Digitisation and data-driven forwarding services can help make African producers more globally competitive, but clearing houses, forwarders and manufacturers cannot simply “plug and play” systems that work elsewhere in the world.That is the consensus of a wide range of commentators on Africa and Industry 4.0.This is not necessarily bad news. According to a Deloitte study “Africa/South Africa has an advantage over the developed markets because it is not weighed down by infrastructure legacy issues and may have little difficulty in embracing change. “Great potential exists for manufacturing companies to directly adopt specific industry 4.0 applications, develop unique local high-tech products and services and even leapfrog global competitors in the future,” according to the authors.The goal is smart networking from inbound logistics through warehousing, production, marketing and sales to outbound logistics and downstream services.There is an opportunity for forwarders and clearing houses with a strong African presence to differentiate themselves. According to the latest United Nations Digital Economy Report, “African digital platform entrepreneurs face specific market and infrastructure challenges that require critical adaptations compared with business models used by global platforms”. Due to infrastructural challenges such as poor connectivity, digital platforms in Africa “have to internalise a greater share of the overall value creation, and cannot afford to be as ‘physical-asset light’ as their global counterparts,” the report adds.
