Africa's Platform and the Shared Economy

As African economies make efforts to compete with the rest of the world's economies, technological innovations are critical towards attaining inclusive development. Platforms remain one of the innovations that are shaping the growth trajectory of many African countries, and while they seem to offer diverse benefits and opportunities to leapfrog development, there are also attendant challenges that need to be addressed if African economies seek to maximize the opportunities of the platform and shared economy. This chapter provides insight into some of the benefits of the platform and shared economy and further argues that to address the challenges of the platform economy, there is need for evidence-based research. The chapter further proposes new research frontiers in the platform and shared economy that require immediate attention as first step to providing the required evidence for building a market enabling environment for Africa's platform and shared economy.

Platform Governance

This chapter focuses on governance-related issues in the platform economy. By providing contextual issues that affect how value is created and captured, the chapter highlights the need for governance in promoting fairness and equity in the distribution of value captured among platform stakeholders. It further explores the different dimensions of platform governance such as decision rights, control portfolio, architecture, and pricing policies. By recognizing the need to guard against market failure, the chapter discusses the rules, mechanisms, and tools for platform governance and concludes by drawing on corporate governance as a key consideration for driving platform governance.

Social Skepticism and Its Effect on Shared Economy

The new disruptive models of businesses are now making strangers meet strangers for economic and service benefits. This new shared economy system begs for a very pertinent question. Has human trust increased to that point where we can completely trust strangers? This chapter answered the above question within the African context while considering some case studies of failed start-ups that launched on shared economy models. This chapter also made some comparative analysis of some homegrown platforms that did not survive the valley of death in the Nigerian Innovation Ecosystem and successful similar foreign models imported into Africa. A definite opinion analysis through social scepticism lens was used in writing on gomyway.com, a Nigerian car-pooling start-up that failed after two years of operation. The chapter ended by making a strong case for models that dwarfs social scepticism to ensure the survival of the valley of death for platform entrepreneurship in Africa.

Platforms and Female Entrepreneurship in Africa

Africa leads the world in the number of women starting businesses, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Many experts, including the World Economic Forum and the World Bank, believe that the 21st century is Africa's century and that its economic future depends on the success of its female entrepreneurs. Technology entrepreneurship in Africa seems to be on the rise. In 2017, the annual Global Start-Up Ecosystem Report (GSER) ranked the Lagos start-up ecosystem as the most valuable in Africa. In May 2019, the same report by start-up Genome, which researches start-up ecosystems across the world and claims to have data on over one million companies across 150 cities, named Lagos one of 12 “challenger” start-up ecosystems. With the increasing focus on technology and female entrepreneurship in Nigeria, this chapter seeks to chronicle the birth and growth trajectory of two platform companies in Nigeria led by two female African entrepreneurs: Abimbola Adebakin, CEO of Advantage Health Africa, and Glory Enyinnaya, Lead Consultant of Kleos Africa.

Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance Issues in Platform Management

The egalitarian community of Africa is deeply immersed, and it can confront the negative emissions of evading super-platform activities on the development of indigenous platforms. The fantasy of the over half a billion mobile users by 2020 and the 521,614,944 internet users is too good a reality to plunge into dismay, and worse, to fertile economic misalignment and deny the growth of nearly 50% increase in the teeming youth of Africa by 2050. No government is in a position to create economic chaos; neither will any government throw away the digital age of opportunities and technological innovations. It is therefore plausible to uncover the missing pieces/puzzle in our legal, regulatory, and compliance management of platforms. In furtherance, this chapter provides a revolutionary discovery to foster a systemic transformation of innovative strategies compatible with the African environment towards solving the puzzle.

Business Intelligence-Driven Supply Chain Optimization in Emerging Markets

Organizations produce churns of complex, opaque, and meaningless data. Business intelligence systems (BIS) help organizations efficiently use their data in promptly making quality decisions. The limitations of conventional BIS in processing the volume, variety, and veracity of data available in organizations and the operational cost of maintaining its infrastructure gave rise to implementing Cloud BIS, which describes the deployment of BIS over the cloud platform enabling resource elasticity, moderate usage cost, unlimited resources, and offering greater value at a reduced cost than the traditional BIS. BIS aids a productive supply chain and given the complexities of Africa's supply chain and high volatility of its business environment, BIS over the cloud platform would be a great enabler. This chapter aims to provide an understanding of how BIS will transform supply chain management in Africa's emerging market.

Enhancing Africa's Agri-Value Chains Through Digital Platforms

Africa's food security may be at risk if food production does not increase, especially given that by 2023, African food market will more than triple in demand by moving from $300 billion to $1 trillion. However, country-specific interventions have not provided the desired impact towards guaranteeing food security. Across different agricultural value chains, wastages due to lack of access to markets, poor storage, lack of logistics, transport and power infrastructure, among several others. There is, however, the possibility of strengthening these value chains with the right technology deployment. This requires significant investment, which is most effective using collaborative stakeholder approach. The private sector has shown signs of resilience in investing in agriculture by finding the right business models such as digital platforms which are in themselves scalable businesses. Through an interrogative literature review and analysis of case studies, this chapter explores the role of digital platforms in enhancing diverse agricultural value chains across Africa.

Platform Economy Research in Africa

This chapter undertakes a systematic review of research publications as of July 2019 on the platform economy in the African context. The focus is to identify the dominant themes, frameworks, and methodological approaches used in those research works. The review also identified gaps from such studies for future research. Based on the selection criteria for inclusion, the chapter identified 16 relevant publications. The review reveals that a significant number of published studies are on South Africa. Also, most of the studies are without a theoretical framework and mostly qualitative, with few featuring quantitative and mixed methodologies. Considering the nascent nature of research on the platform economy, the findings of this chapter contribute to painting the landscape of this research area, especially in Africa, and provides stimulating insights for future research.

Africa's Platform and the Sharing Economy

Platforms are altering business processes and value creation mechanisms as previously witnessed across traditional pipe businesses. Africa has over 300 active digital platforms that serve millions of consumers across every sector of the economy – health, education, commerce, tourism and hospitality, government, information technology, and others. The rise of the platform economy has also popularised the concept of sharing, which has been with Africans for centuries. Through platforms, economic models have also evolved, allowing asset owners to monetize idle assets by offering these assets to those in need of them for a commercial fee using pay-as-you-use (PAYU) pricing models. This chapter serves as an introduction to the concept of platforms and the sharing economy while highlighting industry trends and opportunities that have been triggered by this innovative and disruptive business model.

Selected Dynamics Impacting Emerging Platform Design in Africa

This chapter explores the concept of platforms, which is not clearly defined in the IS literature. Platforms lead to changes in emerging markets, thus disrupting the logic of innovation, yet these platforms seem to be deepening various digital divides. There is an increasing awareness of digital platforms leading to disconnect and isolation in Africa and the creation of a Second Digital Divide. Platform emergence as IS phenomenon is inextricably linked to the design concepts of platform scaling and platform evolution. The design decisions deliberately made to facilitate scaling receives mention first, followed by a dissection of selected aspects of the emergence process that are externally dictated by changes in contexts, ecosystems, actors, or technologies. The positioning of emerging digital platform design within IS contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the impact that digital platforms design decisions may have on vulnerable African citizens with limited media, data, and digital literacy skills.