Digital Entrepreneurship: How To Serve The Community While Making Money In The Process

For a developing country such as Zimbabwe, digital entrepreneurship addresses challenges that negatively impact business such as market information poverty, exclusion from global supply chains, eroded profits, high financing costs, loss of control to intermediaries, and poor cost competitiveness. Societal challenges and problems which range from corruption, lack of infrastructure, no finance and unemployment can be dealt with too.

These problems present business opportunities for the savvy entrepreneurs. Solving the community problems offers the opportunity to penetrate a market or increase revenue growth by leveraging digital technology. In Zimbabwe one sees the need for start-ups that can overcome infrastructure constraints. Business networks tend to be made up of multiple players who are often reluctant to share their data with each other excluding certain parts of the society from transacting economically.

The potential opportunity is to grow economic activity for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) both locally and globally by utilizing digital business technologies. Benefits from trending digital technologies are key to economic growth. Entrepreneurs can finance and fund themselves via cryptocurrencies and transactions with electronic money such as (Ecocash) which bypass established finance players who charge very high premiums for loans. In Zimbabwe, SME’s, government and individuals can benefit from investment into digital technology. According to the Sunday Mail, a firm Data Insights Technology Private Limited (DIT) is projected to create over 25 000 jobs in the next three years with investment in the data analytics and science capabilities of the country.

South Africa is currently the only African country with a significant, and highly competed B-to-B digital market.  So, one will see more digitally innovative corporations in South Africa develop spin off businesses to gain more market share domestically and other markets in Africa.  Whereas the other African markets residents have become more entrepreneurial due to the lack of infrastructure enjoyed by traditional businesses and create start-ups to capture opportunities by offering new products/services leveraging digital business models. Digital technology has allowed many markets to be penetrated and shaken due to its plug and play nature and the agility of the business models. Digital entrepreneurship has the potential to reduce unemployment, poverty by including the invisible customers in an economy. This is evident in Rwanda, Kenya and Nigeria and is achieved through opening business to new possibilities by:

Taking stock of the business systems you operate to get your daily business tasks done

Taking stock of the social media and mobile applications you navigate in, for both the business and social areas of your lives.

Acquiring the digital skills required in the modern workplace and as an expert in your field or earn more revenue as a skilled entrepreneur with professional skills and IT vendor certifications.

Adopting top digital trends, undergo technological knowledge changes, business model and process changes and e-commerce innovation.

Share your thoughts on whether you think digital entrepreneurship and new job creations in Africa can drive global competitiveness, comment below.

About the Author

Dr. Albert Mubako is a certified information systems consultant and business strategist. He consults on global systems projects and advises on insightful business solutions in the digital era. He is the author of Digital Transformation. the Realignment of Information Technology and Business Strategies available on Amazon and Google Books. He is the founding member of The Institute for Digital Business focusing on how technology can be used to improve the way business operates and interacts with its customers. He is an academic thinker with business acumen, connecting the dots, and bringing it all together for clarity and action. Contact him directly on email albert.mubako@instituedbs.com or connect on Twitter @tichatongam. Website: https://institute-dbs.com/