Between 2019 and 2020, online real-time payment transactions in Nigeria increased by an unprecedented 90%, and in the first quarter of 2022, Nigeria’s ICT sector contributed a significant 16.2% to the country’s GDP. e-Conomy Africa has also predicted that Africa’s Internet economy “has the potential to reach $180 billion by 2025”, accounting for 5.2% of the continent’s GDP.

The Nigerian Communications Commission reported that Internet usage surged in the first nine months of the pandemic as more people turned to online portals for remote work, e-commerce, entertainment, and social interaction.

Technology is also transforming traditional economies into fast-growing digital economies that are able to leapfrog progress and compete against more developed markets.

As Africa’s most populous nation with the largest mobile market, Nigeria is in an ideal position to leverage this change and expand our thriving digital ecosystem. The recent boom of investments in Nigerian FinTech is certainly a testament to this.

After two years of increased focus on digital transformation primarily as a means to overcome pandemic-related challenges, businesses must ensure that they don’t lose momentum. The accelerated shift towards online activity and digitalisation will be beneficial even after the pandemic, and it will continue to define modern customer expectations – as well as operational business environments.

Digital transformation therefore needs to be viewed as a long-term strategy that enables organisations to become more innovative, adapt to change, and find lasting success in a technology-driven climate.

This may require improving the role of technology in many areas of the business – not just IT – and building a strong digital culture to support this vision.

Transformation is a continuous process

Because every business and industry is unique, there is no single roadmap for digital transformation that can be applied universally.

For organisations that have not yet heavily invested in digital technology, transformation may involve experimenting with a more digitally enabled business model – while facing the challenge of migrating away from legacy infrastructure.

And those that have already made great strides in their digital transformation journey may be focussed on refining their strategic priorities and maximising the business value gained from existing technologies.

Digital transformation is also not a project with an endpoint, but a process of continuous change in the ways we work to gain a competitive advantage. Businesses may be at different stages of adopting disruptive technologies such as cloud computing, data analytics, automation, artificial intelligence, blockchain, or cloud-native applications.

They could also be moving toward more agile practices such as DevOps, or new and innovative technologies such as containers and microservices.

Whatever an organisation’s journey may look like, undertaking digitalisation doesn’t come without a fair share of challenges. Progress is often hindered by a reliance on legacy technologies or technical debt, a local scarcity of digital talent, financial constraints, bureaucracy, or simply transformation fatigue. And while these challenges may seem daunting, the benefits of navigating them successfully are tremendous.

Transformation starts with culture

What many organisations often don’t realise is that digital transformation is as much a cultural shift as it is a technological one. You cannot transform your organisation’s processes without transforming its people, but inspiring teams to embrace change and move away from outdated and siloed ways of working is often a major obstacle.

Organisations need to create buy-in from employees by investing continuously in skill-building opportunities to support putting new skills into practice.

Organisations also need to provide a clearly defined vision for their transformation efforts and ensure employees understand how their jobs will change.

Many organisations are often sold on the idea of digital transformation before knowing why they’re making their technological investments.

Business leaders need to understand their organisational objectives and recognise the need for technological transformation where it will matter most.

Breaking down the silos

Even as we move out of the constrained business environment of the pandemic that drove many businesses to digitalise, digital transformation will continue to be increasingly critical to the success of any organisation.

Organisations need to actively address the challenges preventing them from transforming digitally and ensure they have clearly defined business goals to lead them forward.

If they don’t, they will not only fail to keep up with their competitors – they will also be missing out on the many lucrative opportunities that come with improved technological capabilities.

With a rapidly urbanising population and an ever-increasing number of Internet users in Nigeria, the opportunities for digitally enabled businesses will only continue to grow.

To take advantage of these digital opportunities in Africa’s emerging markets, organisations will need to make a considerable effort to expand their technological capabilities. Effective digital transformation will require overcoming siloed ways of thinking.

Businesses and governments need to drive collaboration across both internal teams and the wider tech ecosystem to accelerate progress towards a digital future.

Not every organisation may have the expertise to move away from their legacy infrastructure or leverage new and innovative technologies to their full potential. It is imperative that those businesses find the right technology partner to help them on their journey.

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Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at SAP, believes corporate leaders are having to balance traditional business objectives such as revenue and profit with the demands of the modern economy that include building a healthy company culture, playing a positive role in society and being a good corporate citizen.

“The lines are being redrawn around what employees, customers and broader society expect of a modern business, especially as it relates to a company’s role in building a more equitable and sustainable world. Present trends indicate that we are moving toward a situation where environmental sustainability, fair employment practices and societal value trump pure profitability.”

Businesses have traditionally focused on creating maximum value for shareholders, and short-term financial profitability continues to be vital to a company’s growth and success. 

However, as the mounting costs and headline-grabbing impact of climate change starts affecting more people in developed and emerging economies, consumers are increasingly demanding that companies also make positive contributions to the environment and vulnerable communities. 

Looking beyond quarterly results

Studies have found that 84% of global consumers try to shop from companies that support causes they care about, while another study revealed that two-thirds of consumers and 73% of Millennials globally are willing to pay more for a sustainable brand. 

“There is growing recognition that companies need to shift their focus from purely delivering quarterly results that drive the share price, to ensuring they minimise their impact on the environment and prioritise creating healthy company cultures, ensuring adequate worker pay, and act as exemplars or enablers of more sustainable business practices,” explains Beveridge. “If your positive quarterly financial results were achieved on the back of environmental devastation, for example, consumers today are more likely than ever to abandon you for a more equitable-minded competitor.”

There are solid economic reasons for building sustainability into a company’s business model. One study found that companies with positive Environmental, Societal and Governance records produced higher returns, had a greater likelihood of becoming high-quality stocks, and were less likely to go bankrupt than their less ESG-focused peers.

“Business leaders still need to produce solid bottom-line results and ensure the financial sustainability of the business,” says Beveridge. “This is forcing them into a delicate balancing act where the correct course of action is not always clear, adding pressure to decision-makers already besieged by the disruptive impact of the pandemic, a constrained global supply chain, and growing economic pressures. Even the World Economic Forum, highlighting the importance for the private sector to look beyond the bottom line, put the onus squarely on business leaders to figure out the correct balance between short- and long-term priorities.”

The new talent battlefield

One of the most obvious examples of the new business balancing act is in workplace culture and employee engagement. During the early stages of the pandemic, businesses around the world shifted to remote models that saw millions of workers performing their day-to-day tasks away from the confines of corporate offices.

“The past two years have marked a greater shift in how we work than the two decades preceding it,” says Beveridge. “In the services industry, workers who previously completed their tasks within an office space under the watchful gaze of managers and HR specialists were suddenly asked to maintain high levels of productivity from home. Now that offices are reopening, many of these formerly office-bound employees now prefer to work remotely at least some of the time, creating new challenges in attracting, motivating and retaining top talent.”

The shift in how people view work came under the spotlight when millions of US workers shifted to more fulfilling or more accommodating jobs in a process dubbed the Great Resignation. “This shift in expectations of what people want from their jobs is forcing companies to rethink their company cultures, their salary packages, and the types of support they need to provide to employees to ensure high levels of productivity and retention.”

Research indicates that real wages in the US have been stagnant for decades, while UN data points to growing inequality for more than 70% of the world’s population.

Work-related stress is also growing and is now the most common form of stress in the UK, with only 1% of workers saying they’ve never experienced it.

“Business leaders are confronted with the task of balancing their teams’ productivity against the physical and mental wellbeing of each employee,” explains Beveridge. 

“As a company providing technology tools and expertise that help companies run better and become more successful, we are in the enviable position to act as both an exemplar of sustainable business practices and an enabler of more sustainable business models,” says Beveridge. “The shift to remote work created a situation where many employees work longer hours than ever before, raising the chances of burnout and forcing companies to implement additional measures to support employees that are working under immense pressure.”

Beveridge advises that business leaders deploy technology tools to dispel uncertainty in their business models and their human capital management strategies. “Companies have an opportunity to be both an exemplar of more sustainable business and employment practices – for example by reimagining their business models to focus more on longer-term sustainability and value creation – as well as enablers, by providing tools that assist other companies in their sustainability efforts. As we enter an era of great uncertainty and ongoing volatility, business leaders will need to leverage the latest technologies to ensure they can manage this new balancing act.”

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