I was born in Europe \u2013 Scotland actually, but now I\u2019m a South African living in Johannesburg. As an inhabitant of Africa, I would like to clear<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
up a misconception that I come across fairly often: mainland Africa is a continent of 54 countries \u2013 it’s not one country, despite many Euro\/US neighbors still referring to the country Africa \u2013 you know “we’re gonna Africa next week”, not Kenya, Ghana or DRC.<\/p>\n
This confusion can still work in our favor by creating leapfrog opportunities for locals who have superior Africa-effective knowledge of business. As selectors, sellers, implementers and users of ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, be it South Africa, Rwanda, or Cameroon, this impacts the way we operate, extract value and apply IT to our businesses.<\/p>\n
Developing Skills<\/strong><\/p>\n The workforce in Africa is cheaper than our colleagues in, for example, Germany, UK, and California (oh that isn’t a country!). Hence production, logistics and admin functions in Africa regularly use more people performing operations plus more transactions than foreign competitors. Yes, we automate but, due to technology costs plus social responsibility to employ our population, we don’t tech-invest as much but rather develop people and user skills.<\/p>\n Thirdly, our processes are often simpler to achieve the effectiveness we need with less \u201cbig-brother\u201d controls. ERP in Africa enables users with broader spans-of-control with leaner data-capture. These users need less cluttered screens, more bang per transaction and faster\/easier to use ERP software.<\/p>\n Too many options actually complicate and slow business execution \u2013 with the excuse that it forces control. SYSPRO focuses on enabling people and combines more of their skill with relevant system efficiencies. This breeds and grows innovation instead of stifling it \u2013 and helps develop nations.<\/p>\n Finally, we still need business insight \u2013 the important gems in a clean and sensible way. Too many developed-country people seek too deep \u201cthe GP spread of a Mars Bar sold in 2 million global retail outlets.\u201d Why? Africa local insights are often far more important than global stats produced just because we can.<\/p>\n When Livingston and others “discovered Africa\u201d the countries were already here and working \u2013 maybe differently but still with people surviving and growing before old-world “assistance”.\u00a0 And it’s still the case. We are here and don’t need to be discovered. African countries have large populations developing different ways of achieving results Developed Nations haven’t even tried.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t Over Automate<\/strong><\/p>\n Don’t dumb down work with over-automation and IT applications reducing the number of employed. Rather release and broaden the innate skills that people have, motivating through empowering and enabling appropriately with IT like ERP \u2013 remember Process, People, and then Technology. Just use more people-sense and simplify with technology to get effective and growing economies.\u00a0 Maybe we can then help \u201cdiscover\u201d Developed Nations and teach them how to do it.<\/p>\n In Africa we simplify success with ERP, enabling people to develop more, instead of complicating for failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>I was born in Europe \u2013 Scotland actually, but now I\u2019m a South African living in Johannesburg. As an inhabitant of Africa, I would like to clear<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":7022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-planning-for-erp-or-purchasing-erp"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n