Where Are the B2B Plays in African ICT Start-Ups?

February 3, 2014 Editor 0

Recently, Ory Okolloh tweeted an observation I often comment on when I am talking with techies all excited about start-ups in Africa:

There is a real need to focus on enterprise and B2B opportunities for upcoming techies in Africa – too many barking up the wrong tree.

I could not agree more. The hype and buzz in Africa, and in North America, is all about the coolest B2C or P2P play, yet the reality is that real money and very, very big money is in business to business sales.

While there is usually just one B2C sale (a laptop, for example), there are many B2B transactions all along the value chain (from silicon, to chips, to assembly, to shipping, etc). Historically, B2B sales is a better start-up option than B2C too.

When Mat Berg asked Ory for examples, she mentioned logistics, payroll management (to include mobile payments for remote employees), healthcare, manage micro-insurance plans etc. Here are two more examples of big B2B and B2G opportunities that we’ve covered on ICTworks:

1. Sneakernet Reality of Big Data in Africa
2. How Nigeria Used ICT to Save 119 Billion Naira

What other missed opportunities do you see in ICT business sales? And why aren’t entrepreneurs noticing them?

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Categories: ICT

Tags: B2B, Business-to-Business, Business_Finance, Electronic commerce, Information technology management