Business leaders across the continent have had their hands full, from enabling remote work on a previously unprecedented scale to adapting to disruptions in the global supply chain, enabling e-learning for millions of youth – not to mention ensuring business continuity in the midst of a once-in-a-generation crisis.

Some changes in behaviour – such as the growing adoption of online shopping, telemedicine and digital channels for engaging with service providers – are likely to outlive the pandemic. Other behaviours – such as in-person teaching and working from the office at least some of the time – are likely to return once it’s safe.

Organisations need the flexibility to adapt to these multi-faceted changes while also improving the accuracy of the decisions they make regarding which route to take.

Speed or certainty?

McKinsey believes and will continue to play a leading role in guiding how businesses should adapt to ongoing uncertainty. The argument is that, by prioritising speed, organisations could make rapid decisions, act on emerging opportunities more quickly, and so improve their chances at overcoming the immense challenges created by the twin forces of digital disruption and the global pandemic.

Speed is certainly important, but there is no competitive advantage in making poor decisions quickly. The prevailing disruption and continued volatility requires that business leaders make decisions with certainty.

To make good decisions, business leaders need accurate sources of data, and the tools to turn that data into insights that can guide decision-making in real time. The modern business environment is simply too complex and volatile to rely entirely on so-called intuitive decision-making. Good quality, accurate and complete data integrated to an intelligent suite of business applications gives decision-makers greater scope for decisions that shift the needle of the business.

For example, responding well to changing customer demands is nearly impossible without knowing what those demands are. Having access to customer experience management tools that can track customer expectations in real time and guide how the business responds to those expectations removes much of the trial and error of manual decision-making. Integrating the customer experience management tool with an automation layer further increases both the speed and accuracy of that response.

Hybrid work models raise the stakes

The impact of the pandemic means most organisations are operating on a fragmented basis. Teams are working from home, making in-person methods of employee engagement and performance management almost totally obsolete, at least for the moment.

Without new employee engagement tools that can effectively mobilise and support teams around common business objectives, organisations could see falling productivity and negative effects on aspects such as product development or customer experience.

New management tools can provide measurable insights into the employee experience, which can assist managers and leaders with making better decisions over the types of support they need to provide to their teams.

Advances in data and analytics also bring data-driven insights into the boardroom, with technology solutions that connect the top floor with the shop floor to give C-level executives granular insight into the total performance of the business.

To harness data and technology for greater certainty in decision-making, organisations need to put certain building blocks in place.

Tools to create certainty in decision-making

In order to achieve a single accurate view over the organisation and empower decision-makers with actionable insights, organisations need to build intelligent enterprise capabilities.

In simple terms, this means using the latest technologies to turn insight into action across every aspect of the business, in real time. Integrated business applications – such as enterprise resource planning and human capital management solutions – powered by next-generation technologies such as artificial intelligence help transform end-to-end business processes.

Experience management solutions give insight to the sentiment of customers, partners and employees, while business process intelligence and automation enable organisations to immediately act on insights and opportunities.

At the foundation of the intelligent enterprise is cloud, which gives organisations the ability to simplify and scale their systems landscape without sacrificing performance.

Cloud empowers businesses with the certainty of a quicker time-to-value, without the upfront capital outlays required of on-premise deployments.

With cloud-enabled intelligent enterprise capabilities, organisations can achieve the speed needed to stay ahead of competitors and other disruptors while maintaining the certainty of measured, data-driven decision-making.

And with new tools such as RISE with SAP, organisations can start building intelligent enterprise capabilities no matter what stage of their digital transformation journeys they find themselves.

The post Cloud as a Tool to Create Certainty appeared first on 51·çÁ÷Africa News Center.

The continent features . Its population is the most youthful, with . And the world’s largest free trade area in terms of participating countries, the African Continental Free Trade Area, is now active and .

With Africa’s fortunes continuing to improve, one region stands out as a possible example to the rest of the continent. As the world starts its slow recovery from a year of constant disruption and immense challenges, a closer look at the continued economic success story of the East African region could hold inspiration for how the rest of the continent drives economic growth.

One of the world’s fastest-growing regions

in the world are in East Africa: Ethiopa (2) and Rwanda (4). According to the Brookings Institute, East Africa’s share of the continent’s economic growth rose from less than 20% in 2018 .

In contrast, GDP growth in Southern Africa actually declined, thanks mostly to the decline in growth in South Africa. The impact of 2020’s events are predicted to worsen the situation, with an estimated 7.2% contraction in GDP expected in South Africa – the worst in nearly 90 years.

Despite the disruptive events of 2020, the African Development Bank found that East Africa is holding its ground as the continent’s fastest-growing region. This at a time when many countries – emerging and developed economies alike – face record declines in economic growth.

What are the region’s keys to success? Its attempts at building a vibrant services sector, its coordinated state-supported industrial growth efforts, and a renewed focus on education reform with an emphasis on fostering digital skills all hold valuable lessons for the rest of the continent.

Building a vibrant services sector

According to data by the African Development Bank, agriculture’s contribution to East Africa’s gross domestic product declined from 33.4% in the early 2000s to only 28.3% in 2018. Rising in its place is a vibrant and fast-growing services sector that contributes more than half (53.8%) of the region’s GDP.

This economic shift is creating new employment opportunities. Based on data by the International Labour Organisation, the number of employment opportunities in the region’s services sector is set to more than double between 2000 and 2020, while opportunities in the agriculture sector will grow at a slower pace.

Digital transformation is one of the main drivers of growth in the services sector. In fact, the World Bank estimates that connecting every African business, individual and government to digital technologies by 2030 .

Concerted industrial revival

In 2012, the East African Community (EAC), which covers Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, launched its 2012-2032 Industrialisation Policy. The strategy aims to create a market-driven, competitive and balanced industrial sector that draws on the advantages of the EAC region.

The aim is to grow the contribution of manufacturing to the region’s GDP from an estimated 8.9% currently to 25% by 2032.

However, the contribution of the industrial sector to regional GDP growth has stalled in all EAC countries with the exception of Tanzania. In , the East Africa Development Bank (EADB) noted insufficient investment in industrial transformation as a main reason for the decreasing contribution of industry to GDP growth.

According to the EADB, other countries wishing to drive greater industrialisation should improve regional infrastructure (such as roads, rail networks, energy and communications), establish special economic zones with compelling incentives, and greater investment in human capital development to ensure ready access to key skills.

Education reform for 21^st century skills

Since 2000, , with a vanishing gender gap that now sees nearly as many girls attend school as boys.

Human capital development is a core component of accelerating the development efforts of emerging economies. Data shows that significant and ongoing investment in human capital development has direct benefits to GDP growth, with the Gates Foundation finding that .

Kenya and Tanzania are notable for their efforts to drive education reform and expand access to schooling for more children. In Kenya, the number of people with primary education is , with the number of people who have completed secondary or tertiary education growing by 60% over the next decade.

In Tanzania, it is estimated that six out of seven people will have completed some form of education by 2030. However, there is much work still to be done: by 2030, .

Here, the private sector has an important role to play in supporting human capital development. Initiatives such as supplement government curricula by providing easy access to digital training and education tools and resources, driving greater awareness of 21st century skills among students and teachers alike. In addition, 51·çÁ÷Skills for Africa provides tailored training to talented graduates to develop work-ready technical and soft skills that can immediately make an impact in the workplace.

I am a firm believer in Africa’s potential as a world-leading region for economic growth and innovation. Already, there are several pockets of excellence that the rest of the continent can learn from. It is our task to build on these successes and ensure we realise the dream of an African Century.

The post What East Africa can Teach the Rest of the Continent about Economic Growth appeared first on 51·çÁ÷Africa News Center.