Digital transformation and the productivity problem in Africa

Over the past decade, Africa has achieved an economic growth rate of over 5 percent, according to the World Economic Forum.

However, consistent growth rates have not yet impacted large parts of the African population. Many African people continue to live in poverty and income inequality in the region remains among the highest in the world.

Furthermore, productivity levels across the agricultural, manufacturing, telecommunications and utilities sectors remain low. African economies urgently need to make more productive use of their workforces to sustain economic growth, create quality employment, and turn this progress into sustainable and inclusive growth.

The question then arises, what is hindering productivity in Africa?

The right tool for the right job

Businesses that embrace technology grow twice as fast. However, not all productivity tools are created equal. Some are better suited for certain tasks than others, and different employees will need different tools, devices or apps to get work done efficiently.

Office 365 is a great example of a simple and affordable tool that gives employees the freedom to work when, where and how they need to – on their favourite devices. Among a host of other great features, Office 365 makes meetings easier to set up while allowing for easy sharing of desktops, annotation of presentations and recording of meetings.

Forrester recently conducted a Total Economic Impact™ study to examine the potential return on investment (ROI) small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) may realise by deploying Office 365. Besides experiencing a 152 percent ROI, a 13 percent increase in efficiency when conducting meetings and a 13.5 percent reduction in time spent making informed decisions, the organisations also reported other benefits to their business. These include reduced costs on IT expenditure, less time spent travelling to meetings and improved collaboration both online and offline.

Empowering people to reach new levels of productivity

Organisations have an opportunity to improve productivity by modernising the ways people collaborate and share information using technology. Technology is a key enabler in facilitating the evolution of productivity by providing seamless, always available services that allow people to leverage new processes and collaboration techniques. Business owners are increasingly realising that reaping the full business value from their digital transformation efforts, requires them to use these technologies while also driving transformation of their company culture.

Understanding collaboration and productivity technology

While procuring the right technology is an important step in the right direction, implementing these tools effectively across any organisation is vital to reaping the benefits these new ways of working bring.It’s equally important that software providers produce software that’s easy to understand. Microsoft has recently made some improvements to the Office 365 administration experience to ensure this is the case.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and productivity for the future 

As we head deeper into the 21st century, we must be cognisant of how the future workforce want to work. I expect we’ll see artificial intelligence dramatically boosting economic growth and productivity.

Office 365 already has some built-in AI features to automate many tasks. For example PowerPoint and Sway have a QuickStarter functionality that prepares a curated outline in response to a topic chosen by the user. Excel can turn raw geographic data into maps powered by Microsoft’s Bing service, and Microsoft MyAnalyticsis another feature with inbuilt AI that lets you track your personal productivity.

AttillaSzenvedi, Applications & Services Business Group Director, MEA