The rise of Africa’s digital economy

The rise of an African digital economy is improving millions of lives and rapidly transforming societies. Africa has a unique opportunity to become more sustainable and create economic growth through the better use of data, instead of using old technologies that consume fossil fuels. Digitalisation has many benefits: It speeds up the spread of information, brings people closer together, creates jobs and makes societies more efficient. Digitalisation is a key part of the European Union’s work in Africa. The European Commission and the African Union say digital technology is a priority for economic and social development in Africa. The European Investment Bank will keep playing a central role in Africa's future by providing targeted digital expertise and finance to the public and private sectors

National ICT-Driven Development Policy Comparing Approaches in India and China

Prior to 1991, India was mired in economic stagnation related to a bloated public sector, opaque business regulations and an inefficient industrialization policy based on import substitution. To avert an incipient foreign exchange crisis, the government introduced a raft of liberal reforms including reduced import taxes, market deregulation, and incentives for foreign investment. These reforms have largely been responsible for the consistently high GDP growth India has experienced since 1991, driven by entry of foreign capital and advancements in the services sector. However, the wealthy have been the greatest beneficiaries of this growth, as earnings inequality between the top and bottom 10% of the population doubled between 1991 and 2013. ICT has been the largest enabler of this rapid growth by making India’s comparative advantage in the service sector accessible to the global economy. India has grown into a giant in the global services outsourcing industry, and concurrent increases in digital talent have propelled India’s information technology industry into becoming a major player both domestically and abroad. China experienced a similar trajectory, as economic opening and reform over the period from 1978 to 1989 was followed by ambitious government promotion of specific cities as global manufacturing hubs. Low labor costs and business-friendly policies within Special Economic Zones (SEZs) attracted initial foreign investments, snowballing as the region developed into a manufacturing hub. As skill in the manufacturing sector increased, particularly in the hardware and electronics industries, China has risen up the value chain to develop increasingly complex components indigenously. National economic planners now prioritize high-tech manufacturing, and the rise of China’s gigantic tech companies has powered a simultaneous rise in the country’s service industry. Incipient public investments are now targeting development and applications of Artificial Intelligence, which stands both to further elevate the manufacturing sector and place China at the center of future global economic developments. ICT, as a set of tools that can integrate users into the national economy while democratizing service delivery, provides an excellent toolkit to promote the inclusive growth that liberalization has not yet delivered in either economy. To do so, however, national policies to encourage ICT-led growth and development must be put in place. While China has largely made successful infrastructure investments to encourage digitization across the country, India continues to lag in certain key measures. In contrast, while India has introduced specific strategies to leverage AI as an engine of inclusive growth, China’s AI development strategy prioritizes achieving a dominant position in the global market over using AI domestically as an engine of broad-based development. Moving forward, India should draw lessons from China’s success in implementing strategic federal initiatives and developing local capacity to expand the public sector’s capacity to support ICT-driven development. In addition, India should recognize the need to develop enhanced research capacity as ICT, especially AI, makes increasingly essential contributions to the economy. For its part, China should make targeted investments in ICT-driven development for sectors likely to lag behind. It should also clarify the tension between its competing priorities of maintaining stability and encouraging innovation

IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting Special Issue on: 5G for Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting

[EN] The upcoming fifth-generation ( 5G ) of wireless communications technologies is expected to revolutionize society digital transformation thanks to its unprecedented wireless performance capabilities, providing speeds of several Gbps, very low latencies well below 5 ms, ultra-reliable transmissions with up to 99.999% success probability, while being able to handle a huge number of devices simultaneously connected to the network. The first version of the 3GPP specification (i.e., Release 15) has been recently completed and many 5G trials are under plan or carrying out worldwide, with the first commercial deployments happening in 2019."© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works."Gomez-Barquero, D.; Li, W.; Fuentes, M.; Xiong, J.; Araniti, G.; Akamine, C.; Wang, J. (2019). IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting Special Issue on: 5G for Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting. IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting. 65(2):351-355. https://doi.org/10.1109/TBC.2019.2914866S35135565

Global Services Sourcing: Issues of Cost and Quality

Global Services Sourcing (GSS) is not an original concept. What is original about it is the media attention it seems to be getting. We have adopted the “then and now” philosophy in developing this report. We start by talking to the pioneers of global services sourcing, companies like General Electric, Nortel Networks and Citibank. The key learning from talking to these companies who have been sourcing their processes for more than a decade is that the long held view - “went for cost, stayed for quality” about moving processes outside the company (in some cases outside the country) is too simplistic. Rather we found that “went for cost and quality, stayed for continued quality at competitive costs” is more in line with the strategy that that these companies employed. Next, our in depth questionnaire tries to capture the “now” of the global services sourcing industry. Since the pioneers had shone the arc light on quality we developed specific quality related questions. The results validated the pioneers’ views: 67% of the respondents said that actual cost savings from services sourcing have been anywhere from 5% - 50% (onshore and/or offshored). 82% of the respondents said that going into the global services sourcing arrangement they look for quality of processes to increase by 2 – 10% (onshore and/or offshored). 70% of the respondents said that the quality of outsourced business processes has increased (quality increase of 5% -10%) or increased significantly (quality increase of 10% - 25%). The top three drivers of outsourcing were: cost savings, increasing capacity, ability to take advantage of offshore labor (through captive centers). The most difficult phase of outsourcing was transition or handoff of business processes from the company to its outsourcing partner. The top risk factors in outsourcing were: loss of institutional knowledge, poor communication with vendor, mismatch of firm cultures. Of the companies that are engaged in services sourcing, 79% of respondents were using an offshore based provider. Perhaps in a sign of maturing of global services sourcing 62% chose to offshore their services to at least one country in addition to India, the current offshoring destination of choice. As far as country risk factors, legal risks (laws comparable to international standards - data security, intellectual property rights) followed by political risks were identified as the top areas of concern. The lesson for countries competing for offshored business and FDI inflows in services is that the robustness and fairness of the legal system is a major factor for companies especially in the face of concerns about loss of institutional knowledge. The overall satisfaction level with outsourcing was high at 68% but a sizeable chunk of respondents – 26% were either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied with their outsourcing arrangements. Almost all of these unsatisfied firms have been outsourcing for 12 months or less, reinforcing the literature about thinking of outsourcing being a long term investment rather than a short term win