Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP, Author at 51��Africa News Center

West Africa’s Circular Economy Efforts at the Forefront of Fostering a More Sustainable Future

Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP — Wed, 24 Nov 2021 05:46:33 +0000

Africa’s population is expected to triple by 2100, with a substantial percentage of that growth concentrated in West Africa. , making it the second most populous country on Earth based on current estimates.

The vast majority of population growth across the continent will be concentrated in urban areas. WEF data indicates that more than 80% of Africa’s population growth between now and 2030 will be in cities, with .

One matter of concern is that city expansion will take place in the backdrop of an escalating climate crisis. The UN has designated West Africa as a climate change hotspot, prompting public and private sector organisations to seek novel solutions to sustainably enable the rapid population growth.

However, the stress that will be placed on city infrastructure and resources such as water should not be underestimated.

Data suggests that , and time is quickly running out to enhance the sustainability and climate resilience of the continent’s cities.

The concept of a circular economy, where waste is eliminated and resources reused in an effort at restoring and regenerating nature, is gaining ground.

In a positive turn of events, several innovative circular economy initiatives are giving hope that the region is stepping on to a more sustainable path.

Ground-breaking efforts in Ghana

A recent project involving SAP, the World Economic Forum and the Global Plastic Action Partnership enabled greater visibility in the plastics supply chain by better tracking the work of more than 2000 waste pickers.

The project measures the quantities and types of plastic collected by waste pickers, analyses data, and then matches the collected waste to market-related prices in local and global value chains.

Sustainably-minded organisations can then opt to pay a premium for more socially-responsible plastics, while the waste pickers benefit from higher wages.

The project, led by Ghana’s Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation (MESTI), brings Ghana closer to its ambitions of being a lighthouse for circular economy innovation in Africa. By using SAP’s Rural Sourcing Management solution, MESTI is able to scale the solution nationally once the current pilot project comes to a close.

To date, the project has secured the involvement of large consumer goods companies such as Coca-Cola.

In addition, Dow Chemicals West Africa, a subsidiary of Dow Inc, one of the largest chemical producers in the world, is using 51��Rural Sourcing Manager to fast-track its shift to reusable or recyclable products.

Dow Chemicals West Africa sought a technology solution that could track plastic in the informal sector to improve plastics recycling and support the wellbeing of plastic collectors in Ghana’s informal sector.

The initial solution is being trialled in Western Ghana, with plans to scale nationally in time.

Social enterprise closes loop in plastics repurposing

In Accra, Ghana, the ASASE Foundation is empowering female entrepreneurs to play a key role in cashing in on the plastic waste of Accra and its environs for the benefit of their own communities through the foundation’s CASH IT! Social Enterprises.

Only 20% of household garbage waste is collected in Accra, and only 2% of the waste is recycled, resulting in 78% of garbage ending up on the streets. Due to heavy rainfall, the garbage drains into the oceans, washing up on the shores or being ingested by the animals in and around the city. Plastic bags and containers often clog gutters causing hazardous flooding, endangering people’s lives and causing an environmental issue.

The ASASE Foundation uses SAP’s Rural Sourcing Management solution to enable female entrepreneurs to build their own plastic recycling business and cash in on the value of the waste for a profit. The social enterprise model will help create jobs and keep most of the value generated by recycling plastic in the community.

The innovative model has garnered the attention of the UN Development Programme, who are sponsors of the initiative and supportive of its mission to increase plastic recycling and improving the lives of the plastic pickers.

Further circular economy initiatives using 51��Rural Sourcing Management are being planned for Nigeria in 2022, and talks are underway with several large multinational organisations active in West Africa to fix the problem of plastic pollution and build a more sustainable society that can be a healthy home to our growing population.

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Cybercrime is an Existential Threat to West Africa’s Economic Growth

Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 07:14:36 +0000

While organisations across West Africa work to recover from the economic impact of the pandemic, the global cybercrime industry is going into overdrive.

An increasingly sophisticated cybercrime industry is launching a range of attacks aimed at organisations and critical infrastructure. Such attacks are growing in volume and sophistication, putting our collective economic recovery at risk at a time when organisations invest more heavily in digital technologies.

Global attacks on Internet of Things devices, for example, , and cost organisations untold amounts of revenue and disruption to their business operations.

One study found that , a huge 72% increase over the past five years. The growing digitisation of industries across the region, and the increasing power of the tools at cybercriminals’ disposal, mean the cost of such attacks is likely to grow even further over the coming years.

In short, cyberattacks are posing an existential threat to the economic recovery of the West Africa region.

Cybercriminals set sights on oil and gas ‘whales’

The oil and gas sector is central to the economic fortunes of the West Africa region. In Nigeria alone, , and revenue from petroleum exports contribute 86% of total exports revenue.

Upstream revenue for oil and gas in the region is expected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% between 2020 and 2025, while over the same period.

Worryingly, cyberattackers are ruthlessly targeted the global oil and gas sector. A 2017 study found that 68% of companies in the sector had experienced at least one compromise that had resulted in the loss of information or a disruption in their operations in the past year.

In a recent example, cybercriminals successfully shut down the Colonial Pipeline, . In another example, ExxonMobil revealed it blocks more than 64 million emails, 139 million internet access attempts and 133 000 other potentially malicious actions .

The economic consequences of a successful cyberattack on this critical sector can be devastating to a region already suffering collateral damage from the pandemic. The situation calls for a radical rethink of how organisations across the region – and across industries – bolster their defences and protect against cyberattacks.

Attacks on ERP systems growing

As the nerve centre of modern intelligent enterprises, ERP systems are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals. Attackers know these systems run business-critical applications and house sensitive information, so any data breach could provide access to information they can later use in the service of a range of cybercrime activities.

As these systems increasingly shift to the cloud and integrate a growing suite of business applications, the opportunities for cyberattackers increase too.

The amount of transactional data in typical ERP systems, for example, represent a veritable gold mine to cybercriminals. So does the information about vendors, suppliers and partners – the more cybercriminals know about the internal operations of a business, the easier they will find vulnerabilities to exploit.

�ճ��, which was announced in 2019, is Nigeria’s most comprehensive data protection law and is set to transform how organisations collect and process data in the country. Organisations should look at shifting their attitudes to security and treat it as a critical business imperative for both compliance and better protection against attack.

Taking steps to securing West African enterprises

A risk-based approach that is endorsed by the board and focuses on protecting the organisation’s key assets is needed. Organisations need to get a holistic view of their security risks and then implement solutions and processes that help secure and protect data, applications, systems and end-users.The best defences typically includes both technical security and transactional monitoring – in real time – to allow security teams to take accurate and appropriate action to keep systems operating and data safe.

Integrating an Enterprise Threat Detection solution for example gives insight into suspicious activities in an organisation’s ERP and other business-critical applications. This allows organisations to identify breaches as they occur and react in real time to neutralise any dangers.

A real-time data platform can help efficiently analyse and correlate log data to help security teams understand what happened within an application, database, operating system or network component, and improve how the organisation scouts for cyberattacks across its most valuable IT assets.

The importance of ERP systems to the effective running of West African enterprises makes them prime targets for cyberattacks. 51��has worked with enterprise security leaders around the world to develop tools that seamlessly integrate with ERP systems and help protect an organisation’s critical data assets from cyberattacks and data breaches.

Organisations across the region need to recognise the threat that cybercrime poses to their operations, their reputations, their employees and their partners. Business leaders, their security teams and their technology partners need to urgently implement new controls or risk becoming the latest victim in a rising tide of highly damaging – and increasingly sophisticated – cybercrime.

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West Africa in Ten Years – An Optimist’s View

Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 08:39:37 +0000

What will West Africa look like in ten years? Will the region continue on the path of slow advancement, or will technology be a catalyst that could see it create a technologically advanced society such as the one embodied by Wakanda in the Black Panther movie? Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP, takes a view of West Africa’s ten-year prospects.

Africa is arguably undergoing the most rapid and far-reaching changes of any region in the world, as a swelling population, consistent economic growth and greater digitisation of goods and services herald a new era of opportunity for progress and prosperity.

The continent’s urban population is expected to swell by an estimated 24 million people every year between 2015 and 2045, with implied increases in consumption.

By 2030, Africa’s under-18 population will grow by nearly 170 million, according to data by Unicef, and young Africans are expected to make up 42% of the world’s youth population by 2030. By the middle of the century, two in every five children under the age of 18 will live in Africa.

This demographic dividend, if given the correct mix of skills development and economic opportunity, could transform Africa’s fortunes and usher in a rapid economic development similar to that of Vietnam and China over the past twenty years.

How we collectively approach the next ten years could determine whether West Africa – and the continent as a whole – realises its potential and achieves greater prosperity for its growing population.

Africa on the move

Today, Africa accounts for 17% of the world’s population but only 3% of global GDP. This is due to change.

By 2025, household consumption in Africa could reach an estimated $2.1-trillion, and business consumption $3.5-trillion. The launch of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement has effectively started the process of creating a growing market of $1.3-trillion with a consumer base of 1.3 billion.

While the pandemic has had a devastating effect on governments, citizens and businesses across Africa, there is much cause for hope and optimism. In West Africa and elsewhere on the continent, the growing adoption of digital technologies combined with African ingenuity and innovation are contributing to a transformation of the continent’s cities, schools, businesses and governments.

Transforming learning and education

The pandemic has had a severe impact on schools and education, with many countries instituting lockdowns that kept kids out of school. The forced switch to remote work has created greater urgency within education departments across the region to fast track the process of building better e-learning capabiltiies.

The share of West African youth with post-secondary education is also rapidly increasing, from 13% in 2000 to 23% in 2020. If countries in the region can implement an accelerated education policy, we could see this share jump to 71% by 2040.

By 2030, we may well see urban and rural schools using hybrid teaching models that combine in-school and distance learning. The continued role of initiatives such as 51��Africa Code Week, which has introduced millions of kids to basic coding and digital skills since its launch in 2015, will be vital as public and private sector partners work with governments across the region to equip youth with the essential skills needed to succeed in the global digital economy.

Connectivity, digitisation creating new opportunities

Connectivity remains a challenge to improving not only the region’s e-learning capabilities, but its wider adoption of digital services. In 2015, only 15% of the population across West Africa had access to 4G technology, but this rate leapt to 63% by 2020.

The arrival of 5G in the region will accelerate connectivity and help establish entirely new ways to learn, do business, purchase products and engage with government services. This faster connectivity may also see an acceleration of telco operator efforts at diversifying. Expect to see greater innovation in payments and digital services as telcos introduce tailored new offerings to subscribers.

The switch to remote work has initiated an accelerated process of digital transformation in West African workplaces. Expect to see more mature systems and processes guiding remote and hybrid work models, with potentially new innovations from the region’s healthy startup ecosystem.

The rise of regional technology hubs that can house and incubate a new breed of African innovation-led business also point to a bright future. West Africa is already home to 142 technopoles, regional technology hubs where a new breed of innovative African businesses can start-up and grow. These include the IT & Biotechnology Village in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as incubators such as Jokkolabs which is present in several countries in the region.

The shifting consumer landscape

Greater connectivity may also unlock the region’s immense e-commerce potential. While e-commerce market growth held steady at 9% annual growth from 2010 to 2017, the region’s dominant e-commerce companies have recently made huge strides forward, including Jumia, whose growth will be accelerated following the massive $570-million funding it raised in the past six months.

However, some challenges remain before the promise of e-commerce can be fully realised across the region. Data by the Boston Consulting Group found that between 30% and 40% of products ordered over the internet are returned because the recipient cannot be found.

The region’s underdeveloped retail sector could be a blessing in disguise, as there are fewer legacy aspects to change or overcome. In 2018, there were 136 physical retail stores per million people in Latin America, 568 per million in Europe, and 930 per million in the US. In Africa, there was only 15 formal retail stores per million people.

By the end of the decade, we may also see a transformation of the in-store shopping experience, as customer experience (CX) efforts mature and greater automation and choice become available. Self-service checkout counters, contactless mobile or biometric payments, and robotic workers assisting in-store staff with certain repetitive tasks may become common sights in the region’s retail environments.

Smart homes could become commonplace, connecting households to products and services through connected appliances and home automation systems. The falling price of sensors and prospect of 5G connectivity could see entirely new categories of smart devices emerge, including clothing, consumer goods and much more.

The next ten years will be some of the most exciting and most important times in our history. As organisations in West Africa continue to invest in digital technologies and build towards becoming intelligent enterprises, new opportunities will emerge that could transform how we live, work, learn and play. I for one am excited to see how the place I call home steps into our technology-enabled future.

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Beyond Today’s Crisis: How HR Shifts The Culture Of Midsize Businesses To The “Next Normal”

Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP — Wed, 19 May 2021 06:06:28 +0000

Traditional ideas and assumptions about the value of remote work have always been in question. But all too often, pressing imperatives of the day had organizational leaders force HR to sideline the conversation indefinitely.

Little did we know that it would take a global pandemic to turn this line of thinking into an action plan for ensuring business continuity. Leaders are now collaborating to propose, evaluate and communicate work-from-home (WFH) policies that keep employees safe, empowered and productive.

Before the infection rate of COVID-19 reached pandemic levels, 29% of midsize companies increased or added flexible work practices, according to Oxford Economics.* Now, as measures for social distancing, sheltering in and nonessential business closures become widely adopted worldwide, these numbers are rising exponentially while companies try to keep their proverbial doors open.

When protecting employees helps ensure the survival of the business

Unfortunately, such a significant change doesn’t happen without some bumps along the way. The pressures of homeschooling children, accommodating a spouse’s schedule and attending to business needs can make life seem chaotic. From collaborating with colleagues to adopting routines that drive productivity, the workforce may find that they cannot maintain the same experience of being in the office at home. Meanwhile, employees who live alone may feel lonely and burned out after working too much out of boredom.

HR leaders can address these counter-productive realities by building a collaborative workforce community, continuing talent development and training and keeping employees up to date on plans and expectations by using the following four-step strategy.

Respond

First and foremost, HR can help business leaders address the immediate challenges that the crisis presents to employees. This urgent and critical move requires access to real-time data across the company to easily find where workers are located and enact preventive measures to protect their health and mental well-being. Additionally, teams need to ensure that WFH policies balance the expectation of the organization as well as fulfill the needs of the workforce. Employees need to be engaged in honest communication about their WFH experience to limit unnecessary anxiety and minimize negative impacts on productivity. This can be done by providing anonymous feedback regarding the employees experiences.

Lean in

Since many companies are creating WFH policies on the fly and refining it as needs arise, the near-term strategy should support the physical, emotional, mental and financial well-being of the overall workforce, including contingent and part-time employees. HR should encourage people managers to have frequent check-in meetings with their teams, ask people how they are doing and listen with empathy to build trust and psychological safety.

Maintaining an open line of communication and fostering a sense of community are paramount to maximizing productivity now and ensuring that the business continues to move forward when a recovery begins. For example, collaboration tools, such as , can be used to check workforce well-being with a real-time mobile experience. Leaders can ask individual employees about their safety, whether they have the right resources and information to get work done, and if they feel productive and successful.

Equip

Many industries are witnessing massive layoffs and furloughs. Times like this bring with it job losses, restructuring and many other difficult financial and human decisions. Leaders can help ease a much-needed transition by devising and executing training plans that upskill and retool employees to keep them employed in a new role or another area of the business. Cutting-edge technology, like , can help find opportunities for the displaced workforce.

With predictive analytics, HR teams can run simulations to model multiple workforce staffing scenarios. They can adjust organizational strategies based on how and where the pandemic evolves, which can shift requirements for headcount expansion or contraction as well as the economic impact of demand-and-supply changes.

Become resilient and elastic

Coming out of today’s crisis will inevitably create a “next normal,” leaving behind any sense of “business as normal” forever. Some employees may come back to the office full time. Others may choose to work remotely 100% of the time. A few may decide to split their time between the two options. Companies with a global presence will require operating models that are orchestrated centrally and executed locally to effectively respond to present day challenges at the local, city, or country level.

Today, it’s COVID-19. Tomorrow, it could be a crisis stemming from global warming. No matter what happens, a contingency plan that impacts people must be elastic enough to adjust to the demands of the crisis and strong enough to minimize business disruption.

This reality will inevitably inspire innovative policies and communication plans to address a world of new habits that will likely be adopted to prevent a recurrence of the pandemic and prepare for a future crisis. Additionally, changes in the employee experience should align with regulatory requirements, competitive risks and emerging opportunities and reinforce the company’s thoughts, beliefs and goals.

How our leaders handle today’s crisis matters in the long term

Forward-thinking leaders and HR specialsts will unquestionably remain on the frontline of a business’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of them are already working long hours. In this particular crisis, HR becomes the war heroes for most companies. With the right tools and skills, we can demonstrate the flexibility, creativity and empathy needed to ensure the workforce is ready for anything during times of volatility as well as prosperity and growth.

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As West Africa Starts Vaccine Rollout, What Role Should Technology Play?

Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP — Fri, 07 May 2021 08:09:35 +0000

After more than a year of lockdowns and disruption caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic, African countries are preparing for the most ambitious vaccine rollout in human history.

All eyes are now on the ability of countries to secure, import and distribute the vaccines effectively. This will require investment into local supply chains and a concerted effort by governments and health organisations to build trust with local populations to ensure every person that needs a vaccine is able to receive one.

In late February, Ghana became the to receive a shipment of vaccines from the Covax initiative when 600 000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived. Telco operator MTN Group donated a further 165 000 doses and the Indian government 50 000 more, but the country will need significantly more to adequately cover its 31 million citizens.

In early March, Nigeria followed when it received 3.9 million doses. The country plans to vaccinate 40% of its citizens by the end of 2021, . An e-registration portal has been made available where all persons 18 years and older are able to register in the government’s attempt at an efficient and orderly scheduling of vaccination when more doses are available in the country.

However, immense challenges remain to sufficiently vaccinate the country’s more than 200 million citizens. In fact, the entire region has much work to do to build trust, enhance local and regional supply chains, effectively engage citizens and implement an effective vaccination rollout.

Building trust through citizen engagement, supply chain enhancements

Details are still scarce around how precisely the vaccine rollout will be implemented in West Africa. A recent study found in the vaccination plans of five West African countries: only 31% of respondents said they trust their government ‘somewhat’ or ‘a lot’ to ensure the vaccine is safe before it is offered to citizens.

Governments need high participation rates from citizens if their vaccine rollouts are to be successful. This requires that they increase trust with citizens by understanding citizen sentiment throughout the rollout and then quickly respond to and manage any issues that arise.

The scale of governments’ vaccination rollouts is unprecedented, which means that current systems and processes are too slow and inflexible to facilitate the vaccination rollout at scale. When one considers the complexities of phased rollouts, multiple doses, and reporting, it is essential that governments leverage technology to streamline data collection, transfer and analysis to speed up rollouts.

At a supply chain level, the distribution and administration of vaccines at the scale of COVID-19 is a monumental challenge. There is much at stake because disruptions in the supply chain can prevent the delivery of the vaccine and further impact public trust.

Delays are paid for with human lives and push out the prospect of herd immunity. Reacting quickly to unexpected interruptions is key and is only possible if the entire supply chain, from procurement to production and delivery, is managed end-to-end.

According to the World Health Organisation’s , African countries have an overall score of only 33% preparedness for rolling out vaccines to their populations.

Bolstering the supply chain and building trust with citizens will be crucial to the effective vaccination of populations in the West Africa region.

How tech can support vaccine rollout in West Africa

Emerging, emerged and established technologies all have a role to play in the region’s efforts at vaccination. For example, trying to identify which people require vaccines with some attempt at prioritisation could leverage data, data mining, data science and patient segmentation based on various demographic, risk profiling and patient history information.

To track vaccine distribution across the region, a combination of technologies including blockchain, analytics, integrated scanners, location tracking tags and mobile apps could provide a framework to show relevant subsets of information to different supply chain stakeholders.

In terms of patient engagement, self-service appointment booking, customer experience platforms and patient feedback capture using apps and non-contact in-clinic kiosks can help to determine how well practitioners are fulfilling their duty. Similar platforms can be leveraged to focus on employee experience, offering insight into the mental wellbeing of frontline healthcare practitioners and reducing the risk of burnout.

Looking ahead, machine learning and streaming analytics could help identify irregular patterns in data that talk to issues within procurement, production, logistics or financial audits. IoT, 5G, LoRa (Long Range networks) and edge computing allows a vast array of use cases to be realised, where sensors can determine the conditions in which stock is being made, stored or shipped, and to allow critical response to be actioned before major incidents arise.

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced unprecedented challenges to the world, and West Africa is no exception. As the region readies itself for the vital process of vaccine distribution, it is critical that there are no unwarranted delays or disruptions. This will also give citizens the confidence that the medicines they are getting are safe and efficient. Technology can play a valuable supporting role to ensure West Africa’s vaccine rollout is a success.

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Titilayo Adewumi, Regional Sales Director: West Africa at SAP, Author at 51����Africa News Center