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In the early 2000s, online retail threatened the "bricks and mortar" stores with extinction. The talk was of being “Amazoned,” meaning Amazon.com would add your product line to its ever-expanding inventory and render you redundant.A lot changes in 15 years -- and equally, a lot does not change. Bricks and mortar retail extinction has been overstated and the concept of substitution of certain physical channels has given way to providing a complimentary experience that blends the digital and real world ...
Expanding into Africa? Many growing companies are and when they do so, the first real tests of their enterprise resource planning solutions start to take place. Among those tests is the ability for the system to work in multiple currencies, across different time zones and in areas where connectivity just isn’t all that great. And there is one more major test, too – language. That’s because an ERP system which is able to ‘speak’ to the user in their preferred ...
Built in Africa focuses on entrepreneurs, startups and technologies that are affecting the continent and empowering African people.About 12 years ago, I made my final trek through the dreaded world of high school, I crammed everything I possibly could, retaining what my brain would allow in order to cement my future and ticking off that box in my education journey. High school only seems easy when you have left.The education system in Africa isn't where it ought to be. If ...
Mention legal risk to an SME business owner and you can literally see them cringe. While the perceived challenge of legal and compliance issues can seem overwhelming for a business owner, it is the unseen legal risks that can rapidly destroy a business.Often those risks come from where you least expect them – your own shareholders and team. With risk management being a critical part of effective governance, legal risk should be a key focus area for any SME.Read ...
Seventeenth century English coffee-houses, to quote Steven Johnson, were places where people "would get together from different fields of expertise and their ideas could have sex. This was their conjugal bed in a sense."This concept is usually used as a popular model for modern co-working spaces: engineering serendipity. At least that’s the case with Twenty Fifty, a popular up-and-coming co-working and networking clubhouse for startups and freelancers in Cape Town, South Africa.Read more on Ventureburn.
Right now, the energy industry in sub-Saharan Africa is at a crossroads. Faced with booming demand from a growing industrial sector, urbanisation and an impatient consumer base, the region’s energy utilities must deal with a unique set of challenges that can ultimately drive away both local and foreign investment and affect entire economies if they are not overcome.We’re all too familiar with some of these challenges: ageing infrastructure that breaks down at inconvenient times; the need to optimise assets; the ...
Built in Africa focuses on entrepreneurs, startups and technologies that are affecting the continent and empowering African people.Non-profits are important and harnessing the power of a community to power a business is key in building ecosystems. Empowering Africa's youth and training them with the right tools for the 21st century is also important. In this, the third installment of our “Built in Africa” series, we feature Olivia Mukam, a self-professed "solutioneur" from Cameroon, her community and youth driven NGO and ...
For the South African government to achieve its goal of creating five million jobs over ten years, the SME sector would need to grow by a staggering 40%. Pravin Gordhan, the Minister of Finance, emphasised the importance of SMEs in achieving this goal by stating that “about 70% of private employment is in firms with fewer than 50 workers”. This supports what we have always known about the SME sector: it has a critical role in supporting economic and social ...
Big match temperament is a prerequisite for entrepreneurship.As an entrepreneur you have to make big decisions on a daily basis that impact various aspects of your company. ‘Going with your gut’ is great for intuitive leadership and direction for your business, but when it comes to financial decision-making when steering your business, making sure that you have thoroughly thought through all the implications of a big decision greatly increases your chances of it being the right one.Read more on Ventureburn.
The concept of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) is one of those terms which has ruled the headlines over the last few years. These flying machines, also known as drones, have captured the imagination of Silicon Valley geeks and anti-NSA activists paranoid about their privacy, and caused the US military some controversy.Fitted with a camera such as a GoPro, commercial examples of media innovation include the ability to get top-view shots of chaotic protests. More lighter, friendlier examples include capturing monkeys ...
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