Towards a Collaborative E-Business Vision for Africa

Abstract

This chapter elevates the need to enhance global understanding of how the e-business and e-commerce artifact is unfolding in developing countries in Africa. As markets become saturated in the developed world, companies are diversifying by considering online sales opportunities in developing countries. For instance, conservative estimates of Internet users in Africa is currently at about 120 million, without taking into account the explosive growth of mobile Internet browsing. This is barely 6% of the total population, with growth rates being the highest in the world. Thus e-business applications, whether based on the traditional Internet infrastructure or mobile technology, is positioned to provide a strategic opportunity for organizations as the focus shifts to online consumers in developing countries, especially those in Africa and Asia. The motivation for the contribution in this paper stems from the claim that the fast advent of the environment of e-business has been claimed to change the game of business, threatening the existence, not only of firms, but also of whole industries. Perhaps due to the speed of change, there is little generic strategic guidance available for organizations to help them navigate through the uncharted waters of the new domain of business. There also seems to be little work from developing countries, on the actual value that firms can hope to get from participating in e-business, which would make the new environment relevant to established and evolving new businesses. Therefore, the chapter’s contribution stems from a quest to provide an explanatory critique of the real nature of e-business in a developing countries ‘context and explore a possible successful model for e-business adoption. The alternative conceptualization shall be explored based on two outcomes that are inevitably a consequence of increasing e-business adoption in developing countries: increasing business reliance on virtual markets and marketing and increasing accessibility of global markets occasioned by the Internet and mobile infrastructure. Thus, the first part of the chapter will explore how the online business contexts are influencing buyer behaviour; while the second part attempts an alternative conceptualization of web user behaviour.