The global economy continues to be in a state of flux as geopolitical conflict, supply chain pressures, inflation, technology-led disruption and changing consumer needs put pressure on companies and decision-makers.

From the desperate need for more sustainable alternatives to the way we do business to the incomparable impact of AI on every facet of our personal and professional lives, business leaders face a challenging time ahead. By taking stock of emerging trends, however, business leaders may be better able to ride the waves of change and steer their companies through turbulent waters.

These are the key trends that African enterprises should take heed of in 2024:

Trend 1: AI adoption becomes grounded in business value

Generative AI received an astonishing amount of hype in 2023, and was a bolt of lightning that made every business and technology leader sit up and take notice. Today, it’s not a matter of if businesses will adopt AI, but rather how quickly they can deploy and enjoy AI-driven benefits.

In 2024, business leaders will look beyond the hype and seek AI solutions that deliver real-life use cases and benefits. At an operational level, organisations may quickly realise that the quality of their AI outcomes depend largely on the quality of their data.

Technology providers such as 51风流will be indispensable in this conversation, thanks to the huge volumes of data and transactions running through their systems and broader business network. Business leaders will leverage the tech providers’ expertise to access the data they need, visualise it, and take decisive actions to drive successful outcomes.

Trend 2: Sustainability takes centre stage

As the world continues to warm and the consequences of climate change hit home for billions of people, sustainability will take centre stage in the business and technology world.

In 2024, the energy industry will shed its view of the customer as simply a commodity user in favour of the prosumer model. Industry leaders will aim to not only secure loyalty and create retail-like experiences, but encourage users to make active contributions to the stability and health of the grid.

This may involve keeping customers informed of how they can make the best, most sustainable decisions over energy use, or see consumers feed excess energy – for example from rooftop solar – into the grid to stabilise supply and contribute clean energy.

In addition, mounting pressure from regulators, consumers and investors will see organisations build more sustainable supple chains with lower carbon emissions and greater use of circular economy principles. This will require extensive innovation in data and analytics to provide business leaders with end-to-end visibility over their environmental impact across the broader supply chain.

Those companies that do succeed in leveraging technology to build truly eco-conscious supply chains will not only unlock new sources of innovation and revenue, but secure long-term profitability for years to come.

Trend 3: Procurement advances are powered by User Experience

In the rush for digitalisation, enterprises will continue to enhance their procurement processes, driving the need for more intuitive user interfaces. Procurement is evolving from a tactical to a strategic function to drive greater value throughout the organisation.

AI and analytics will be deployed to support procurement professionals as they seek ways to spend more time on value-adding tasks. In 2024, the demand for technologies that enable value-based procurement will increase, enhancing the organisation’s ability to leverage procurement to deliver value in other parts of the business, such as sustainability.

Trend 4: Supply chains become more resilient

Global supply chains are still under severe pressure, thanks to a combination of geopolitical disruption, inflation, environmental factors and the ongoing ripple effects of the pandemic. In 2024, expect a surge in supply chain technology investments as organisations seek greater visibility, agility and risk resilience.

In particular, AI holds huge promise for its ability to enhance organisations’ ability to sense, recognise and react to disruptions and opportunities in new and exciting ways. The key to unlocking AI’s benefits hinges on connected data and collaboration throughout the organisation.

Business leaders must lead the charge by ensuring AI is integrated with every layer of the supply chain network to achieve measurable business outcomes. This will unleash a new era of hyper-predictive and efficient logistics, revolutionising the way goods flow from factory floor to consumers.

The post AI, Sustainability and Supply Chain Resilience: What 2024 Holds in Store for African Enterprises appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Today, companies are beset with a multitude of challenges and changes in their operating environment. From dealing with supply chain disruptions to adapting to new ways of work, companies have their hands full.

The question is no longer if companies should digitally transform; it’s a matter of how quickly and in which areas that digital transformation would deliver the greatest value.

Partner ecosystem never more important

In this environment, the role of technology partners has never been more important. Companies and leaders need to be able to tap into a rich technology partner ecosystem to drive their digital transformation and ensure their business is geared for the challenges of a changing modern economy.

A strong partner ecosystem supports digital transformation, as each partner may have specialised services or knowledge that focus on specific industries, markets or competencies.

As a partner builds experience and proficiency in an industry, that knowledge becomes embedded in their solutions and services, and can significantly reduce risk and drive successful outcomes across a broad range of digital transformation priorities. That adds value to their offering and allows them to create revenue streams beyond the core technology.

For example, a tech partner specialising in the retail sector would have products, services and insights that can help retailers more quickly adopt new capabilities and avoid costly mistakes in their own digital transformation efforts.

Customers ultimately need to see their technology partners as collaborators in driving the lifetime value of technology investments to achieve greater business outcomes.

However, the partner ecosystem is in a state of change due to the changing way organisations buy, consume and utilise technology.

Shifting financial model of digital transformation

One of the biggest changes in the way companies adopt technology and drive digital transformation is the switch from physical – or hardware – deployments to a cloud or as-a-service model.

Today, companies want the flexibility to subscribe to and pay only for the technology components that they actually use. In response, tech companies have transformed their revenue models to a pay-as-you-use model.

This holds multiple benefits. Firstly, it opens up greater choice to companies wishing to adopt the best solutions for every business function without having to also purchase functionality or products that they don’t want or will never use.

Secondly, a consumption-based model is more easily scalable, as the hardware that enables a rapid scaling – for example when a company enters a new market or territory – sits on the tech provider’s side. If the company then decides to exit the market or scale down operations, they can simply scale down their consumption and associated costs.

Tech companies and their partners have also over the years invested in the development of technology templates for specific functions or industries. These templates are often developed with the knowledge of what worked and what didn’t work in other similar tech deployments, allowing other companies to avoid mistakes or lengthy customisation processes, which can inflate the overall costs of the project.

This can speed up the time-to-value for new digital transformation initiatives and help build a process of continuous innovation and improvement that drives the business’ success.

Challenges remain

The partner ecosystem is not without its challenges, however. In some cases, partners are still focused on selling large deployments that carry huge costs to the company. While such projects can undoubtedly deliver transformative business value to the company, it’s not entirely in step with the way modern businesses want to consume tech.

Instead, the focus should be on a form of value engineering where partners join forces with their customers for the long haul and consistently innovate and transform business processes to drive value.

Partner organisations need to evolve their business models around developing apps and IP that can be reused in similar industries and use cases, which can drive profitability for partners and cost benefits for customers. Traditional financial models also need to evolve: in a cloud-first world, there鈥檚 no need for lengthy advisory and implementation projects. The focus is squarely on quick turnaround and rapid time-to-value that drive business outcomes in priority areas.

It’s less a matter of finding the correct technology mix and conducting a once-off large-scale deployment, and more a case of continuous innovation and improvement across a broad spectrum of business cases to steadily enhance the organisation’s capabilities.

This can unlock untold benefits and establish a culture of co-innovation that enhances the organisation’s innovation capabilities while continuously delivering business value.

Skill sets also need to evolve and shift away from infrastructure to advisory and business value generation, in addition to expert knowledge and capabilities in deploying cloud solutions.

Technology partners play an essential role in companies’ ability to scale quickly, develop new competencies and unlock new market opportunities. As the modern business environment continues to change at an increasingly rapid pace, companies need the support and insight of trusted partners more than ever.

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