Small businesses are the key to sustaining Africa’s inclusive economic growth and its continued rise into a middle income continent. Rightly so because their social and economic impact is unheralded. However, studies show that many a small businesses don’t live beyond their three year birthday.
Several reasons can be attributed to this and efficiency as a result of a deficiency in structure and infrastructure ranks high. Small businesses bear with having relatively smaller operations but still being required to maintain seamless and efficient business processes for posterity.
In the past, small business have been full of clutter with manual filing systems, manual financial records and a host of traditional processes that slowed down their growth. They were guilty of being too slow in the adoption of technology and the digitization of processes.
The last ten years have however seen a shift as more small business in Africa react to the rapid development of technology by adopting and even upgrading their technology periodically.
In order to survive in an emerging competitive environment and keep up with the trends and innovative services competitors might be offering, small businesses have had to integrate technology in their operations with positive results.
Using open source or proprietary software, small businesses have achieved high levels of efficiency in their accounting and finance processes, project management. Employee collaboration, monitoring stock upgrades, shipping and sales, digital advertising and outreach especially with the advent of social marketing platforms and even employee payroll management.
All this has been enabled by computer technology. Functional computers have the capability to run numerous software that support small business and which wouldn’t run on mobile devices. As computers have become more accessible and affordable, small businesses have been the biggest beneficiaries, their employees and the economy at large as a result of their increased business incomes and individual incomes.
Experts estimate that small business now account for almost 90% of all formalised business in Africa employing over 50% of the population and contributing to over 50% of GDP.
Governments have as such noticed and lauded the exponential growth of small business in Africa and have in turn invested in ICT solutions that can spur their growth not only locally but across Africa and the world.
It was for this reason that the 2016 AfDB annual general meeting comprised of public and private sector players in Lusaka two months ago amplified ICT as a catalyst of economic growth, sustainability and equality and created special funds to invest in the digital transformation of Africa.
In addition, AfDB announced a $5 billion fund focused on opening opportunities for 50 million young people in Africa through skills development and job creation in Agriculture, Industry and ICT sectors. It is funds like these that small business need so they can upgrade their technology and computer systems based on their needs.
Small businesses are the lifeline of our economy and after integrating technology, they should now focus on the upgrading and modernization to the latest technologies to be competitive against global firms. How are you using technology as s small business?
Author
This article was written by a Guest Writer by the name David Karega. If you would like to start writing for Kuza Blog click here.
