Depending upon the target audience, marketing tactics have changed from time to time. In the current century, graphic designers play a key role in marketing especially in creating infographics, logos and other designs to match the vibe of the brand. It is a known fact that graphic designing is important for marketing. Another fact is that even graphic designers should know about marketing too. It works both ways. 

Why Graphic Designing Is Important In Marketing?

According to research, the brain is great at taking visual information. A picture is worth a thousand words and this is true for the marketing world. The maximum amount of information that you absorb is through your eyes and therefore graphic designing plays a key role in marketing. With the right combination of diagrams, colours and photographs, it becomes easier for any brand to communicate its brand value to the customer in an easy graspable manner. 

A well-crafted graphical image can interest the targeted audience and further, research says that people remember an image much longer than text. Also, in the current time, the attention span of the people is little and therefore, it becomes important to communicate the information as quickly as possible and a graphical image does the same. A well-crafted design has the power to communicate the information to the audience in just a glance. With the right combination of the graphical elements, it is possible to capture the attention of the audience instantly and that too for a long duration. 

It is believed that graphic design works as a red carpet outfit of the brand and therefore, having good designs is of utmost importance to showcase the brand value to the customer. Graphic designers can be useful in creating WhatsApp DP for the WhatsApp business account and developing Cool Photos to communicate brand value. In addition to that, the skills of a graphic designer can also be used for creating LinkedIn posts, Instagram stories and posts, theme boards on Pinterest and Twitter fleets. A graphic designer can give a professional touch to any brand and this is especially helpful for any brand to look professional and sophisticated. 

In the modern age, graphic designs play a critical role in the business world. For impressive marketing, it is important to create good graphics for the business. 

Why Is It Important For Graphic Designers To Know About Marketing 

Marketing people need graphic designers and this is one of the most important reasons why graphic designers should know about marketing. Marketing skills can prove to be very handy for any graphic designer as it will help them to understand the graphic designer the marketing assignment at hand properly. Also, knowing about marketing will help the graphic designer to understand which colours to use for gaining the maximum attention of the viewers. 

In addition to that, graphic designers should also know about marketing skills to showcase their talent to the world. Marketing skills can help graphic designers to showcase their talent and further pick more assignments in the future. 

Apart from having great visual appeals, a graphic designer for gaining more assignments should also have good soft skills. It is important because it will help the graphic designer to communicate better with the clients. 

If you are planning to start your journey as a graphic designer, it is crucial that you keep both your graphic designing skills and marketing skills handy to get hired. Of course, the courses that you are taking to become a graphic designer will help you to improve your designing skills but in addition to that, it is also important that you develop the soft skills and empower yourself with marketing skills to climb up the ladder. 

At some point, a graphic designer will have to work with a marketing team for developing designs. The right combination of designing and marketing skills is important to improve brand loyalty and customer experience. Even though the perspective of a graphic designer and marketing person may be different, in the end, they share the same goals. Therefore having additional information about marketing will only help in reaching the end goal in a much smoother way. The combination of marketing and graphic designing is required for creating beautiful results. 

Different businesses and companies in the world have made the switch over to a completely paperless office. As easy as it may sound, it is very difficult to achieve this. Although the benefits of going paperless are numerous, there are many difficulties and challenges involved in the way. Let’s have a look at some of the major challenges in going paperless for businesses:

The Cost Of Hardware & Software

The first challenge involved in making a transition towards paperless offices for most businesses is the cost of hardware and software. To make sure that you are at par with the global level and your files are secure, you will need to constantly update your hardware and software. 

Although, the cost of digital document software and other tools required such as Converters that includes tools like PPT to PDF that convert different PPTs into PDFs and PDF to PNG that converts PDF to transparent PNGs, etc are usually cheap but the other things such as cloud storage can be expensive.

Along with this, there is also the cost of keeping an IT department that manages all the digital operations and keeps all of your data secure. These costs can be a lot, especially if a startup or business is in its initial phases.

Educating The Employees

There is also a big challenge of educating the employees because there are chances that employees may not be familiar with how digital documents work. You cannot make the transition to a paperless office overnight and expect employees to be compliant with that. 

All of the employees would have to be trained accordingly and there would be some employees that will learn about digitalization easily but there will be some that will take some time and eventually, it takes a lot of time to make sure that everyone is on the same page. 

Human Errors

Electronic record systems are always prone to human error and it can happen with anyone, no matter how much of an expert he is. It can range anywhere from wrong names on the files to incomplete scanning of the documents. Along with this, there is a chance that any important file or document can be deleted accidentally.

Training employees can help reduce these errors but even the most trained employees can make errors because no one is perfect and errors will occur, sooner or later. 

Hardware Failure

Hardware failure is another problem that stands in the way of businesses making the transition towards paperless offices. Hardware failure can occur without anyone foreseeing it. It can result in loss of data and if there is no physical copy of the documents made then those documents will be forever gone.

No digital solution is perfect and accidents happen all the time. Backing up data is a very useful thing since it can restore data at any time in case something goes wrong. Cloud storage solutions are also useful and these can prevent the loss of data even if a major hardware malfunction occurs.

Additionally, implementing hardware RAID systems can further safeguard data by ensuring redundancy and reliability. Businesses can significantly reduce the risk of data loss through hardware RAID, which distributes data across multiple disks and provides fault tolerance.

Security Breaches

Physical documents are stored in specific files and cabinets & there is a separate room where all of the documents are stored, however, digital documents are always prone to security failure. For any business looking to make the transition towards a digital office, protection from hackers is a top priority but still, even with the securest of the protocols in place, a security failure can occur and the whole data of a company can be compromised.

Any business looking to make a switch towards paperless offices should focus on security failure and employees should also be trained accordingly to prevent any mishap from happening. Security measures such as antivirus software, firewalls will be in place but still, you never know and it is evident that even the most major tech companies such as Facebook, Yahoo have suffered major data breaches in the past.

Along with all of this, it takes a lot of time and labor to scan all of the documents and turn them into digital form to achieve a paperless office. You can vectorize images and get your images to the quality and format you want. Indeed, if a company/business is able to overcome the aforementioned problems then it wouldn’t be an issue to make the switch, however, most businesses are not yet ready for making the switch to paperless offices and digital operations.

E-Commerce in Africa has been underway for the past couple of years and this industry is growing with every passing year. In different African countries, there are hundreds of different e-commerce startups that are operating and working well. All of these startups have produced thousands of new jobs and have the potential to create even more as the industry will grow. All of the jobs created by online startups are related to online marketplaces, supporting services, logistics, etc. 

The African e-commerce industry has a lot of potential to grow but as compared to other continents, we have not seen much growth of the African e-commerce industry. There stand many hurdles in the way of growth including poor consumer trust, poor infrastructure, and poor logistics services, just to name a few of the major hurdles in the way of the growth of this industry. Today, we will be having a look at some of the ways how African E-Commerce Industry can grow in upcoming years: 

Nations Need To Update Their Policies

The first thing that the governments and countries need to do in order to make their e-commerce industry flourish is to update their policies. The policies in Africa regarding online businesses and the e-commerce industry aren’t satisfying. Because of poor policies, Africa is behind all the other continents in the world. 

Africa is one of the largest continents in the world, consisting of a total of 54 nations, however, only a few nations have regulations in place for online consumer protection. This leads to poor consumer trust, which is one of the leading hurdles in the growth of the e-commerce industry. If all the countries in the continent shape their regulations that will support online businesses and the e-commerce industry then there is no reason why this industry won’t grow.

Internet Accessibility

Internet Accessibility still remains a huge hurdle in the way of digitalization and the growth of online businesses in the continent. Africa is one of the most populous continents in the world, however, only a little more than a quarter of the population regularly uses the Internet. This can be owed to the fact that internet accessibility in Africa is minimal and the costs of the Internet in Africa are much higher than in other parts of the world.

For e-commerce and digital businesses to grow in the continent, the governments need to provide affordable internet access to the people of their nations because in this age everything is digital and the internet has become a basic necessity of life. The Internet can not only make people more aware of what’s going on around the world and follow the latest trends but it also allows them to improve their lifestyle.

Improve Logistics Services

As mentioned earlier, poor logistics are another huge challenge that blocks the growth of the e-commerce industry. In Africa, the courier and logistics services are poor as compared to other parts of the world and the nations need to realize that if they want their local businesses to grow and flourish then they should work together and improve the logistics in their countries, otherwise, they will lag behind the rest of the world.

The governments can reduce the custom costs involved in overseas trading by the implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement but this alone won’t improve the courier and logistics services. The governments need to do much more in order to help their e-commerce industry grow. 

Startups And Small Businesses Need To Be Coached

The majority of the startups in Africa need to be coached about digitalization and how they can improve their services accordingly in order to increase their profits. Most businesses and startups lack proper knowledge about the internet and e-commerce industry. In other parts of the world, online websites that are even providing services like letting the people play games like Solitaire and its more than 500 different variants such as Spider Solitaire, Freecell, etc for free are flourishing.

The main point here is that small businesses and startups need to be coached about digitalization and how they can use it in their favor and make for themselves a profitable future.

Need For More Payment Options

?Since the e-commerce industry operates digitally, there is a dire need for more e-payment options for the industry to grow. In Africa, the most popular and common method of payment is Cash-on-delivery. While COD is a good method for local markets, for cross-border markets, it is not an option that a foreign vendor can rely on. Therefore, along with all the other things, there is also a need for more e-payment options and wallets in order for the e-commerce industry to grow and reach new heights.

South Africa is a growing economy in one of the most exciting continents in the world. South Africa is considered the powerhouse of Africa as it drives much of the economy of the continent and has the most advanced infrastructure in Africa. 

With that being said, the country’s diverse cultures and other issues present many hurdles in the way of growing businesses. South Africa is ranked 39 in the world for ease of doing business. Opening a business in South Africa is tricky and today, we will be having a look at the top hurdles of doing business in South Africa:

Starting A Business

The first problem in starting a business in South Africa is actually starting a business which is a long and tedious process. It can cost a significant proportion of income per capita. For most of the countries in Africa, it is true and it can cost up to 60% of the income per capita but for some countries like South Africa, it is partly our as the cost of starting a business there is only 0.4% of income per capita. So, while South Africa may be an exception, other countries cost a huge amount of money just for starting a business. 

Construction Permits

Next up, we have the problem of construction permits. In the majority of the countries in Africa, the cost is significantly higher to get a construction permit but again South Africa is an exception here and the cost of getting a construction permit there is cheap. It takes about 13 procedures and about 125-130 days to get a permit, which is a seamless process for locals but for foreigners it is a lengthy and tedious process. 

Getting An Electricity Connection

Since most of the African countries don’t have the state of the art infrastructure, getting an electricity connection is also a major problem for businesses. In South Africa, it is a very long process that can take a long time. Most foreign firms and companies are usually not familiar with such lengthy processes and struggle with such issues. 

Property Registration

Property Registration is another problem in African countries. Although the whole process of proper registration depends on the rate at which you obtain a clearance certificate from the local authorities and how long it takes to lodge the deed at the Deeds Registry, it is generally a long process and takes about 3-4 weeks to get your property registered. 

Paying Taxes

Paying taxes is also a problem for foreign companies in South Africa because it is also a very lengthy process. It has been estimated that it takes about 200 hours to pay taxes every year and requires up to 9 payments. Corporate income tax and unemployment insurance contributions (UIC) are very strenuous ones. The Corporate income tax is a flat rate of 28% of all companies, however, multinational online companies such as Omegle, eBay, Tinge, CooMeet, etc escape paying corporate tax in South Africa.

Overseas Trade

Import and Export across borders are also major problems. South Africa is one of those places in the world where it is very difficult to conduct overseas trades. In recent years, huge strides have been made to ease the difficulties involved in trading across borders but still, it remains a significant problem, especially for foreigners. 

The cost of trading across borders is very much but along with that, the process of documents complication and getting the approval from the concerned committee is also a hard one. 

Enforcing Contracts

Since foreign companies usually sign contracts, enforcing the contracts in South Africa is also a very long process and a major hurdle in conducting business there. The cost of hiring an attorney and the court fees make the process expensive but what’s worse is that trial and judgment can take a very long time, on average 1-2 years when enforcing contracts and this is something that a foreign company would rather avoid. 

Diverse Region

Since South Africa is a diverse country where there are multiple cultures and different languages spoken, it is important for any business to adopt a bespoke approach in different regions for the business to flourish. The business environment in South Africa is different and you can call it an informal environment. For any business to flourish, it is imperative to build a rapport with the locals and try to understand them. 

These are some of the major challenges in starting a business in South Africa. These aren’t very big problems and can easily be resolved if you know a local advisor who has sound knowledge about these hurdles. For any foreigner, it would be difficult to start a business there without the help of an expert local who has all the knowledge about these things.