E-Business
How Businesses Can Leverage Jumia’s Ecosystem Model to Drive Business Growth
By Adeniyi Ogunfowoke,
Organisations are not established for charity purposes. Over time, they must grow and become profitable. As such, businesses are always searching for ways to boom. One of such ways that some organisations are yet to explore is the ecosystem model. Jumia, Africa’s only e-commerce unicorn has proven over the years that the ecosystem model works.
Jumia started out as an ecommerce startup where you can only order for household items. Presently, the business has gone beyond buying household items. Shoppers can now book hotels & flights, order food and even pay for their orders within the Jumia ecosystem. In fact, it has gotten to the extent there is now Jumia One where you can get almost every service you desire from paying for your subscription to recharging your phone and even reading the news. It is all about keeping the customers within the ecosystem.
Companies in the ecommerce sector that are not looking at adopting this model are either being sold off or liquidated. This said we shall discuss some of the ways the ecosystem model can boost business growth.
Higher chances of attracting investments
Investors are interested in companies that have a solid lifespan. So, when it comes to attracting investment from investors, it has a higher chance of attracting them. Importantly, not just any kind of investor but one that is ready to strive and dive with the business to ensure that it grows and become profitable.
Reduce costs
One of the ways to reduce cost is by adopting the ecosystem model. This is because when processes are efficient, they take less time to execute, can have fewer steps, and can make wasteful activities more obvious and therefore easier to eliminate. So, if you are offering products in different verticals, you will try as much as possible to guarantee quality and efficiency by preventing wastages and ensuring that the right numbers of people are doing the job.
Improve customer experience and revenue
Effective processes on the revenue side of the business drive sales success and improve pricing accuracy and product development. Structured processes mean you can measure and understand what customers want and create a consistently excellent customer experience that the salespeople can use to sell and retain customers. This allows sales managers to actively manage the sales process without clashing with other verticals, improve sell-through rates and control pricing and discounts.
Reduce risk
The risk of running a business ecosystem is reasonably low as long as you have the right people running the different verticals. Simply, ensure that there is a clear line of reporting as well as check and balance. Since rigorous processes make it easier to identify root causes, they reduce the risk of issues existing in your operations for very long.
Make the business easier to manage
Over time, an ecosystem model will become very easy to manage. This is because processes can now be measured and this means that you can put those processes into systems, measure them and know their outputs without needing to directly observe them. This means that good processes allow executives and managers to manage the business without needing to be involved with every operational detail.
Visa, global payment services giant, has announced plans to establish a data centre infrastructure in Nigeria.
Andrew Torre, Visa’s regional president for central and eastern Europe and Vice-President Kashim Shettima
According to a statement by Stanley Nkwocha, senior special assistant to the president on media and communications (office of the vice-president) on Friday, Andrew Torre, Visa’s regional president for central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, spoke during a courtesy visit to Vice-President Kashim Shettima at the presidential villa in Abuja.
“This is in addition to its investments of over $1 billion in the country, including a substantial technological partnership with @moniepoint to foster digital payment solutions, a $200 million investment in Interswitch, and a partnership with @thriveagric to empower smallholder farmers and enhance food security in Nigeria,” the statement reads.
During the meeting, Torre said the plan to establish the data centre infrastructure aims to bring new technologies into the Nigerian market that would bolster the nation’s growing digital economy.
“Visa has been making investments and will continue to make these investments in Nigeria,” he said.
Responding, Shettima welcomed Visa’s expansion efforts, assuring the delegation that the partnership between Visa and the Nigerian government would continue to flourish.
The vice-president commended the company for investing in ThriveAgric, noting that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is deeply committed to repositioning the agriculture sector, which remains a top priority in its 8-point agenda.
“Nigeria is where the action is. Of the 10 fintechs in Africa, about eight are in Nigeria, with moniepoint as the newest addition,” Shettima said.
“Agriculture is key to the 8-point agenda of the present administration. President @officialABAT is really keen on repositioning the agriculture industry here, and we have to invest in technology, we have to invest in modernisation.”
On January 23, Moniepoint, a Nigerian fintech company, announced it secured investment from Visa to support the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Andrew Torre, Visa’s regional president for central and eastern Europe and Vice-President Kashim Shettima
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has approved N242.8m for the procurement of a Microsoft 365 licence for its Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS) as part of efforts to digitise the service’s operations.
Mr Michael Ango, acting executive chairman of FCT-IRS, disclosed this after the FCT Executive Committee meeting chaired by Mr Nyesom Wike, the minister of FCTA, in Abuja on Wednesday.
Ango said that the FCTA was making significant investments in technology to enhance revenue generation and collection.
“So, this is also one of those investments in technology that the FCT is undertaking.
“The licence, if procured, will enhance our ability to move most of our manual processes into automated processes.
“It will enhance our ability to communicate within our offices,” he said.
The executive chairman added that the move would also reduce the use of paper and ensure better record-keeping through the storage of information and documents in the cloud.
According to him, “The licence will essentially enhance our operations and assist us in generating revenue for the development of the FCT under Wike’s leadership.”
Rack Centre, West Africa’s Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data centre, has welcomed Olla Cloud Service, a new private cloud service by Olla Systems Limited, a leading provider of innovative technology solutions, to its facility.
Hosting at Rack Centre, Olla Cloud Service runs on a state-of-the-art, cloud-enabled infrastructure for enterprise applications across diverse platforms, including mission critical application, web applications as well as containerised applications using Kubernetes.
Lars Johannisson, CEO, Rack Centre, welcoming Olla Systems, noted that the partnership with Olla Systems Limited would reflect the company’s commitment to providing African businesses with high- quality cloud computing services.
He noted that Olla Systems would enjoy Rack Centre’s 13.5MW data centre campus facility, designed to meet the highest international standards and offering scalable solutions to Hyperscalers, Enterprises, and Cloud service providers.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, the facility is equipped with energy-efficient systems, advanced cooling technologies to mitigate environmental impact and an optimally-designed feature to handle high-density workloads with precision.
According to Johannisson, “With Olla Cloud Service hosting at Rack Centre, clients will experience fast performance and low latency, enabling businesses in Africa to access world-class cloud computing services within a secure and compliant local infrastructure.”
Also speaking, Olusola Adenuga, chief executive officer, Olla Systems Limited, expressed enthusiasm about hosting at Rack Centre, noting that Olla Cloud remains a groundbreaking private cloud solution for businesses.
While highlighting the benefits of the partnership between Rack Centre and Olla Systems, Adenuga disclosed that “subscribing to Olla Cloud Service is cost-effective to customers because of its local currency payment advantage.”
She also noted that the partnership between the duo, provides businesses the opportunity to meet regulatory requirements of data residency, while enjoying world-class infrastructure as a service (IaaS) locally.
“Other benefits of hosting with Olla Cloud include: 24/7 support, unparalleled performance, scalability and agility.” she added.
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