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Casual Articles - Developing E-Business For Small Businesses In Africa
Practical tips for start-ups in the translation businessAlthough in fact it ended only two decades ago, the era of handwritten or typewriter translations is one that most of us are not nostalgic about – if they remember it at all. To any modern-day translator, versed in – and addicted to – the cut-and-paste functionality of the latest word processing software, it is almost unimaginable there was ever a time in which translations were produced with a pencil and an eraser, or with a typewriter and correcting fluid. Having said that, there is no denying that the translation process has remained extremely labour intensive.PCs are obvious and indispensable tools in the modern translation business. The computerisation of our business has enabled us to become far more productive and to produce more polished texts which, thanks to the immense body of ‘googleable’ reference material, are probably also more sector-authentic than our
Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.
Group Action:
Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, a
Why should document security be so important to me? What exactly is it anyway? These are just a couple of questions you might have when someone mentions document security to you. With today’s technology, thieves are getting smarter and attacking both large and small businesses.Where it used to only be financial institutions, security firms, and those working on government contracts that had to worry about document security, now it involves everyone. Even if you don’t own a company, document security is important to you as an individual.Ever hear the phrase, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”? Well in today’s world, your trash is treasure to identity thieves, con men, corporate spies, forgers, blackmailers, and others. What you throw in the trash can get you ripped off.Identity thieves today can find information on documents, bills, canceled checks, and other items that you throw away. Sometimes they use that
E-readiness Ranking
Every year Economist come up with a table of e-readiness ranking from a selected number of countries. It is not surprising that African countries often rank lowest in most e-readiness reports. That is not very promising considering that most investors today will be interested not only on the investment climate and infrastructure in a country but also on e-readiness indices such as national connectivity, e-leadership, information security, human capital, and e-business climate.
Interpreting E-readiness Indices There are many indices used to measure e-readiness. The most common ones are:
• Connectivity: Addresses the ability to exchange information, goods and services with the rest of the world.
• E-leadership: Addresses the commitment of a national government to partner with industry leaders to create conditions favorable to electronic transactions.
• Information security: Addresses issues concerning the protection of personal data, intellectual property, and effective privacy laws.
• Human Capital: Emphasis on developing competent manpower including IT managers who can manage complex technology tasks, policy analysts who can make informed inputs on government policies and regulations that are capable of stifling technology growth; local content creators who can either customize or adapt global technologies to the specific business needs in the country, software and hardware engineers.
Beyond the indices, e-business also requires a larger population of end-users or consumers who don’t have to understand how the technology works, but can use the technology.
How Small Businesses In Africa Can Benefit From E-business:
Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.
Group Action:
Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, a
Businesspeople routinely hand out business cards to prospective customers, colleagues, and social acquaintances, both as a marketing technique and for an easy way to keep in touch.Possibly because of the popularity of business cards, personal calling cards, which in decades past have gone out of fashion, are also making a comeback. Rather than scribble your name and phone number or email address on a scrap of paper, why not hand new acquaintances your personal calling card?First, you need to decide on a style for your calling card. Designs range from the simply elegant to the boldly colorful; your choice should match your personality and your lifestyle. Second, you need to decide what information to include on your calling card. Traditionally cards include your name, address, and phone number; recently people have added their email address and sometimes their blog or other website address.A caution: Be careful both
E-readiness Ranking
Every year Economist come up with a table of e-readiness ranking from a selected number of countries. It is not surprising that African countries often rank lowest in most e-readiness reports. That is not very promising considering that most investors today will be interested not only on the investment climate and infrastructure in a country but also on e-readiness indices such as national connectivity, e-leadership, information security, human capital, and e-business climate.
Interpreting E-readiness Indices There are many indices used to measure e-readiness. The most common ones are:
• Connectivity: Addresses the ability to exchange information, goods and services with the rest of the world.
• E-leadership: Addresses the commitment of a national government to partner with industry leaders to create conditions favorable to electronic transactions.
• Information security: Addresses issues concerning the protection of personal data, intellectual property, and effective privacy laws.
• Human Capital: Emphasis on developing competent manpower including IT managers who can manage complex technology tasks, policy analysts who can make informed inputs on government policies and regulations that are capable of stifling technology growth; local content creators who can either customize or adapt global technologies to the specific business needs in the country, software and hardware engineers.
Beyond the indices, e-business also requires a larger population of end-users or consumers who don’t have to understand how the technology works, but can use the technology.
How Small Businesses In Africa Can Benefit From E-business:
Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.
Group Action:
Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, a
One of the ten most important documents you must have in creating a successful small business, and in fact any business is the Business Plan. The Business Plan is the overall summary document that describes how your business will work, how people will invest into your business and how the business will operate.A successful Business Plan will contain 10 key Chapter elements and they are –1. Company Description 2. Business Concept 3. Management Team 4. Market Analysis 5. Marketing Strategy 6. Operations 7. Investment Analysis 8. Growth Plan/Exit Strategy 9. Financial Projections 10. Business Mastermind Group AdvisersOne element that should also be in your business plan that is not in the list of 10 key Elements is the Executive Summary. All documents that have some substance should have an executive summary that outlines a summary of the contents of the document. As this
Interpreting E-readiness Indices There are many indices used to measure e-readiness. The most common ones are:
• Connectivity: Addresses the ability to exchange information, goods and services with the rest of the world.
• E-leadership: Addresses the commitment of a national government to partner with industry leaders to create conditions favorable to electronic transactions.
• Information security: Addresses issues concerning the protection of personal data, intellectual property, and effective privacy laws.
• Human Capital: Emphasis on developing competent manpower including IT managers who can manage complex technology tasks, policy analysts who can make informed inputs on government policies and regulations that are capable of stifling technology growth; local content creators who can either customize or adapt global technologies to the specific business needs in the country, software and hardware engineers.
Beyond the indices, e-business also requires a larger population of end-users or consumers who don’t have to understand how the technology works, but can use the technology.
How Small Businesses In Africa Can Benefit From E-business:
Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.
Group Action:
Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, a
International business today necessitates people travel all over the world for meetings, negotiations and other business functions. Along the way one will meet numerous people that all have the potential to give recommendations, pass over work or provide some sort of benefit. The business card is the key to remaining in their sphere of contacts.Increasingly business cards need to be translated into foreign languages to ensure the receiver understands who you are and who you work for. However, translating a business card is not a simple as literally translating one language into another. There are many linguistic and cultural considerations one must take into account. In order to assist those needing their business cards translated the following ten tips are presented:1 – Always have your business cards translated by a translator or translation agency. Your neighbour or friend may be capable of translating but to ensure the
• Human Capital: Emphasis on developing competent manpower including IT managers who can manage complex technology tasks, policy analysts who can make informed inputs on government policies and regulations that are capable of stifling technology growth; local content creators who can either customize or adapt global technologies to the specific business needs in the country, software and hardware engineers.
Beyond the indices, e-business also requires a larger population of end-users or consumers who don’t have to understand how the technology works, but can use the technology.
How Small Businesses In Africa Can Benefit From E-business:
Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.
Group Action:
Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, a
Imagine there are three fishing nets in front of you. The first one is full of business cards you collected during a networking event. The next one has no cards because you spent all your networking time giving away your own cards. The final net has a few business cards and written on them are times and dates for mutually agreed-upon follow up phone calls.Which networking style is your favorite? Each approach seems to have a benefit. If you collect lots of cards, you can add those people to your database and mailing list. If you give your card to everyone, you are fulfilling the axiom that ‘it’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.’ If you exchange cards with a few people and make plans to follow-up, there is a chance that you could do business together.What if you suddenly realized that what is important is the net itself? Look at a net. Small, light weight fibers are connected together and those are connected to other sm
Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple information websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.
Group Action:
Business associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, and NGOs in Africa can bridge the economy of scale on the technology required for e-business by setting up online malls showcasing a pool of their members’ sites, products and services. Through the online mall people in the Diaspora may order local goods for friends or family. These associations can also help to guarantee the quality of products advertised on the site, as well as the credibility of its members to ensure fraudulent people do not seize the opportunity. Only certified members and certified products will make it on the site. ‘Ghana Mall’, for instance, sells goods made by Ghanaian artisans internationally. It also rakes in some $500 million a year in goods and cash that are sent to the country from abroad. Funds to develop such malls can be sort as grants from multilateral agencies as the World Bank Group’s Small and Medium Enterprise Department.
Payment:
No doubt, credit card acceptance is the heart of e-commerce, but technological hindrances and doing business in local currency can drive up transaction costs. There are rules and protocols to gain access to international card association systems, which currently do not favor African countries. The amounts of online transactions originating from most African countries hardly meet the rules required by the international card associations. So there must be a way around it. Therefore, banks in Africa need to establish special ‘Merchant Accounts’ for small businesses to enable them accept secured payments in foreign currencies processed in the same way as credit cards. Online payments will still have to go through SWIFT, encryptions, or other secured sites, as PayPal to ensure adequate security.
Shipping:
Most national and international courier services are currently equipped to handle shipping to any location in the world. Business organizations can enter into partnership agreements with these postal and shipping agencies to either enjoy special shipping rates or develop more efficient shipping methods that can guarantee delivery. In addition, the Customs department should make available list of prohibited items, duties and fees to the business organizations. One workable model is to post their personnel at the post offices to facilitate the inspection of goods.
Government’s Role
As a private-sector crusader, I dislike prescribing any solution that will depend on governments. But E-commerce requires vendor credibility. Apart from technology, the greatest impedimen
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