An e-commerce takeover in the next 20 years?

I believe there are a lot of misconceptions about the African supply chain stories. If nobody tells our supply chain story from our point of view, then who's going to tell it? Some of the stories we've heard out there have been of a very derogatory nature and I think it's more or less of a disservice to the continent. But a lot of things that have emanated out of Africa, that's come out of Africa rather as far as the supply chain is concerned. I've been able to tell our supply chain story. There are a lot of things going on - improvement, the innovation and, more importantly, the African supply chain is quite unique. And if you don't understand it, you can't really tell the story. So that's why it's quite important for us as stakeholders on the continent to tell the story and to tell the story right.

When it comes to the African supply chain, it’s not monolithic in nature. It's quite diverse. And depending on who you are talking to, there are a lot of divergent views on what the African supply chain is supposed to look like, how it's supposed to be shaped, what are we supposed to be, what are we supposed to do or what-not? It's very important to understand that different regions have their own nuances. 

I believe that the professionalisation of the supply chain across the continent is one of the top priorities that needs to be addressed on the continent. Infrastructure will come, the people that are going to be operating the infrastructure - or overseeing the infrastructure - if they are ready to develop, infrastructure will come regardless of time.

I started a podcast two years ago, called Unfettered. I started this podcast to pivot it a bit away from my day-to-day supply chain learning, supply chain teachings, consultations and what-not. I've probably learned one or two lessons from their story. I would definitely love to share their story with the rest of the world so that we all can learn. A learning man is a grown man, and that's what the world needs at the moment.

E-commerce is quite broad, and I think the use of social media has decentralised what we now know as e-commerce into something quite manageable. So it's changing the traditional scope of things. It's changing what we know about how businesses operate on the continent. The regular supply chain as we know it is not the same. A lot of decentralisation is also happening in our supply chains as well. The linear supply chain has been morphed into a more decentralised, more cyclic supply chain. So e-commerce is here to stay, though it's taking time to kind of pick up. So in the next 20 years, these markets will have been modified. And, more importantly, I believe e-commerce will have taken over the continent entirely.

What COVID-19 has done to supply chains, not only in Africa, but globally, is to expose different fault lines. It shows that a lot of people do not take risk management as an integral part of their supply chain. Supply chain mapping is lacking in most areas, and it actually stretched a lot of supply chains, and in some instances, a lot of supply chains were broken. 

Businesses are adapting now by understanding the essence of visibility, the essence of the ability to track a lot of stuff - to understand the supply chain market. Who and what is within my supply chain? What are the touch points within my supply chain? What is going on within my supply chain? Does something that is happening in Bangladesh affect my supply chain? Something happening in China? Does it affect my supply chain? 

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