Developing E-commerce Skills for Africa’s Entrepreneurs - UNCTAD E-commerce Week - Geneva, Switzerland
United Nations Conference for Trade and Development E-commerce Week
Sarah presented an insightful session on ‘Grow Your E-commerce Skills Fast’ at the session in the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The audience was from all around the world and were given the lessons learned from Sarah’s new book Grow Fast, Grow Global and her work on digital trade with nearly 5,000 companies in the UK and beyond..
Take a look at the key aspects of the event below:
Organiser: United Nations
Objective: Reviewing lessons learned from working with small businesses in Africa and beyond, innovative mechanisms to deploy training, and what this could mean to accelerate e-commerce entrepreneurialism in Africa.
Micro, small and medium sized enterprises create jobs and inclusive growth in Africa. They create well over half of Africa’s employment, fuelling demand for new goods and services. In brief, Africa’s entrepreneurs. E-commerce is the entry door for Africa’s entrepreneurs to global markets and to earning higher margins by serving professional buyers and consumer markets directly, without the need to pass through costly intermediaries.
Without the necessary business skills, including those in traditional domains such as marketing, finance and logistics African entrepreneurs are unlikely to find success in highly competitive e-commerce marketplaces. It is crucial that we introduce the businesses to the right tech platforms, training, mentoring, processes, templates and tools.
Sarah’s talk title: Understanding into Action: E-commerce Skills Development for Africa’s Entrepreneurs
Top 5 takeaways:
International Sales Channels - there are more than you think, including local online partners, chat commerce and social commerce!
E-commerce Skills Problems - entrepreneurs often don’t “get” digital or know where to start and deep digital expertise is in short supply
Helping More Businesses Along Their Digital Journey - the role of government/regional development agencies and the intermediaries is crucial to develop businesses’ potential
E-commerce Business in a Box - rather than spending years and years of trial and error, what if we packaged up what works best for entrepreneurs in Africa and other developing countries?
Other speakers:
Rob Skidmore from the International Trade Centre (ITC)
Oulimata Fall talking about the Made In Senegal project
Dylan Piatti from Deloitte South Africa and the E-Commerce Forum Africa.
Profile of audience: Worldwide