Thread by @docolumide

Ecommerce Enablement is…🚀🚀🚀

Will be creating a landscape map for Africa with @danielyanda, like @Accel’s.

Watch this space!

@Base10Partners and @Accel are at the cutting-edge of thought-leadership in #EE space👍 base10.substack.com/p/faster-than-…

I committed 3hrs today to work w/@danielyanda to finish this “African Digital Commerce Enablement Markerscape.”

So, I’ve been thinking of how best to make it comprehensive and all-encompassing.

Saw this tweet👇…spark went off! Old tweets have inspirational value too👌

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1387024078641455104

On the Y Axis will be the market segment players are addressing (Formal, Semi-Formal & Informal) and on the X Axis will be the value-chain segment players are addressing (Sales [Pre-, In- Post-], CMS, Supply-Chain, Fintech, and Fulfillment).

It is also good to do it this way so I can use it to explain how recent acquisitions such as this by global payment companies…

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1393357599224090629

…is making them pivot their own value proposition to becoming “Digital Commerce Enablement” players as well, gradually taking the fight head-on to Shopify.

@danielyanda and I are off to a good start with this! We should have the Marketscape out by the end of this week🤞🏻 Ahead of that, I will be doing a thread that dives into explaining the characteristics of each of the 9 coverage zones. Stay tuned!

We have made some GOOD progress now. Presently focused on diligencing the participants vis-a-vis criteria for the segmentation of the marketscape. I used 2 CORE criteria as the x and y axis of the market scale. But first definitions… 🧵

1.) There is a nuance of difference between an “eCommerce Enablement” and a “Commerce Enablement” MarketScape: the former is included in the latter. Hence, the latter is far more comprehensive.

This MarketScape is an “eCommerce Enablement MarketScape” for the *African* market.

2.) observe last word I use in last tweet “market.” So WHICH market is being ENABLED to own and drive their own eCommerce business by THEMSELVES (rather than eCommerce marketplaces, such as $jmia)? See next tweet for the definition of that market.

3.) It’s market of BUSINESSES who want to SELL their products/goods through/on electronic & digital channels/platforms, (=eCommerce.) The INVENTORY being sold, technically, could be physical or digital goods: FOCUS of this marketscape is on sellers of PHYSICAL INVENTORY.)

This market consists of the following: 1.) Brands & Manufacturers producing said physical goods/INVENTORY 2.) Wholesalers, Retailers, Merchants (i.e. resellers of 1 above’s produced goods), which in Africa are MOSTLY Food, Drugs, Fashion, Beauty and GenMerch products.

Next on the agenda is my RESEGMENTATION of *this* market, differently from how it had previously been done by all and sundry—up until this Inaugural Edition of “D.O’s eCommerce Enablement MarketScape for Africa” (“DEEM for Africa”). (Sorry, I love acronyms, remember?😜👇

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1260917272752934923

Traditional segmentation’s been Formal/Informal, even by the big strategy consulting firms like @McKinsey. But based on my 20 year straight experience serving this market in Africa with Fintech, eCommerce, Supply-Chain and now eCommerce Enablement tech solutions…👇

…I’ve decided to be analyzing this market henceforth from my perspective of *their adoption of these tech solutions* I’ve been providing them w/ in my professional experience. I’ve thus RE-SEGMENTED them into Formal, Semi-Formal and Informal. So, we go back to definitions.brb.

This my approach ALSO aligns with the popular and globally accepted S-Curve of Technology Adoption. But wait WHAT EXACTLY are these “set of technologies” being adopted?

Again, a small detour to definitions🙏

1st: remember it’s “eCommerce Enablement/Africa” that’s the SUBJECT of this marketscape? So, we need to re-visit what EXACTLY is the DEFINITION of the term ECOMMERCE being enabled for THIS market we are about to re-segment for Africa—MOSTLY found in sectors shown below them👇

Ecommerce is DEFINED as: *commerce* + *txn* + *electronic* + “internet*👇

-electronic+internet = online/cloud (software)

-commerce = buying + selling (inventory/content)

-transaction = value exchange (payments) + delivery date (fulfillment)

-foregoing don’t happen by themselves: so, pre + post transaction activities (sale)

Therefore eCommerce Enablement= providing product/good/service that gives MEANS/DEVISE/SYSTEM to Sellers do/manage eCommerce (sales, cms+inventory+ payments + fulfillment👇) by themselves—rather than hand management of it to 3rd parties’ ($jmia/Konga) marketplaces (5x cost📈!).

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1481627064218398721

(Caveat! @PayPeckerHQ, we ALSO have a co-opetitive ECOSYSTEM model that hand over the “Sales/DemandGen leg of eCommerce value -chain to marketplaces (cake BIGGER for EVERYONE📈+ get ecommerce to SCALE📈 in Africa!) Keeping🤞🏻that we’d find AT LEAST 1 reasonable to partner w/.)

With all that background, let’s go back to my earlier THESIS for RE-SEGMENTATION, which is = “D.O’s eCommerce Enablement Tech Adoption Curve For Africa” (DEET for Africa/DEETA😜)…as BASIS for Re-Segmentation of these market (ALL SELLERS!)

Therefore:

Informal (Balogun Mkt Sellers[0]): Zero - Emerging DEETA

S/Formal (RuffnTumble/NuliFood/HealthPlus/Drinks.ng[cPOS/cms]): Incomplete - Growing DEETA

Formal (ShopRite[ERP]): Mature/Complete - Declining DEETA

Having finished with RE-SEGMENTING the Y-Axis (Market), let’s now move over to the X-Axis (eCommerce Value-chain = various steps of eCommerce Enablement activities—4 ESSENTIALLY—which was what I was highlighting in this earlier tweet: sales + cms/invmgt + payments + fulfilment.

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1481644846158778376

The 12 Opportunity Sectors.

Sector:
1. Sales Enablement, Formal Market
2. Sales Enablement, S/Formal Markt
3. Sales Enablement, Informal Market
4. Cloud Enablement, Formal Market
5. Cloud Enablement, S/Formal Market
6. Cloud Enablement, Informal Market

7. Fintech Enablement, Formal Market
8. Fintech Enablement, S/Formal Mkt
9. Fintech Enablement, Informal Mkt
10. S/Chain Enablement, Formal Mkt
11. S/Chain Enablement, S/Formal Mkt
12. S/Chain Enablement, Informal Mkt

Sector 1: Most Customers (Brands & Retailers ) in this sector have gone the full length of technology adoption broadly across their ENTIRE business operations, including their ecommerce value-chain. They are usu enterprise-scale, hence Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software.

The common types of ERP I’ve seen in this customer segment in Africa are SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, for example. Virtually all business processes of customers are wired together by the ERP, including the software bits related to value-chain segments.

Unfortunate thing, however, is that the KEY problems ERPs are built to solve FOR at enterprise-scale orgs is to be best-in-class at COORDINATION + CONTROL across MANY org functions—NOT to be best-in-class in specific value-chain aspects, e.g. sales, s/chain—or eCommerce!

It’s in this regard that startups beat ERPs (e.g. Sage, SAP) when it comes to being best-in-class for the “eCommerce Enablement (EE)” needs of this customer segment!

This suggests this marketscape will reveal more insight if we find a way of sub-segmenting solution providers!

So, I grabbed that opportunity to sub-segment the eCommerce Enablement (EE) offerings by their “feature richness/completeness levels.” Consequently, I’m going to be introducing another “concept” we can use to FURTHER segment this marketscape😎

I have TERMED this concept as “eCommerce Enablement Software (EES) Maturity Level”

Level 0: 100% Offline/Manual
Level 1: Partly Offline/On-Premise
Level 2: Online
Level 3: Cloud
Level 4: Level 3 + API-first
Level 5: L4 +Headless/Composable

Consequently, industry structure of eCommerce Enablement tech adoption you find in this customer segment IN AFRICA is that of ERP software integrated into startups’ best-in-class product/service for specific aspects of the eCommerce value chain, such as Sales Enablement!

Now, since my Opportunity Sector One I am presently expatiating related to the Sales Enablement. I will like to share with you at this point I FURTHER SEGMENTED Sales Enablement Offerings to ALL the 3 customer segments (formal, semi & informal) in this marketscape😜

I have classified Sales Enablement into Pre-Sales (digital marketing, etc), Core Sales (CRMs, etc) and After-Sales (Customer Success) Enablement. Just so it’s more vivid to you, before I do my final deep dive into my Sector 1, which by my last 5 tweets is now 18 sub-segments!

Beware: I optimized for comprehensiveness + “new insights discovery” in this marketscape in my “DEEM for Africa,” so it has a total of 102 Opportunity Sub-Sectors!!!🤓😎
😂

(I don’t have time/attn to dive deep into EACH of the 102 EE Sub-sectors I can “SEE” in Africa. Oh, NAH!)

To make it vivid, see sample customers: Unilever[fmcg brand], ShopRite[fmcg retailer], Tiger Brands [food brands], KFC[food retailer], Evans Medical [drug brand], HealthPlus [drug retailer], Nike, Levi’s [fashion brands], Woolworth’s [fashion retailer], Nivea[beauty brand], etc

Sample eCommerce Sales Enablement providers, players and startups in my first Opportunity Sector One: @Facebook_Africa, @googleafrica, @salesforce, @Clickatell, @HubSpot,
@TerragonGroup and @ebanqoinc, to mention a few.

Do note, however, that virtually all the offerings/providers/products in Sales EE space are customer-segment-agnostic, due to the nature of Sales Enablement. So, I won’t be doing ANY more explanation for Sectors 2 and 3. All the foregoing adequately covers for those too. {pause}

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1482410623073927182

P.S: An “Opportunity Gap,” as yet unfulfilled—or is probably even a complete white space in Africa—is Returns Management Enablement. I searched whilst doing my research for this. Couldn’t find even one single provider!😳

If you know of any pls tag me as a response to this👇🙏

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1393357599224090629

P.S.S: as you can see from the unfolding industry landscape and structure in my DEEMA, ecommerce which was a “bundled service,” value-chain-wise (marketplace model: Amazon, Jumia, etc) since 1995, is now being “unbundled” having reached “maturity.”

https://twitter.com/docolumide/status/1152478861168390147

So, I’m predicting that over the long term (say next 15-20years), “ecommerce marketplace business model” will remain dominant mostly as a “bundled service marketplace offering” ONLY in China! It’d have started receding in ALL other global markets (Amazon😳)

Why? Can you tell?🤓

@threadreaderapp unroll.