The dynamics of the world’s pervasive digital technologies is transforming organisations and enabling enterprises to create sustainable competitive advantage. This presents huge economic opportunities for Africa. This book responds to the need for African enterprises and organisations—particularly those in the service sector—to fully exploit the inherent potential in digital platforms by putting in place processes to respond effectively to changing consumer demands. Digital service delivery is conceptualised as a key driver of effective management and service delivery across the value chain of businesses. The authors offer insights into the opportunities, drivers, structures, and models of digital service delivery specific to the African context, using case studies and country-based themes that highlight how the adoption of digital platforms and practices can transform service delivery for value-creation. The book examines the scope and applications of digital businesses, emphasising the emergence, value-creation, and strategic implications for Africa’s private and public enterprises. Students, entrepreneurs, IT innovators, academics, and policymakers will gain a greater understanding of how digitalisation is shaping consumer expectations, industry practices, and service delivery in Africa.

The public sectors of African Portuguese-speaking countries and Timor-Leste (PALOP-TL) have made significant progress in mobilising digital technologies to promote internal efficiency, simplify government procedures and improve the delivery of public services.

For African enterprises, entrepreneurs and governments to take full advantage of new digital opportunities, they need a shared strategic understanding of where they are, what they have, and what they may need to have for the future. This book presents this shared strategic vision to guide future coordinated actions of African enterprises, entrepreneurs, consumers/citizens and governments in using new and emerging digital technologies. It showcases how consumers/citizens, entrepreneurs, organisations, institutions and governments are leveraging new and emerging digital innovations to disrupt and transform value creation and service delivery in Africa.

Customer service management is one of the key pillars of today’s business environment. Businesses operating in sub-Saharan Africa and other frontier markets have begun to embrace the concept of customer service management, with many incorporating the notion into their mission statements – with many forward-thinking companies transitioning from a transactional to a more strategic view of the customer. As customers have evolved and transformed from "passive audiences" to "active players" businesses are moving away from "the old industry model that sees value as created from goods and services to a new model where value is created by experiences". Today, businesses and customers create value through customised, co-produced offerings. This co-creation of value helps firms highlight the customer’s or consumer’s point of view and improve the front-end process of identifying customers’ needs. Given the increasing recognition of the customer as a co-creator of value, perceptions of customer service quality during COVID-19 and afterwards matter to businesses in Africa looking to thrive in a new post-COVID era since customers increasingly face several choices in the bid to access consumer products and services. This book consists of seven chapters beginning with an overview detailing the importance of customer service matters to Africa’s development and ending with a discussion of the future directions for enhanced customer service delivery in Africa. Each chapter in this book includes actual customer service and delivery practices from various countries on the African continent, including Egypt, Ghana, and South Africa, and uncovers the challenges, successes, and potential areas for improvement in delivering quality customer service.

For African enterprises, entrepreneurs and governments to take full advantage of new digital opportunities, they need a shared strategic understanding of where they are, what they have, and what they may need to have for the future. This book presents this shared strategic vision to guide future coordinated actions of African enterprises, entrepreneurs, consumers/citizens and governments in using new and emerging digital technologies. It showcases how consumers/citizens, entrepreneurs, organisations, institutions and governments are leveraging new and emerging digital innovations to disrupt and transform value creation and service delivery in Africa.

Efforts have been made toward the application of electronic government in the developing world, yet questions of how to best implement governance systems and address concerns from officials and citizens alike remain to be answered. Emerging Issues and Prospects in African E-Government explores relevant practices, trends, and potential challenges facing fledgling governments in the digital era. This book focuses on the establishment and maintenance of e-government in various African countries, providing critical insights for government bodies, policymakers, administrators, and public sector researchers working in local, state, and national governments around the world.

This edited volume seeks to examine how enterprises in Africa can utilize digital technologies and innovations in creating value for their customers and clients in order to increase effectiveness and efficiency. Through social media, businesses are increasingly reaching and engaging their customers in several ways and so enterprises in Africa must harness the opportunities in the digital space if they want to remain competitive, earn profit, and meet their customers’ needs. Accordingly, this book looks at how digital technologies are helping shape the financial, educational, and advertising sectors in Africa. As digital technologies raise challenges, the chapters that follow will discuss ethical and social practical frameworks to effective digital business in Africa. This volume promises to fore both theoretical underpinnings, and practical implementations of digital technologies in the African business context.