This piece by the Economist explains why the Western world will rule the 21st century. Even the promise of China is muted when you know the West is creating another world entirely. For us in Africa, we can be happy to connect as usual buyers until technical education is  made a priority in the continent.

Sometimes it is perceived as a figment of the far future. But artificial intelligence (AI) is today’s great obsession in Silicon Valley. Last year technology companies spent $8.5 billion on deals and investments in artificial intelligence, four times more than in 2010. Nearly all of the world’s technology giants, including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Baidu, are competing fiercely to hire the best AI experts, snap up start-ups and pour money into research. What accounts for the tech elite’s sudden AI-phoria?

The technology has not always been so popular. The field was largely ignored and underfunded during the “AI winter” of the 1980s and 1990s. At that time AI research conducted at universities proved to be disappointingly slow and irrelevant to companies’ bottom lines. Now, however, the chill is gone. Progress in AI is accelerating. Recently Google generated lots of headlines when DeepMind, a start-up it acquired in 2014, helped train a computer to repeatedly beat the world champion at Go, a board game. This has sparked both fear and hope for the future of AI: hope for fat profits and improving people’s lives through technology; fear about how society will cope with the dislocation AI could bring.

AI is already starting to generate big financial gains for companies, which helps explain firms’ growing investment in developing AI capabilities. Machine-learning, in which computers become smarter by processing large data-sets, currently has many profitable consumer-facing applications, including image recognition in photographs, spam filtering and those that help to better target advertisements to web surfers. Many of tech firms’ most ambitious projects, including building self-driving cars and designing virtual personal assistants that can understand and execute complex tasks, also rely on artificial intelligence, especially machine-learning and robotics. This has prompted tech firms to try to hire up as much of the top talent as they can from universities, where the best AI experts research and teach. Some worry about the potential of a brain drain from academia into the private sector.

The biggest concern, however, is that one firm corners the majority of the talent in artificial intelligence, creating an intellectual monopoly of sorts. Google looks best positioned to do this: between its Google Brain project and its acquisition of DeepMind, it has some of the brightest human brains working on AI. Because superior AI systems are able to learn and improve more quickly, the firms that develop an early edge in artificial intelligence may reap the greatest rewards and erect barriers to entry that smaller firms will find hard to overcome. In December Elon Musk and several other tech leaders pledged $1 billion to help fund OpenAI, a research lab that will make public all of its findings, to ensure there is an entity that is working on developing AI on behalf of the public good and not just its own profits. Today AI is the domain of tech geeks, but its future matters to everyone.

From our end here in Tekedia, Africa must work to deepen its own research so that it can compete in this A.I. evolving age. Anything less, we will simply facilitate consumerism for the Western World.

This is bold and really bold. You better ask your friends and families to plan accordingly on their careers.

By 2025, jobs which were common place in 2015 will no longer exist. Students graduating in 2016, will have obsolete qualifications for which there will no longer be a profession by 2025.

• Front-line military personnel will be replaced with robots
• Private bankers and wealth managers will be replaced with algorithms
• Telemarketers, data entry capturers, tax preparers, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, statisticians and consulting engineers will be replaced with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

New business models, like those of Uber and Alibaba, are already industry-shaping disruptors, and each day, new Digital innovators are emerging to cause disintermediation and disruption across every industry imaginable.

Traditional enterprises, whilst presently successful by today’s standards, are scrambling to make sense of Business Digitisation in order to stay relevant in the Digital future. Many are attempting to create new Digital business models which will eventually cannibalise their traditional business, rather than capitulating to new disruptive Digital start-ups. Companies are also digitising their products and services, along with operational processes and customer channels. Over 70% of top fortune 500 companies have plans to offer their products as a Digital service by 2020.  Presently, the 10 most valuable start-ups globally are estimated to have a value of $172.7 billion – all embracing Digital platform based business models. Around 90% of the business models in 2020 will be driven by the cloud.

Globally, the number of connected devices will nearly quadruple by 2025, significantly altering the skills employers hold most valuable. Increasing connectivity will change how employees choose to work (for example: remotely, part-time, independently, or dispersed), and provide employers with a spectrum of hiring options.

Millennials, most of whom are Digital Natives, will comprise an estimated 48.3% of the global labour force in 2025, while those aged 60 and older will comprise 9.9% (compared with 7.9% in 2015).

The line between what has traditionally been business and IT is becoming more and more blurred. Largely due to the early adoption and impact of Digital marketing, The Chief Marketing Officer or CMO, now controls a bigger “IT” budget and influence than the CIO. This is only set to increase and expand across the organisation, as Digital Natives become future business leaders.

What new skills and expertise will be required to lead and manage the Digital enterprise of the future?

As robots, AI and Digital algorithms continue to replace many jobs and professions; new and emerging professions by 2025 will focus more on human interaction, augmented through Digital mechanisms. Jobs requiring uniquely human characteristics, such as cultural deftness, caretaking, or empathy, and creative thinking, are those least threatened by automation.

The ability to work anywhere, anytime is fuelling the Digital nomad trend, which is highly appealing to millennials, but will also blur political and economic boundaries, and test national labour codes.

Artificial Intelligence, its subfields, and automation will create some specific reflecting trends associated with new and emerging technology advances. Career gains from AI and automation include:

• Artificial Intelligence technology and automation salesperson
• Specialist programmers
• Cybersecurity experts
• Engineering psychologists
• Robot and automation technology manufacturer, distributor, servicer, and refurbisher
• Technology-specific trainer
• Neuro-implant technicians
• Virtual health care specialist
• Virtual reality experience designer

Conclusion:

Digital transformation cannot be ignored without becoming irrelevant, and an adaptive Digital strategy is imperative. 

The Digital workforce will be largely millennial, and significantly different from today in terms of culture, leadership style and skills. Artificial Intelligence, robots and Digital algorithms will automate many professions, but jobs requiring uniquely human characteristics – or are critical to the development of Digital solutions – will be in great demand by 2025.

A holistic Digital transformation strategy, which considers the Digital workforce along with the business model, process and customer channel dimensions, will be imperative for organisations wishing to remain relevant in the next 10 years.

Africa needs to plan and invent for the digital workforce era. Nigeria has to plan also.

It is indeed a tough economy that we are all experiencing in Nigeria. The exchange rate is collapsing and any investor that puts money in Nigeria now will have to run the numbers: how can you grow faster than the loses coming from the currency deterioration. That is the black swan – you have to grow faster than any borrowing interest rate, faster than the currency loses and then grow to make profit. There is no way that is possible and that is why we say that no investor had exited profitability, for those that invested before, since Nigeria floated its currency.

Analysis from Punch shows a really troubling pattern:

The naira is seen depreciating further and may hit the 500 mark to the United States dollar at the parallel market next week as the greenback scarcity persists and the Central Bank of Nigeria cuts supply to foreign exchange operators.

The local currency was trading around N495 to the dollar on the black market on Thursday, compared to 485 per dollar last week due to dollar shortages, traders said.

The naira was quoted at 310.5 to the dollar on the official interbank window on Thursday by commercial lenders.

The BDC operators are now getting $8,000 each per week from Travelex against the usual $15,000 each per week.

The naira had tumbled against the dollar to 490 on Monday from 487 last Friday, as acute shortage of the greenback continued to batter the economy and the country’s foreign exchange markets.

Before falling to 487 last Friday, the local currency had consecutively closed flat at 485 for four days in the previous week.

The severe shortage of the dollar has put the naira under persistent pressure at both the official and parallel forex markets.

The global crash in the prices of crude oil, Nigeria’s main forex earner, has brought untold hardships on Nigerians.

Economic and financial experts said unless the lingering dollar supply problem abated, the volatility in the exchange rate and the consequent economic challenges might continue.

Economic and financial experts expect the naira to weaken further against the dollar as the Christmas holiday begins this week.

They also argued that the crackdown on the parallel market forex traders and the persistent scarcity of the greenback would make further weakening of the local currency inevitable.

A few weeks ago, the naira closed flat at 470 against the greenback over a period of over a week.

The naira had plunged to 470, down from 455 on the back of a fresh dollar shortage at the official and parallel forex markets.

Dollar shortages have caused many companies to halt operations and lay off workers, compounding an economic crisis exacerbated by the fall in global prices of oil, which accounts for over 70 per cent of Nigeria’s budget revenue.

The CBN has struggled to support the naira as the country’s external reserves continue to fall.

[Punch]

For any sales-driven business, it isn’t the size of your data that matters, it’s what you do with it. No longer a discretionary luxury, predictive analytics are now the name of the game for marketers determined to utilize customer metrics in a meaningful way to establish a tremendous competitive advantage, gain notable market share and significantly boost bottom lines. 

Just what exactly is predictive analysis? Simply put, it’s the ability to more precisely predict a customer’s future spending based on their past behaviors. Of course, there’s no way to actually predict the future but predictive analysis can give companies invaluable insight that can make or break a CRM system. If you’re not using predictive analytics, your current CRM system is likely falling short in several areas. Here’s why:

1. Forecasting Likely Customer Behaviors
There’s an old saying in sales: “buyers are liars.” Unfortunately, salespeople are forced to enter notes based on what the customer tells them. Besides these basic notes that are often unreliable, it’s almost impossible for a CRM system to determine a consumer’s actual behavior. However, predictive analytics software comes with a certain level of assumptions.  In this case, the assumption is the future will continue to be like the past. Often, however, behaviors change. That’s why it’s critical to have a system that can not only change with your customers but also learn and adapt to their new actions to make predictive calculations based on the past, present and future behaviors.

2. Enhancing Customer Relationships
It’s very difficult to build a true customer relationship if you have no way of accessing and analyzing their prior behavior with your company.  Unfortunately, a CRM system cannot automatically track customer actions.  It relies heavily on manual human interaction and cultivation relying heavily on the accuracy of a salesperson’s notes, which are often less than desirable.  The most common use of predictive analytics is, in fact, to increase and improve customer relationships. The better you know your customer, the more sales you can ultimately make. Using sophisticated algorithms to reveal how your customer behaves allows you to also better communicate with your customer. For instance, isn’t it nice to hear your name when you walk in to your local coffee shop? Isn’t it nice that they already know what you’re drinking without you saying anything? On a larger scale, this is how predictive analytics enhance a company’s sales efforts. Many direct marketers have it figured it out, sending you offers in the mail that you are likely to actually want as opposed to the ones you consider junk. This is all done with predictive analytics. And, another great thing about predictive analytics data is that it doesn’t have to be “big” at all. In fact, sometimes the data can be just a small concentrated section of just a few hundred actions.

3. Maximizing Marketing Budget ROI
If you’re like most companies and have an actual marketing budget, however big or small, it’s best to first make sure the audience you’re targeting actually wants what you’re selling. On its best day, a CRM system can only give you an educated guess. If you want to maximize your marketing dollars, solely using a CRM platform to determine the best suited marketing audience is not the best direction. But, with predictive analytics, you can maximize your return on investment no matter the budget.  For example, if you seek to spend $10,000 on a campaign for delivery to 10,000 customers or prospects, predictive analytics will curate that audience to deliver your message to 10,000 consumers that specifically want what you’re offering at the time. Conversely, CRM solutions alone have very limited filters that prevent a business owner from drill-down targeting the correct audience and, as a result, are undermining their ROI with opportunity loss.

4. Allowing Data-Driven Decisions
The core success benchmark of any company is its numbers. A CRM system cannot show you exact sales numbers broken down by each individual customer over time with any ease. A significant amount of training is usually involved in trying to properly access and formulate these tasks. This often requires a lot of time, which means less time spent making actual sales.  Fortunately, good predictive analytics software will allow you to specifically identify where all your money is being made and where the areas of your business are lacking.  It should also be able to provide you with a specific customer spending list based on what you’re asking for.  Adept systems can actually categorize all your customer spending and break it down for you in an easy to read format that allows you to properly make future predictions.

5. Formulating Offer Intelligence
Unlike a predictive analytics platform, CRM systems cannot recommend specific offers that are unique to customer spending habits. This is a huge downside in my opinion. It is very difficult to maintain and engage repeat customers without knowing what they want. CRM solutions are mainly a lead management system but, let’s be honest, who wants leads when you can have buyers?  Predictive analytics not only analyze customer actions and habits but also “learns” as it goes. For instance, when an online offer is sent out to customers, or even different offers sent to varying customer segments, a predictive analytics platform can tell you who opened a particular offer, who clicked through on that offer, who redeemed that offer and, when they did, how much that customer spent—including any upsells. The data can also be finely filtered down further to key metrics like which date and day of the week a customer redeemed a particular offer. With the rich data predictive analytics provides, customers can be sent highly meaningful offers tailored specifically to their needs and, as a result, companies can more readily build stronger customer relationships that bolster the bottom line.

Lack of quality data is usually the greatest barrier a sales-driven organization can face when deciding to implement predictive analytics. Getting the most out of a predictive analytics platform requires there is actually available data on customer spending habits, the attributes of the products or services they’re buying (other than the “people who buy this also but this” type of model), date ranges of their spending, and how much they spend on an average. Some demographic information wouldn’t hurt, either. If it’s really good, the predictive analytics platform will automatically track all your customer actions from start to finish. And, although it can be very difficult to find in current predictive analytics software, a really good system will also automatically capture this data for you to automatically create unique profiles of your individual customers. With this weapon in your proverbial sales arsenal, prepare to grow your sales revenue and overall company profitability in kind.

Lang Smith is the founder of Cloud Signalytics—a first-of-its-kind predictive intelligence software platform helping major franchise auto dealerships create highly precise, individualized customer profiles to maximize sales.