catalyst for accelerated digital transformation. Across the continent – in enterprises large and small, and in every industry – business leaders have had to adapt with great urgency to survive the immediate disruption and ensure the long-term viability of their businesses.

Organisations that had already embarked on the journey toward becoming intelligent enterprises 鈥� those enterprises that seamlessly blend data, technology, systems and processes to enable real-time insights and decision-making across the business – would have had the benefit of a warship when the pandemic tsunami first struck.

Their greater resilience and adaptability not only cushioned them from the worst impact, but in many cases enabled quick pivots to new business models that secured their survival and accelerated their success.

The less prepared would have been floundering in their makeshift canoes, often tossed and turned with little means to steer their organisations through stormy seas.

There is no doubt that we are sailing in uncharted waters and towards an uncertain future.

Having the capability to quickly deploy new technologies – such as AI-assisted processes or scalable cloud applications – empowers organisations with agility and adaptability, both essential elements of success in our turbulent times. What鈥檚 more, it lends a sense of certainty to the decisions they make, as such decisions are grounded in accurate data.

New world of work = new challenges, opportunities

The hybrid work environment most organisations have had to adopt has created new challenges for managers and leaders to effectively motivate, guide and manage their teams. While challenging, this fundamental cultural shift toward more flexible work holds the promise of finally unlocking the possibilities of the digital workplace, which .

Organisations need real-time insight into employees’ current state of mind, their perception of their work, challenges keeping them from performing at their best and gaps in processes such as onboarding. This allows business leaders to make quick adjustments and maintain a positive and fulfilling employee experience at every step.

Using an experience management tool that produces measurable, data-driven insights can bring structure and consistency to how organisations respond to employee expectations. Technology is an invaluable tool here: that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.

New modes of leadership are also needed. I strongly believe the time is over for one-dimensional organisations that focus purely on chasing quarterly revenue targets.

Analysts estimate that purpose-driven organisations have and 40% higher levels of talent retention. What’s more, one study found that , compared to a 4.1% average for the S&P 500 over a ten-year period.

Employees also value purpose: 84% of millennials in one study said that .

Empowering the next generation of digital workers

The matter of skills development, while long a priority of governments and organisations across the continent, is of even greater importance today. As organisations drive greater digitisation in their business models, the urgency of having a steady supply of work-ready digital skills grows.

Organisations will need to collaborate with public and private sector partners to ensure Africa鈥檚 growing youth population is equipped with the key digital skills that can support their growth and success. Initiatives such as Africa Code Week that bring together hundreds of partners from government, NGOs and the private sector have already introduced millions of kids to coding while empowering local teachers with vital digital skills training.

Africa Month an opportunity to chart new course

Our recent shared experiences across the African continent should teach us that no one is immune to disruption.

The world already faces the consequences of climate change which could disrupt the global economy in ways that far outweigh the impact of the pandemic. Scientists believe the COVID-19 pandemic is almost certainly not the last one we’ll see, especially if we persist with unsustainable ways of living.

However, the same challenges also hold the promise of transforming the way we work and live to bring us toward more sustainable, innovation-driven and fulfilling ways of working.

The pandemic has been a tsunami that has swept across the globe. We are still feeling the ripple effects through every industry and in every country.

As we celebrate Africa Month, we must also take stock of how we are preparing for the next inevitable disruption.

Investment into building intelligent enterprise capabilities in our public and private sectors could hold the promise of a tsunami-proof lifeboat that can protect organisations and their employees, customers and partners from the worst effects of the next wave, while bringing us all closer to calmer shores.

The post African Enterprises: Build Your Boat Now Before the Next Tsunami Hits appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

World trade . Recent data by the World Bank indicate , pushing the region into its first recession in 25 years and pushing an estimated 40 million people into extreme poverty.

Lacking the deep pockets and extensive social security safety nets of their more developed peers, African nations will need to apply ingenuity and innovation to get the continent’s growth and development back on track.

The response by Africa鈥檚 business sector could hold the key to how the continent overcomes the economic challenges ahead, while also building greater resilience and adaptability for future disruptions.

Small steps, not giant leaps

One of the outcomes of the widespread disruption of 2020 is that business leaders and their technology partners are likely to forego large, waterfall projects in favour of taking small, consistent steps on their business transformation journey in 2021.

A strategy of iterative innovation can enable businesses to make consistent improvements to their current products, services and strategies. Iterative innovation implies that businesses enter into a process of continuous improvement, measurement and learning. Successful iterative innovation ensures the business extends its capabilities while navigating any new disruptions or emerging complexities.

Taking an iterative innovation approach means huge, expensive and lengthy digital transformation projects are substituted with a greater number of much smaller, well-defined and clearly measurable projects that focus on delivering quick business value.

However, iterative innovation requires an environment of learning. Analytics should be embedded in business processes to provide real-time visibility over the performance of these innovation projects.

By measuring impact, analyzing insights and applying learnings, business leaders and their technology partners can ensure each iteration builds on what has been achieved, moving the business closer to its goals.

Mobilizing executive support

In the face of the disruption every industry is experiencing – economic, technological, and pandemic related – there is tremendous value in the ability to take constant steps toward greater performance, productivity and innovation. However, this requires bold leadership.

Business leaders need to mobilize and bring functional heads together to actively drive projects to a successful outcome. The very best business transformation projects are built around active participation from executives whose involvement helps ensure the project delivers direct business value and supports organizational strategy.

If organizations wish to thrive in our disruptive digital economy, innovation needs to be driven throughout the company from both IT and business.

What does this mean for their technology partners?

Firstly, technology partners need to engage with their customers at a business level, not a purely technological one. The goal should be quick time-to-value – what can we do to achieve positive business results and drive iterative innovation quickly and consistently?

Secondly, a customer-first strategy is vital. This may mean making small sacrifices in the short term to secure long-term value. For example, instead of insisting on a total digital transformation project, technology partners should seek opportunities for smaller deployments that address specific issues along the business value chain to produce measurable results. As each project builds on the last, bigger business and technology priorities become achievable.

Thirdly, an organizational culture shift is needed. The nature of business is that we all pursue monthly and quarterly targets, and our success is often measured along similar lines. An exceptional sales strategy would balance the need for immediate results with what’s best for the customer in the longer term. This requires that leaders take a long view, and not sacrifice long-term gains for short-term outcomes.

To echo Albert Einstein, we can’t solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. The digital transformation of the African continent is continuing apace. By changing our collective strategy and shifting focus to a more iterative approach to innovation, the continent鈥檚 business sector could be well-placed to emerge from our current crisis stronger, more resilient and with greater long-term sustainability.

Follow Cathy on Twitter

The post Why Iterative Innovation is my Business Strategy of Choice in 2021 appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

It is becoming clear that most 鈥� if not all 鈥� our major social, economic and political decisions over the next few years will be made through the prism of the coronavirus and the ripple effects of the pandemic.

Lacking the financial resources and healthcare capacity of the more developed Western countries, Africa will have to pave its own way in dealing with the crisis. To date, the continent has been spared the worst, with Europe and the US forming the current epicentres of the pandemic.

However, it is certain that we are yet to see the worst of the disease, in terms of health, social impact and the economy. While lockdown measures are evident in much of the region, public health experts are unanimous in their view that we won鈥檛 escape a surge in new infections, especially as we head into the colder winter months in many countries.

Already, the economic effects of lockdown can be felt, as informal traders and small to medium enterprises grind to a halt due to government restrictions. The effects, while impossible to fully predict, are likely to reshape the future of the continent in fundamental ways.

While our current focus is on overcoming the immediate challenge posed by the virus, I cannot help but look up and consider what awaits us beyond the horizon. And, despite the chaos and uncertainty we all presently feel, I remain highly optimistic about our collective future, both as a business leader and as an African citizen.

Inspiring an entrepreneurial spirit

Due to the digital skills divide and a number of other factors, most Africans are not actively working in the digital economy. The overwhelming majority of Africa鈥檚 citizens are informal traders, smallholder farmers and other forms of entrepreneurs.

An estimated sixty percent of Africa鈥檚 workforce are engaged in agriculture alone. The continent鈥檚 250 million smallholder farmers, working on plots of around 2ha each and earning less than $1,000 per year, produce 80% of all food consumed here. A single smallholder farmer financially supports multiple family members and makes an invaluable contribution to food security. Any intervention that supports this sector has the potential to deliver dramatic socio-economic returns.

We can see this in Nigeria, where an initiative by the Convention on Business Integrity鈥檚 for-profit arm CBi Innovations has seen the deployment of a technology tool to support 850 000 maize farmers and connect them more sustainably to the agricultural value chain.

Where countries have invested in building stronger agriculture sectors, the entire economy has been lifted. World Bank data shows that Ethiopia鈥檚 poverty levels dropped by a thirds since 2000 mainly thanks to impressive agricultural GDP growth of nearly 10% per year.

A growing and evolving continent

Africa鈥檚 population growth has been on an accelerated path for some time. Experts agree that, at current rates, the continent鈥檚 population will double by 2050. This will be accompanied by a mass urbanisation that could see rural areas empty as more citizens seek a better life in fast-growing cities.

The World Economic Forum predicts that the population in Lagos in Nigeria could pass 88 million by 2100, making it聽.

However, these oft-quoted predictions are extreme. The latest data shows that the working age population in Africa 鈥� those aged between 25 and 64 鈥� is growing faster than other age groups, which provides an opportunity for accelerate economic growth, also known as the 鈥榙emographic dividend鈥�.

How we engage, mobilise and equip this demographic dividend in service of the continent鈥檚 socio-economic goals will be instrumental in our collective effort to build a better future.

Which makes the advances in digital skills development, driven by investments from public and private sector organisations into digital skills development among teachers and students, all the more exciting.

Digital skills training crosses tipping point

With more than 700 million youth spread across 54 countries, Africa鈥檚 wealth of youthful talent is the envy of even more developed nations that face ageing 鈥� and in some cases, declining 鈥� populations.

A broad collective effort has been underway over the past few years to equip this youthful talent pool with the skills and knowledge they need to be active participants and contributors to the global digital economy.

Much of the developed world has been able to quickly shift learning to online platforms thanks to the pervasive high-speed internet connectivity and broad use of internet-enabled devices in those markets. In Africa, too many children simply don鈥檛 have that option.

Public and private sector organisations will need to build on the success that has been achieved over the past years to bring digital skills learning to more of the continent鈥檚 youth. Such efforts should focus not only on expanding access to technology among especially rural communities, but on equipping teachers and educators with the tools and knowledge they need to be effective digital learning champions.

The investments we make in training our youth today will pay huge dividends as we steer through the coming years and decades.

Diversity our greatest strength

Just as technology is supporting smallholder farmers by connecting them to better information and market opportunities, so too will we see innovations that empower female entrepreneurs to maximise their business ventures.

In the latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Women鈥檚 Report, sub-Saharan Africa boasted the highest rate of female entrepreneurs at 21.8%. This against a global rate of 10.2% 鈥� in Europe, the rate drops to 6%. This means more than one in five women in Africa are engaged in some form of entrepreneurial activity.

Social entrepreneurship is also gaining ground as a more sustainable and broadly beneficial business model for addressing socio-economic challenges on the continent. In 2019, Africa hosted the Social Entrepreneurship World Forum, first established in 2007, in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. In that country alone, 55 000 social enterprises have sprung up to address a wide spectrum of challenges. Surprisingly, more than a quarter of social entrepreneurs in the country are women, compared to only 4.5% who lead mainstream Ethiopian businesses.

I believe it is our diversity and multiculturalism that gives us immense strength in innovation and resilience. Three thousand ethnic groups speaking more than two thousand languages lend the continent an unmatched richness in perspectives and lived experiences.

As a greater share of our daily work output becomes automated by more efficient machines and algorithms, we鈥檙e likely to see a shift back to those skills and qualities that make us uniquely human. Empathy, creativity, compassion, the ability to consider and engage with a diverse set of views 鈥� these are the skills that will distinguish us as we head into the coming decades.

In closing

There鈥檚 no doubt we face a difficult and uncertain road ahead. Things are likely to get worse before they get better. But we have done so much work over the past decades, achieved so much, overcome such immense socio-economic challenges, that I take heart that our continent will survive.

More than that, I believe we are well-placed to create a pan-African community with a shared vision for a more equitable future, one driven by the deeply African belief in Ubuntu. Some global analysts believe there is opportunity聽, despite our challenges.

I think Africa will chart its own course, one that is no less transformational than the so-called Chinese Miracle, but takes all our best qualities: our diversity, our natural wealth, our youthfulness, our creativity and resilience, and forges an inclusive future for all who call this continent home.

The post Why I Am Resolute in my Afro-Optimism Despite the Continent鈥檚 Challenges appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.