This video focuses on the opportunities voice computing will provide to Africa mobile-based products. An overview is provided here.
With the evolving trajectory in voice-based assistants like Siri and Alexa, the opportunities are emerging for companies to key into voice computing with applications. African business sectors will benefit as that will help them reach new customers, especially the low or poorly educated ones, with solutions, overcoming the contemporary difficulties.
The Wall Street Journal has a very brilliant piece (paywall) where it noted that the path to reaching the next billion on mobile will be video and voice.
The internet’s global expansion is entering a new phase, and it looks decidedly unlike the last one.
Instead of typing searches and emails, a wave of newcomers—“the next billion,” the tech industry calls them—is avoiding text, using voice activation and communicating with images. They are a swath of the world’s less-educated, online for the first time thanks to low-end smartphones, cheap data plans and intuitive apps that let them…
I agree perfectly that voice is a channel for the future, for the developing regions of the world. However, the video channel is not certain because consumption of video in places like Africa is still a luxury, as broadband cost is still high. Sure, in India with what Jio is doing, data plans are actually, relatively, cheap. But that is not the African case.
As I noted few days ago, we are going through a transition in computing where AI will drive many aspects of our lives. Among other things, AI will anchor voice computing which will be a huge element in mobility.
The mobile-first is matured and a new mantra is in town: “AI-first”. That means the focus of leading tech companies now is how artificial intelligence (AI) will drive everything they do. This is the battle that will decide the category winners of the utilities disguised as global tech firms. With human-like characterizes, software will be smarter and more adaptive.
From Siri to Alexa, Cortana to Bixby, you will see amalgam of platforms and productivity services running on cloud with AI at the heart of them.
Simply, the level of illiteracy in Africa is still high. As I noted in a piece in the Harvard Business Review many years ago, one of the challenges in Africa ecommerce is illiteracy. With high level of illiteracy, text-based communication will be hard. The implication is that most African citizens can neither participate nor consume the products delivered in text.
Literacy rates: Even if all the infrastructure and integration issues are fixed, illiterate citizens may be unable to participate directly on e-commerce sites that require reading and writing skills. Chad, Niger, and Burkina Faso, for example, have literary rates less than 30%. Without investing in the education of these citizens, the pool of potential customers for web entrepreneurs is greatly reduced.
With the evolving trajectory in voice-based assistants like Siri and Alexa, the opportunities are emerging for companies to key into voice computing with applications. African business sectors will benefit as that will help them reach new customers, especially the low or poorly educated ones, with solutions, overcoming the contemporary difficulties. One of those sectors will be banking.
Mobile banking is already penetrating in African cities. We have the apps, USSD and SMS banking. Besides, most banks in Nigeria are working on agency banking which provides a way to reach rural communities. The technology supporting this agency banking is still anchored on text though delivered on mobile. The use of text limits penetration since some of the customers are not well educated. However, if the banks adopt voice based computing, in their solutions, they will make progress.
Agency Banking (or branchless banking) is a means for a traditional bank to cost effectively extend its branch network through the use of authorised agents. This enables the bank to provide low-risk services to customers in remote and rural areas that are difficult to service using traditional branches. The bank benefits through a larger customer base, boosting financial inclusion, product availability, and risk management.
The next versions of Apple products like iPhone and iPad are expected to have the capabilities to improve many elements of voice recognition. (It is possible that Apple could copy from someone. However, they have a way of bringing things to mainstream.) Over time, many other phone companies will adopt that feature, and it will become common. The result is that over time, many companies will build products around voice computing feature.
In Africa, banks can integrate the feature so that customers can use their voices to execute basic operations in banking. For example, customers can speak to their phones to check their bank account balances by unlocking the bank passcode with voice recognition. At the bank side, AI (artificial intelligence) will help to deliver the information via voice, just as many U.S. banks have automated answering machines that provide basic banking information to customers, via phones. Africa will go beyond that read-only information to the extent that customers can initiate small transfers via voice. The security frameworks must be worked out, of course.
Consider a user, not literate, that just finished a deposit in a Nigerian bank. Typically, the user will get SMS in his or her phone, depending if the person had subscribed. Under the voice computing model, instead of receiving SMS, the customer will receive a beep, from the bank, which will tell the user to speak to the phone. Using voice recognition, the system will validate the user and then provide the information on the amount deposited.
This will advance customer service and experience. However, voice computing is tough and still at infancy especially for a sector like banking where a mistake could be devastating. But technology improves and voice computing will improve over time. The banking sector must work hard to explore how they can drive this in the continent. It promises to be a key way to fix the issues of customer illiteracy problems.
I expect voice computing to continue to advance. Voice banking will be one of the main enterprise level applications that will be built on top of it for Africa. The banking sector in Africa must explore the opportunities. In Nigeria, for example, the BVN can be expanded to also include the voice capture. Bringing more citizens into African banking sector will require delivering services in ways they can understand. In the 21st century, one does not need to be literate to do banking.
This is a Short Note from my LinkedIn update.
James Damore has been fired. He authored the controversial memo on gender differences. The engineer claimed Google’s diversity programs discriminated against some employees by creating an “ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be discussed honestly”. CEO Sundar Pichai sent a note to Googlers noting the memo “cross[ed] the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes.”
James believes that gender diversity is “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.” He thinks that ideological diversity and biological differences are reasons we have shortage of women in tech. Unfortunately, his views are common.
Google staff—and lots of other people—are peeved, and it’s not hard to see why. The author of the document (a full version of which was posted by Gizmodo) argued that the gender gap in software engineering in part boiled down to biological differences between men and women. The ideas aren’t particularly well-reasoned. For instance, he wrote, “Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts.” Ultimately, he contends that efforts to boost racial and gender diversity were “unfair, divisive, and bad for business.”
Few years ago, I was in a technical conference when a black lady (PhD student) from a black university was called to present her paper. As she walked to the podium, people started leaving. You can argue her field/etc may not be relevant. Hold it, it is bias. Right there, three male black participants decided to stay. We told her “present to us”. I saw tears on her eyes …
Today, in most African communities, we do hear “shit down woman”, “na woman dey sent”, “no be woman?”, etc. I’d have wished Google appoints James to Diversity Committee over firing him. He can help the firm, which is under federal investigation for paying women less, understands itself better.
This is a Short Note from my LinkedIn update.
Dear African Entrepreneur,
Congratulations on the new products and services which you’re about launching. I know you have budgeted some funds for that massive online advertisement. I have a message for you: hold that money and do not waste it.
But before I share my suggestions, read this case. Procter & Gamble, the global consumer giant, noted that after a $100 million cut to online ad spending, sales was not affected. CEO David Taylor said to WSJ: “We’re not going to follow a formula of how much you spend or share of voice…We want every dollar to add value…”
Sure, there are many companies that online advertising works. But to many, it adds marginal value. It has never worked for me in my small shops. iROKOtv, run by Jason Njoku, has no online ad budget.
This is my suggestion: commit to building organic traffic to your business by delivering value (your call!). Key element of African business is still offline. Most people with money rarely spend online. Traffic is nice but also an illusion because the day you stop the ad campaigns, they disappear. Minimal conversations abound. What works in Africa is WORD OF MOUTH. You must have meatspace presence for digital success. That means you cannot be too gently. You must hustle for online space unless you want to get a paid job.
P.S.: “Word of mouth” has evolved beyond talking on phone. Today, it means demonstrating domain expertise across platforms, online and meatspace. Entrepreneurs must invest in that and build that presence. This is different from throwing money on display ads on social media when no one is watching. A nice post on Facebook that someone shares about your business is modern “word of mouth”. My point here is that you cannot rely on display ads, you need to take action and be engaged online to have results. Sure – online ads can work but most times, the value is marginal.
Good luck
Today, the Nigerian government unveiled the 21 sectors which will enjoy “pioneer status” as it works to accelerate investment into the country, and subsequently diversify the economy from minerals and hydrocarbons. One of those sectors is ecommerce.
The government of Nigeria has released the full list of the 27 key industries and products included in the ‘pioneer status’ incentives for prospective investors.The benefits include tax relief, mainly for corporate income tax. … Here is the full list of the 27 industries to enjoy the pioneer status….21. E-commerce services;
Nigeria’s corporate income tax (CIT) has averaged 30% over the last few years.
Resident companies are liable to CIT on their worldwide income while non-residents are subject to CIT on their Nigeria-source income.
The CIT rate is 30%, assessed on a preceding year basis (i.e. tax is charged on profits for the accounting year ending in the year preceding assessment).
Simply, CIT is 30% and it is a huge part of the profit. If you are not required to pay this money, the implication is that, you can decide to pass the gain to your customers. This will help the Nigerian ecommerce sector if they decide to pass the gain to customers.
Just like that, the Nigerian government has made shopping online cheaper. The savings here could be up to 30% of profit provided the ecommerce companies decide to pass the whole gains to customers. This means that if a shoe commands a profit of N1,000, without the pioneer status, an ecommerce company can now sell it for N700 without any material change in its bottom line. This is because the difference of N300 would have been sent to government as tax, without the pioneer status in place. But since government is forgiving that tax, the online seller can sell at N700 without any change in its financials. This assumes that the seller is transferring all the benefits to the buyer.
Depending on how government implements this, selling things online should be cheaper in Nigeria for companies. This mirrors the U.S. model which helped Amazon.com. The ecommerce giant was not collecting local taxes thereby making things artificially cheaper to buyers compared to physical stores which do collect local taxes. So if a product is $100, and the local tax is 7%, buying at Amazon will command only $100 while in the local store, the price will be $107. For Amazon Prime members, the shipping is waived, and that immediately pushes many to shop online as they can save the tax money. That gave online stores a huge edge over their physical store counterparts across America. (By law, the local buyers are expected to self-report the tax; that does not usually happen though).
According to federal law, a retailer does not have to charge sales tax on purchases made in a state where it does not have a presence. And thus the argument has been that online-only retailers — which have only distribution centers instead of a massive fleet of stores dotting every state in the country — have enjoyed an advantage over their brick-and-mortar counterparts because they could effectively beat them on price by not having to charge that tax.
Technically, we should be seeing items cheaper in Konga and Jumia compared to physical stores and supermarkets once the pioneer status kicks off. While the challenges of ecommerce remain, in Nigeria, I will not go there today. This is a moment because this is a significant deal.
The Nigerian ecommerce players will have more room to profitability now they can keep all their profits if they choose. (This assumes they make profits.) Also, depending on how they plan it, online shoppers will increasingly see products to be more price-competitive compared to brick and mortar stores. As the government rolls out the modalities, more insights will come. This could possibly open more investments in ecommerce sector in Nigeria.