The world is going through a massive transformation. Covid-19 is evil but it has brought a redesign which has made many things exceedingly easier. One of those is sharing of knowledge in conferences. Yes, today, you can get people that would not have attended your conference to attend. For them, it is just another one hour to fit into the week. For you, you are tapping into a knowledge base that would not have been possible if the old way of physical conferences has remained. The change is an opportunity to co-share and co-learn.
In America, a third of the retail malls could close within the next 12 months as a result of the impacts of the pandemic. Call that a big reset because with the trajectory Amazon has been mapping, malls may be gone sooner than most may imagine. Companies like Google and Facebook which are launching digital shops understand this redesign. Simply, digital is now the natural destination of commerce. Adjusting your business for that future is critical.
The pandemic’s devastating blow to shopping malls is having a wider impact on communities they serve. CNBC notes that malls act as economic engines to local governments, providing hundreds or potentially thousands of jobs while financially shoring up the tax base. With as many as a third of U.S. malls at risk of closing within the next year, local governments are dipping into reserves or scrambling to adjust their budgets. A retail analyst expects a record 25,000 store closures this year, about 60% of them in U.S. malls.
Ladies and gentlemen, no matter what you do, find a way to get the productivity technology provides, and then extend that to take advantage of improving marginal cost which the internet makes possible. And as you do that, figure out a revenue strategy because making money online remains a challenge for most products in Africa. Many global firms are working on this redesign.
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Nike is shedding jobs as it shifts focus to online sales. The news comes on the heels of the sportswear giant’s 38% sales slump last quarter due to the pandemic, though digital apps and online sales jumped 75% and “cushioned the overall decline,” according to The Wall Street Journal. Store closures during the crisis devastated retailers, and now some, including Apple, are once again closing stores in hot spots as new coronavirus cases surge. About 85% of Nike’s stores in North America are currently open.
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Making money on digital products in Africa won’t be a challenge, if only there’s a clear monetization strategy at conception and design stage. What many do is hedging revenue on ‘traffic’, then hope for ads; a flawed strategy in the age of Google and Facebook.
But rather than worrying about dislocations to traditional commerce and probable loss of jobs, we need to focus on whether the migrations keep more or less people busy. It is not a case of who lost job, but unemployment rate, because if two people lose jobs in the old system while three new people gain in the digital space; it’s still a win on the overall economy. This is the key metric to look out for.
Again, we are still far behind on digitisation and digital transformation, not until you can order boli, suya and roasted corn via apps, we haven’t scratched the surface yet.
Plenty changes ahead.