The technology sector has taken minimal hits compared to other industries, with fundamental shifts the world-over resulting in several bright spots. Cloud services are in higher demand than ever. Video conferencing and remote collaboration use are all-time highs as companies focus on keeping employees productive.

 

In some African countries, governments and business entities started measures to shift a greater volume of transactions towards digital payments and away from cash – which the World Health Organization flagged as a conduit for the spread of the coronavirus. The pandemic has acted as an accelerant to digital transformation, with more industries and entities adapting technological practices to mitigate the implications of the pandemic and streamline processes.

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In Africa, the lockdown has had a dramatic impact on tech adaptation habits. Great strides have been made under e-commerce, digital healthcare, entertainment, and education with the creation of more platforms that efficiently replicate and replace pre-COVID systems. These platforms are leveraging on the growing needs created by the times and have the ability to do away with non-tech practices and officiate productivity and output.

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At Frederick Fyle Group, we have observed investors growing interest in tech offerings given their high-growth, high-return nature. In the short term, however, the high risk posed by these transactions has forced many funds to adopt a wait-and-see approach to allow proof of concept and significant market traction levels to be achieved. Furthermore, despite many economies slowly opening up, funds are still skeptical about deploying capital, with most pushing potential transactions to early 2021 with the hopes that markets will have achieved a semblance of stability.

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All the same, the future of technology looks increasingly bright, with medium and long-term forecasts indicating high performance and a positive outlook given growing demand developed through the year. For this to pass, tech companies need to carry forth the resilience they have shown during the pandemic, with introspective assessments of how to position themselves to investors and funds.

 

At Frederick Fyle our take for the key contributors to successful technology offerings would be for entrepreneurs to build significant scalable market traction, acquire a world-class team with diverse and relevant skills, and having a simplistic yet efficient business model.

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