- Startups seeking to scale across Africa face a unique set of communication challenges.
- While culture, infrastructure woes, and regulations pose significant challenges, innovation offers opportunities to overcome these hurdles.
- Players in the industry such as Beem are developing effective enterprise communication products that firms can tap into to scale their operations across Africa.
Africa is emerging as a hotspot for entrepreneurial activity, with startups acrborsa prima classe jock strap deuce vaughn jersey latex hood air jordan 1 low flyease air jordan 1 low flyease uberlube luxury lubricant 8 ft kayak oregon football jerseys inflatable kayak yeezy shoes under 1000 nike air jordan 1 elevate low custom sublimated hockey jerseys 8 ft kayak decathlon bmx oss various industries in different economies scaling up. However, as these startups expand across economies, they are encountering a unique set of communication challenges that often jeopardize their success.
From navigating the maze of cultural and linguistic diversity to overcoming infrastructural limitations, effective communication remains crucial for the success of these African startups. It is against this backdrop that a selection of industry leaders from African startups shared their experiences during the 8th edition of Hindsight Ventures Industry Nights.
This edition of Industry Nights was an exclusive platform that brought together diverse stakeholders for an evening of insightful conversations, in partnership with Tanzania-based enterprise technology company, Beem.
Beem, which launched Moja, a unified communication platform that enables businesses to sell and serve clients across multiple social media platforms in Kenya in September 2023, offers other services such as enterprise SMS, USSD, and Two Way SMS — an all-in-one chat platform that uses the power of WhatsApp, helping businesses to sell, serve, authenticate, and create experiences for their customers.
The session delved into intricate details related to delivering strategic and customized communication to customers across different jurisdictions, customer mapping, measuring the impact of communication, and ensuring that communication for startups in Africa is frictionless, engaging, and rewarding.
The event took place on the sidelines of the Africa Tech Summit 2024 held in Nairobi. It featured industry leaders such as Dennis Ngigi, who is Beem Kenya’s Head of Sales, Makandi Muchiri from the mobile loan platform Tala, Japheth Dibo, the CEO, and co-founder of Dial Afrika, and Claudine Gakundi, the country manager of Lipa Later Group. These industry pioneers shared their knowledge and insights on the challenges facing African startups in driving their communications in the industry, gathered from years of experience.
Navigating cultural and linguistic diversity for African Startups scaling up
The panelists noted that one of the most significant challenges facing startups in Africa is the diverse cultural and linguistic landscape of the continent.
“We have clients in over 10 countries in Africa… the way Nigerians relate is very different from the way Kenyans relate. For instance, it is commonplace in Nigeria to come across ‘who send you,’ when dealing with your clients,” pointed out Japheth Dibo.
With over 2,000 languages spoken across Africa, communicating effectively with stakeholders can be a daunting task. Startups often struggle to tailor their messaging to different cultural contexts and languages, leading to misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
Tala’s Makandi Muchiri explained that one of the ways African startups are navigating the language barrier is by hiring local talent to lead, say the customer service team, thereby enhancing their penetration in hitherto tough market terrains.
Lipa Later’s Claudine Gakundi noted that at the moment, communicating with Gen Z—an estimated 31.2 percent of the population in Africa—demands that startups innovate by, among other things, embracing systems that foster communication across all platforms such as social media as well as legacy newsletters.
Gen Z, Claudine added, likes communicating using texts, so African startups have to invest in chatbox features, for instance, to remain engaged with the new market segment.
What’s more, startups must understand the avenues where their customers and stakeholders engage with them, explained Beem’s Dennis Ngigi. By creating products that leverage technology and infrastructure already on the continent, Beem has created unified communications infrastructure and products, empowering enterprises to scale throughout the African continent.
At the moment, Beem has a network spanning over 25 countries in Africa, reaching over 500 million mobile phone users, and with over a decade of experience in building reliable and scalable products.
For Dial Afrika’s Japheth Dibo, by embracing technologies that ensure less fragmentation in customer engagement, startups in Africa stand a better chance of significantly increasing their productivity and engagement, thereby presenting a better opportunity to serve their needs.
With increasing platforms for customer engagement, however, startups in Africa are grappling with the question of how to effectively measure their level of engagement with target customers and stakeholders.
According to Claudine, startups in Africa seeking to step up their communications can gauge this by monitoring the “rate of repeat customers.” Further, to measure the rate of communications engagement, a key pointer could be understanding “how long it takes to respond” using, say, a WhatsApp channel, Beem’s Ngigi pointed out.
By partnering with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Beem drives commercial growth for a range of customers, by offering unified SMS messaging, USSD, Airtime, Chatbot & Mobile payment solutions through easy-to-integrate BeemAPI’s as well as a self-service platform, BeemEngage.
Read also: Moja paves the way for seamless digital sales and support in Kenya
Infrastructure limitations hindering communications
Another major challenge for startups in Africa is limited infrastructure, particularly in terms of internet connectivity and access to relevant technology.
Poor infrastructure can hinder communication efforts, making it difficult for startups to reach their target audience or access essential communication tools and platforms.
According to Dial Afrika’s Japheth Dibo, apart from Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria, which have robust cloud platforms, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are grappling with slow technological infrastructure growth.
Another significant hindrance to scaling communications for startups in Africa is the scarcity of getting the right talent, delegates at the forum themed “Scaling fast through communication across Africa” were told.
Currently, data shows that an estimated 60 percent of people in Africa are not connected to the internet, as connectivity is uneven across the continent of 1.2 billion people.
Furthermore, those who can connect often do so through expensive, unreliable connections, hindering startups in Africa from scaling at speed due to throttled communications.
While countries directly connected to submarine cables benefit from high-speed internet, leading to increased internet use and employment, Africa’s 16 landlocked countries rely on less reliable wireless substitutes.
Even among the 37 countries with direct submarine cable connections, nine have only one cable, and another eight have just two. This means that a minor incident, like a stray anchor or scheduled system maintenance, can throw millions of customers into prolonged internet outages.
Consequently, even countries with direct submarine connections experience frequent internet slowdowns and disruptions. To help address this, in May 2020, an alliance of major companies including Telecom Egypt, China Mobile International, and Facebook announced plans to construct a new 37,000km subsea cable with twenty-one landings in sixteen African countries.
Regulatory Hurdles
Regulatory hurdles also pose a significant challenge for startups seeking to scale across Africa, the panelists noted.
Mobile lending platform Tala pointed out that to scale at speed, startups in Africa must remain flexible, as different countries often have varying standards, such as how to onboard new customers.
Furthermore, by visiting and sampling different target markets, companies seeking to scale across Africa stand a better chance of getting their communications strategy right.
“One should learn from experiences, leverage industry associations, and enhance industry interactions, as this presents a shorter learning curve,” explained Makandi Muchiri of Tala.
Moreover, by riding on established partnerships, such as reseller networks set up by multinationals, startups in Africa can navigate the regulatory maze posed by different jurisdictions with ease as each country has its own set of regulations governing communication and business practices, making it challenging for startups to navigate the legal landscape.
The panel noted that getting legal experts to tick off the right boxes on what is most critical promises an even better chance for startups in Africa to scale and grow. Access to funding is another critical challenge for startups in Africa. Without adequate funding, startups may struggle to invest in communication strategies and tools, limiting their ability to reach new markets and scale their operations.
Opportunities: How African startups are tapping AI to scale and grow
By leveraging AI technologies, African startups have the opportunity to enhance their communication strategies, streamline operations, and ultimately scale their businesses more effectively in the dynamic and competitive market.
One way in which African startups are innovating using AI is the deployment of chatbots for customer interaction. Implementing AI-powered chatbots can streamline customer service by providing immediate responses to inquiries and resolving issues efficiently, improving customer satisfaction, and saving time and resources.
To enhance customer engagement, Beem, for instance, is piloting the deployment of WhatsApp broadcasts as well as videos that allow businesses to reach out and communicate better with their customer base, explained Dennis Ngigi.
Beem is also exploring opportunities in social commerce whereby customers can make purchases of products or services on social channels like WhatsApp and Instagram and settle payments via the same platform seamlessly.
Overall, AI-powered predictive analytics can help startups forecast trends, anticipate customer needs, and make informed decisions, leading to improved operational efficiency and strategic planning.
Additionally, AI algorithms are offering African startups a better way to analyze vast customer data to understand preferences and behavior, enabling startups to tailor marketing strategies for specific demographics, leading to more effective campaigns and higher conversion rates.
In the lead-up to the August 2022 General Election in Kenya, Dial Afrika CEO Japheth Dibo disclosed that the company was tapping the power of AI in mapping hotspots in Kenya concerning the spread of hate speech and relaying the same information to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) for immediate action.
MAPEMA consortium, established by an alliance of Code for Africa (CfA), Shujaaz Inc., and AIfluence, was a groundbreaking initiative in Kenya’s digital election monitoring space.
By deploying AI and Machine Learning (ML) technologies and tools, this consortium helped combat the proliferation of toxic content and manipulation in online political spaces. The primary goal of this early warning system was to detect and counter hate speech and polarizing content online, contributing to a safer and more inclusive digital environment for all users.
This innovative approach received support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Their backing underscores the importance of using technology for social good and highlights the potential for AI and ML to address complex societal issues.
Dial Afrika’s experience shows that AI tools can be used to generate and optimize content for marketing campaigns, social media, and websites, thereby freeing up time for startups to focus on other aspects of their business growth.
Overall, startups seeking to scale across Africa face a unique set of communication challenges and opportunities. While cultural and linguistic diversity, infrastructure limitations, regulatory hurdles, and limited access to funding can pose significant challenges, startups also have access to mobile technology, social media, collaboration and partnerships, and innovation as opportunities to overcome these challenges.
Players in the industry such as Beem are, however, developing effective enterprise communications services and products that startups can successfully tap into to scale their operations across Africa and contribute to the continent’s economic growth and development.
