Why does a dog wag its tail?

Because it's smarter than its tail

If the tail were smarter, it would wag the dog.

Substitute sub-Saharan Africa for Dog, and ICT for the tail, and you kinda get a  picture of where I’m going with this:

What will ICT do for us in SSA? How many ways can we usefully deploy the myriad of ICT-associated killer apps in day to day SSA life without losing our shirts?

SSA telecom/ICT buzz seems to be centered all around stretching teledensity rates; placing a mobile phone in the hot little hands of Sub-Saharan Africans.

Coverage on corporate ICT consumption, on the other hand, is acutely under whelming; psheeaw ICT in SSA is not all about mobile phones! Most private sector operatives were quick to embrace the emerging SSA telecom revolution -- a welcome relief after prolonged anguish of grossly pathetic State-provided telecom services, just like they also shield themselves from unreliable state provided power supply by running their own private power generators, on their own private gasoline/diesel fuel expense, and just like they shield themselves from unreliable water supply by sinking their own wells and boreholes, etc., a sneak peek at the World Bank's “Doing Business” report, which ranks sub-Saharan Africa as one of the most difficult places to do business in the world.

The arrival of new telecom technologies, along with encouraging gestures from different SSA Governments such as; deregulation, privatization, etc., of telecom sectors, along with increased provider competition, all yielding telecom service costs reduction, thus paving the way for the next level of ICT uptake in SSA corporate operations/functions. The next level will be characterized by increased automation of organizational data and work processes -- regardless of industry taxonomy: logistics, financial, manufacturing, etc. Labor/skill requirements will become more sophisticated and Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and Customer relationship Management (CRM) systems gain ground. (See a Bridges.org sampler on a rudimentary CRM system in South African health sector here.)

A whole new set of challenges come on the heels of this imminent paradigm shift; SSA Governments have to quickly evolve more befitting ICT policies to guide corporate usage, regulate and/or standardize digital SLAs or service offerings. It may not be immediately obvious why, but corporate consumers also need to ensure the service offerings line up with their operations just as much as they strive to enforce compliance with regulations. (See Draft Report for the CIPESA-CIPACO Online Discussion on IPR in Africa.)

Granted the biggest SSA companies are often satellites of US or EU-based multi-nationals, and as such tied into the parent company intranets and IT framework -- tools, applications, procedures, statutes, etc., they retain a certain degree of (ICT) infrastructural independence as well as statutory sovereignty -- by virtue of physical location. CIO functions however, remain the same; implementing the best IT applications to boost efficiency at the lowest possible cost.

As SSA continues to woo outsourcing service markets (India's filet mignon), and laud the virtues of industrialization in SSA, we are essentially ushering in the next phase of the corporate SSA digital experience; unleashing an epoch of advanced, custom-packaged ICT systems. Enonchong's success story may help dispel any clouds of prevarication to this allusion.

Enonchong's success is a little bit more than an "early bird serendipity", it's more like "early adopter plucking low hanging fruits" in a mostly tech-maverick territory. The ERP/CRM markets in SSA are dominated by foreign players; the Oracles, SAPs, IBMs, Microsofts, etc., who pretty much handle end-to-end implementation; feasibility consulting, installation, tweaking/customizing, support, etc.,  there's very little indigenous (SSA) presence in these hallowed precincts. (Hint: IBM now owns PWC consulting.)

South Africa is most ICT developed in the entire sub-region, with the highest degree of ICT uptake, and hence, home to a lot of the afore-mentioned Enterprise ICT providers. (What's interesting in South Africa is that the biggest ICT user is the government -- See Bridges.org FOSS coverage.) The nascent telecom revolution sweeping across SSA is mostly driven by South Africa based providers, and in all likelihood, the next phase of SSA digitalization, the ERP/CRM systems era, will acquire and build momentum from South Africa as well.

As the SSA ERP/CRM markets gradually put down roots, we expect more indigenous participation, as well as emergence of other specialized support functions -- for instance, dedicated consumption/expense management processes as in this techspend report (Register free to read), where a couple of US companies, via dedicated telecom spend management, slashed telecom expenses up to 50% or more -- impressive CIO footwork, you'd say? Agreed, but classical cost cutting moves like this in SSA may not be so cut and dried. For instance, an automated office data management process may not necessarily come in cheaper than human labor -- for one; harsh SSA "doing business" conditions like scarce maintenance skills, risk of damage by irregular power supply (not covered by manufacturer warranties of course), etc., and on the other hand; the age old SSA political-sentimental argument: "why keep giving away money for western equipment when you can provide more jobs for people via manual processes for almost same cost?"

A few years ago I got into a conversation with the CEO of AlternateAccess, Kelly Lumpkin, he had been chasing opportunities to implement his "converged communication" systems in parts of SSA, but SSA had presented a unique set of challenges. His proposed set up, like most IT tools, aimed to supplant human labor/man hours -- based on the western ideal of minimizing costs via cutting down expensive human labor, but SSA with an over-abundance of cheap human labor upsets this classical western ideal. You could literally retain human messengers in SSA for same price as an automated office messaging system/ICT device, and gain local goodwill as well, for being an employment provider.

No hard conclusions here though, just saying the cost benefit analysis of going with an automated ICT process versus human labor in SSA, takes on more eclectic hues.