Innovation and Agility in the Digital Age: Africa, the World's Laboratories of Tomorrow

By Soufyane Frimousse

Africa is a laboratory for managerial and societal innovations built out of pragmatic arrangements. Some African companies offer products and services that go beyond the standard practices of their international counterparts, based on original and inventive managerial characteristics. Such success stories outline a new model of management and innovation for companies in the digital era.

The African innovations that have emerged over the past ten years are directly linked to a managerial model that perfectly meets the demands of the digital era. These new organizations indicate that good managerial practices and innovation models also come from the Global South and no longer exclusively from the East Coast of the United States. Understanding these dynamics is of great theoretical and practical interest for the many companies struggling to seize the opportunities for growth in Africa.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Mar 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781119597643

Book preview

Foreword

Simply mentioning Africa as a reference in a particular model often involves a notorious misunderstanding of a continent whose land mass is larger than that of the United States, Oceania and Europe put together, whose number of languages is probably greater than 50,000 and whose cultural origins are among the most complex. We often hear Africans are this or that, and quite often it is a coarse approximation of an infinitely more subtle reality.

However, what remains common to the African continent, without a doubt, is a lag in development compared to the rest of the world, generally described as a permanent stain whose effects continuously reappear in economic matters, in human development and in social, environmental and educational matters.

It seems to me that the real difficulty is in moving away from a given context to try to draw out long-term perspectives, without necessarily relying on identified trends, but trying to identify a few weak signals which might constitute overdetermining factors in the medium term. In this regard, there is no doubt that development in Africa must experiment with new pathways, if only because current dynamics paint a picture of a continent with different characteristics: Africa will thus, like Asia, be more than others a continent of megacities, city-states whose populations will be higher than 10 million inhabitants.

The UNDP thus predicts that Africa will host no less than 18 of these (out of a total of 70 by 2050). Concerning energy, Africa could well be one of the first continents to implement smartgrids on a large scale (Huawei is currently carrying out several experiments with these technologies in Addis-Ababa, Cairo and Nairobi), technologies in which much hope is placed to bring about a new model of electrical energy. Finally, as for flows of technology and skills, the traditional North–South axis could quickly be challenged by a South–East axis, as not only China (with its immense One Belt One Road initiative), but now also India seem willing to develop long-term partnerships with many countries.

Yet, these three trends are only rarely emphasized by the media when Africa is discussed. However, they will inevitably lead to the emergence of a model of development which, several decades from now, will be considered very different from what is observed in the West.

Consider also Korea or Japan, two countries who were not spared in the memoirs of General MacArthur: reading them shows how much the general thought them incapable of developing, particularly Korea. However, not only has their expansion been remarkable (South Korea was poorer than Mali from then until 1960), but it has involved creating their own technological and especially managerial culture.

To bet that Africa might become a model for innovation and management seems very daring at first sight. Few observers would risk such predictions. As Soufyane Frimousse emphasizes in this work, the African model of management – as we perceive it – is too often one of the worst caricatures of the Western command and control type of model, inherited from the mills and forges of the 19th Century, which we never cease to try to eradicate in our own latitudes.

However, this is to ignore vast social spaces, those of the family, those of village circles and those of the informal economy, whose organizational capacities are remarkable in more than one way. If these are not expressed in the productive base it is because the technologies, carefully imported from the West, have not been disassociated from the managerial cultures which came with them. Quite often, African management has given up on its model of interaction and consultation, faced with technologyʼs potential for intimidation. We might speak of the magical intimidation of technology; the technological supernatural representing a transcendent factor, situated above humanity and imposing itself on all. This is not a negligible factor: it was through taking account of a technological breakthrough – the atomic bomb – above and beyond everything known at the time, that the Empire of Japan and its emperor surrendered, as fanaticized as they were by the messianic nature of their war.

Although many decades ago, anthropologists identified the factors which have, in many regions of Eastern as well as Western Africa, given rise to significant social sophistication and harmony, rare are those who have risked translating this into the world of business. Yet, several factors are actually in the process of creating a new model, in Africa.

The first of them is leaving the neo-colonial era behind: in many countries, particularly Francophone ones, the former master is still an economic, technical, social and political reference from the very fact of maintaining the links which were created over centuries. However, though these links remain important, they are increasingly less determining or dominant.

The second consists of the emergence of a global digital culture: managerial reference points have been overwhelmed in the West as in Africa by the emergence of a culture based on open-source, collaboration, proceeding by iteration or building to fail, so-called agile processes, etc. Now, this culture is particularly powerful and acts like a wave against an aging dike: it washes it away, allowing the reappearance of local cultural characteristics which had been buried but never quite disappeared.

The third consists of the nature of African innovation. Inspired by massive necessity more than by industrial sophistication, constructed mainly outside of traditional scientific laboratories, African innovation is profoundly "jugaad", to take up the concept promoted by Navi Radjou. In a digital world dominated by the GAFAM companies and in a region where political, judicial and economic institutions are often unstable, it has developed rapidly and on a large scale, bringing forth a unique and diversified model.

These three factors, non-exclusive of the others mentioned in Soufyane Frimousseʼs work, are not negligible. Whoever has the opportunity to meet African entrepreneurs, particularly in the digital field, can see that the time for condescension is gone. Organizational models, business models and techniques emerge and develop effectively: mobile currencies (M-Pesa) and their associated services (M-Kopa for payments for solar electricity); renewable energy (the municipality of Kampala has just put out a call for tenders to reduce its energy consumption to 0% gas and carbon emissions) and open and collaborative services for trash collection (ArClean); medical tools for access to diagnosis and care (CardioPad); applications for checking agricultural prices (M-Farm); popular social networks (Mxit) and so on. Solutions imagined and designed by individuals, entrepreneurs, students, researchers, scientists or artists may sustainably inspire the rest of the globe.

The entrepreneurial energies unleashed by the African economic boom should be sustained, improved and supported so as to participate in the invention – even the re-enchantment – of the world of tomorrow. If we must globalize African innovation, we must also Africanize global innovation to instill a digital vision which is more inclusive, sustainable, creative and useful.

Although Western societies are currently remarkably efficient, they remain confronted with complex challenges: how to maintain technological and innovative leadership with a population whose aging is accelerating? How can we conceive of sustainability in a model which only tolerates reformist policies with difficulty, and breaking with models even less? These questions are not insignificant. The study of history shows two impressive constants: the first is that nations have always neglected the factors that have led to their marginalization. Thus, the Chinese empire was excessively welcoming to the British and Dutch who arrived to open trade offices and free ports, without realizing that the economic power of these merchants was powerfully defended by military power that would not hesitate to impose its conditions on the Qing dynasty after the Opium Wars. The French empire did not understand that the British financial model, its legal stability, offered greater potential for development and thus a larger capacity for territorial expansion, and so on.

The second is that models of innovations are systematically condemned when they appear. From the Jacquard loom, to Fordist organization, to Toyotism, to the Internet revolution, these have all been the object of critiques almost always coming from the most orthodox representatives of a generally dominant model. Here, too, new tendencies are not generally detected. However, if we watch what is happening in Africa, we can only observe that the coming generation is beginning to assert its vision, a mixture of an assumed expression of the principles of consultation belonging to ancestral cultures, a mastery of technological principles and the cultural models that this entails, a capacity to take large risks and a desire to self-emancipate from known frameworks. These are some of the factors which underpin the managerial and innovation culture of Africa and, probably, of the world to come.

Gilles BABINET

Digital Entrepreneur.

Digital Champion of France at the European Commission.

Vice-President of the National Digital Council of France.

Introduction

Contemporary managerial reality is based largely on a universalist logic. This vision rests on the convergence of organizations towards a single and universal management model proclaimed to be the one best way. This involves Fayol’s famous planning, organizing, commanding and controlling and its multiple derivatives, which are based on the Taylorist and Fordist models that we can sum up in the formula command, control and execute.

This prototypical model of traditional business is called into question in current and future contexts. In fact, the percentage of employees who feel disengaged from business never ceases to rise. According to a Capgemini study in 2014¹, the figure has risen to 40%. According to a study by Gallup², the score is 80%. These figures lead us to question the foundations and practices of organizational management.

In fact, among Fayol’s principles, it is command and control that are strongly challenged in their application. With the major principles remaining stable in their broad lines over a century, new models of management must innovate in every dimension while particularly taking account of developments in society, themselves accelerated by the digital revolution. These upheavals have provoked many organizations to question their mode of management, moving from a traditional pyramidal organization to an agile structure. It is now necessary to have employees who are reactive and autonomous and who possess adaptive capacities.

In this context, new modes of organization emerge, copying startups in giving more freedom of action to everyone and engaging with employees in a more personalized way. Within the well-known models of the GAFA companies (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon), their Chinese equivalents, the BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi) and the NATU companies (Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla and Uber), management is now horizontal, organized into small groups with strong autonomy.

These companies which have become giants have freed themselves from most classical organizational management practices to adopt others, issuing from the digital revolution. Agility and disruptive innovation have become the key dimensions here. All these are found at the heart of many African and Mediterranean cultures and enterprises, which now explains why multiple innovations originating from Africa are beginning to be internationally exported, part of the beginning of the globalization of Africa.

Africa is a unit at the level of the African Union. It is a giant continent. In contrast, there are plural Africas at the level of geography, history, economy, culture and political situations.

At the managerial level, African and (southern shore) Mediterranean firms are often cited as examples not to follow. In a large proportion of the managerial literature, methods and practices deriving from the African continent and the southern shore of the Mediterranean are ignored or considered to be archaic or quaint. From these descriptions, we get the image of an Africa condemned to marginalization. Our work is opposed to this simplistic vision. We believe that the African innovations which have emerged over the past ten years are directly linked with a managerial model which responds perfectly to the digital era.

Following on from the lines of research of George et al. (2016) on the specificities of management in Africa, our work thus has the goal of grasping and describing the methods and processes which allow transformations to succeed and promote innovative and agile behaviors which are likely to create value for firms and their stakeholders while improving their competitiveness. We follow the recommendations of Zoogah et al. (2015), who encourage researchers to develop an understanding of African organizational dynamics, which call for appropriate theoretical and empirical approaches to improve knowledge.

These advances are also potentially useful and rich in learning opportunities for non-African organizations and research.

Innovation is not creativity. Being creative means having ideas. Being innovative means putting these ideas to work. Creativity involves reflection, while innovation involves action. As creativity belongs in the domain of psychology, it may be encouraged by various techniques such as brainstorming. Conversely, innovation belongs in the domain of management. It involves moving into action, ensuring that new ideas are not killed by the organization, its routines, its budgetary constraints and its power struggles, and that they find their way to the market. If creativity generally has a cost, only innovation is likely to make a profit.

Practices which qualify as innovative originate from firms, leaders, entrepreneurs and citizens. They are the result of exchanges between people and of experiments. Innovation in management includes innovation in organizing people, in managing systems, communication, social relations and the organization of work. Managerial innovation is an approach which may allow firms to develop and sustain their activities. Managerial innovation is based on: the capacity to differentiate oneself from competitors; the capacity to promote agile behaviors so as to adapt to changes; and the capacity to attract and retain engaged and passionate employees. Managerial innovation consists of responding to many challenges: the development of agility; the enhancement of pleasure and well-being at work; the improvement of collaboration, cohesion and collective intelligence; the establishment of relations based on trust; the stimulation of innovative behaviors; and the improvement of engagement and loyalty.

Africa is a reservoir of technological, managerial and societal innovations. In Africa, technology is not a gimmick. It responds to vital necessity. Here, we encounter jugaad, the art of innovation with limited resources proper to emergent nations of which the Indian Navi Radjou has become the guru. Africa has jugaad in its DNA, with its very collective functioning and the art of doing more with less. Innovations are rooted in territories.

In his book Post-Capitalist Society, Peter Drucker (1993) describes the influence of major developments in the economy and society since the Middle Ages on the models of organizations. Based on this perspective, this book presents the managerial developments that emerged in organizations after the anthropological revolution and the acceleration of digitalization that is closely connected. These revolutions are discussed and analyzed.

The key dimensions of new forms of organization (structures, methods of work, etc.) and innovation underlying the digital revolution within the most innovative organizations in the world are presented.

Developments involve the impacts of digital technology on some organizations in Africa, which have led them to rethink their organizational and innovation models. In fact, some African firms offer products and services which are more than just copies of their international counterparts. These organizations are based on real managerial characteristics, including frugality.

Do these made in Africa success stories not draw the outlines of a new model of management and innovation for firms in the digital era?

Our reflections are based on the cultural, economic and managerial dimensions of the Africas and of the Mediterranean world, inserting them into a historical, geo-strategic and socio-political framework. With movements of challenge and revolt in the Arab countries, the Northern countries have discovered, often with amazement, that the quest for liberty and human rights also continues on the southern shore of the Mediterranean and that it is not exclusive to the northern shore. The eternal imaginary dissymmetry of East and West and the insurmountable pseudo-barriers between them and us break down. These new data offer the chance to deepen this approach to the Mediterranean as a hidden source. This work thus encourages us to discover or rediscover the Mediterranean as it is. It shows the discrepancy between Mediterranean realities and well-meaning discourses and speeches. It involves going behind the lighted stage of intercultural dialog, and dissecting the darkness of the facts. We interrogate historical and cultural fractures so as to sketch the forms of their possible supersession, as the Mediterranean may constitute a hidden source.

We insist on the claim of the Mediterranean, which seems to be echoed in those countries with cultures strongly influenced by the varying dogmas of the dominant model: cultural, economic, societal and managerial. This claim is expressed through: a form of resistance to the society of acceleration and consumption; a need for authenticity and relationships expressed in the notions of tribe and embeddedness; a need for singularity; a quest for well-being; and a management of people and no longer of human resources.

1 Capgemini. (2014). À l’écoute des français au travail.

2 Etude Gallup sur l’engagement des salariés (2014).

1

Disrupters, Breadcrumbs and the Managerial Revolution

The digital revolution is one of the major turning points of humanity, at the same level as the invention of writing and the invention of printing by Gutenberg which made possible the emergence of the Enlightenment. The digital transformation is a technological revolution comparable to the appearance of electricity, except that it has changed the world in 20