Building the foundation for e-business in Africa

B2BAfrica, Transnet`s e-business subsidiary, has announced its participation in the national e-business initiatives under the auspices of NEPAD as major sponsor of the eAfrica Conference to be held at Caesars Gauteng between 28 and 31 October.

SA has three main focus areas under NEPAD - trade, finance and governance - and the development of skills and standards for these are the foundation for broader e-business enablement in Africa.

B2BAfrica`s scaleable e-business solutions will assist companies and governments throughout Africa in providing better supply chain management and improve export and import performance, the cornerstones of trade and industry in Africa in terms of creating a borderless trade environment.

Explained B2BAfrica CEO Nobusi Shikwane: "Our e-business platform is based on a secure Web environment and will provide governments and companies with the necessary solutions to enhance their e-governance capabilities. The advent of the Internet as a pervasive, relatively inexpensive business infrastructure makes it possible to build these integrated, automated platforms that give companies and governments a single point of control, enforce policies, business rules and regulation compliance therefore creating an effective audit trail, and minimising risk. These solid, scaleable integration platforms are geared for interconnectivity with other e-business platforms - creating an environment for true collaboration.

"The international debate and several United Nations documents, such as the United Nations Millennium Declaration, have highlighted the centrality and importance of `good governance` for sustainable development, confirming the global community`s readiness to support Africa`s efforts to address the continent`s underdevelopment and marginalisation," explained Shikwane.

"It also pointed out the global community`s commitment to enhance resource flows to Africa, by improving aid, trade and debt relationships with the rest of the world, and by increasing the private capitals directed towards the continent.

"The importance of strengthening the political and administrative frameworks for the efficient and responsible governance in African countries has been recognised as the key component of sustainable development," she added.

"E-governance programmes therefore constitute a core component of any service delivery improvement programme. This is seen as the continuous optimisation of government service delivery, constituency participation and governance by transforming internal and external relationships through technology, the Internet and new media," noted Shikwane.

This interoperability framework proposes an infrastructure that will allow, among others, Internet transaction, browser-enabled services, Internet-oriented services and improved back-office activities. Portals that are crucial to e-government service delivery include government-to-government (G2G), government-to-citizen (G2C) and government-to-business (G2B).

We foresee the development of many such public/private portals across Africa creating a borderless communication and trade network when the basic e-business infrastructure is put in place.

Shikwane said effective supply chain management throughout Africa is a strategic issue as the cost of logistics remains high in comparison with global standards - a dire need for improvement. "In many parts of Africa, logistics cost approximately 18% and upwards of GDP, as compared to 10% in the EU and US. Analysis of the logistics domain points to a lack of service predictability, and inability to pre-determine demand from freight owners for advanced planning of logistics services - all related to the absence of shared planning and execution systems," explained Shikwane.

This leads to excess inventory and increased working capital requirements for both freight owners and logistics service providers. The majority of the freight owners are also geographically concentrated, requiring transport from dense industrial locations to local and global destinations - often causing bottlenecks at ports. Relatively dense `corridors` feed these destinations.

These issues, combined with increased pressure for capacity and service performance from logistics companies, highlight the need for closer collaboration at a national level between freight owners, logistics service providers and even trade and industry around creating supply chain competitiveness. Collaboration on supply chain initiatives at a national and NEPAD levels seeks to improve the performance of the entire supply chain, not just shift margins between members - it creates understanding of the total cost of all components of the supply chain.

The first delivered e-business solutions from B2BAfrica is a robust eLogistics platform that provides logistics service providers and their customers with:

a. A Web-based communication platform for collaborative logistics planning and execution;
b. Visibility of freight movements across southern Africa;
c. The ability to prepare operational documentation: quick and easy;
d. Access to all users regardless of location;
e. Availability of the same strategic and common information to all role-players;
f. Process improvement to ensure efficiency;
g. Improved customer service; and
h. A secure environment for true collaboration.

Shikwane concludes: "B2BAfrica is a proudly African business and our vision is to collaborate in creating a trading platform that will make Africa competitive in international trade by incorporating all the elements that global trading partners require, from electronic payment and electronic presentment to online ordering and currency conversion. We see this transpiring through advocacy of e-business solutions as the foundation for collaboration and the creation of value through public/private sector partnerships with the least amount of effort and capital expenditure."

This vision isn`t a pipedream, either, for several reasons. First, there`s our relationship with Transnet, which already plays a central role in trade across the whole of Africa. Second, we already have the technologies, which are global technologies that we are tweaking to cater for African requirements. These include solid, scaleable integration platforms that are geared for interconnectivity with other platforms, which means that other players can participate without throwing away what they already have. Third, we believe strongly in collaboration - with competitors as well as partners - because open platforms are the only way that you can develop critical mass.

In short, we see ourselves as being in a good position to practically and realistically implement a trading platform that will support Africa`s overall competitiveness.