Innovation in Africa

Fuelling an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem for Growth and Prosperity

Deseye Umurhohwo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000327342
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

This book emphasizes the need for promoting innovation on the African continent. It identifies the roadblocks for entrepreneurs and discusses ways for developing an ecosystem for innovators to pave a way through the barriers and create ground-breaking products and new technologies which meet consumers' needs in Africa.

In order to stimulate innovation in African countries, there is the need for a more appropriate approach for innovation to occur in a context of international openness to knowledge. This book adopts a practical approach, demonstrating how innovation is an important driver of economic growth and competitiveness. It shows that innovation in Africa should be driven by local people, in response to local problems, and that open technology and knowledge sharing are vital to this project. It further explores key enablers such as the discovery of innovative talent, overcoming barriers, building strategic partnerships and promoting innovation across the continent. The book places emphasis on the creation of an innovation ecosystem as a value-creating tool by stakeholders for nation building and growth in Africa.

This book will be of interest to researchers, students, international agencies, governments, businesses and individuals interested in the field of innovation and its potentials. It will also be relevant to investors, manufacturers and other stakeholders involved in the economic development of Africa.

1 Innovation in today’s world

The value of innovation

The enormous contribution of innovation to value creation and development in various fields has increased the interest in the subject amongst people, businesses, institutions and nations.¹ Incontestably, it has been widely recognised as a means of securing competitive advantage and growth.² With a competitive world environment, organisations today are persistently determined to outperform one another with the intent of increasing their customer base.³ As a result of the overriding importance of innovation in the corporate world, it has been labelled as the silver bullet that will secure the sustainable competitive advantage and growth of firms.⁴ The greatest economic value comes from innovations that directly impact customers’ use⁵; therefore, the long term survival and prosperity of firms cannot be discussed without stressing emphasising the important role of innovation.⁶

The origin of the innovation theory, recognised as the driving force behind commercial profit and economic growth which would bring about the wealth of society, was put together by Joseph Schumpeter.⁷ Other perspectives of the innovation concept highlight its role in generating economic development⁸ and the determination of the continued existence of an enterprise⁹ in an uncertain world.¹⁰ Prior to the extensive use of the term under consideration, processes that are associated with it and technological revolution were perceived as important.¹¹

An innovation is an idea, device, process or something that can be interjected into the market and as a consequence meets new requirements, existing market needs or undisclosed desires of customers.¹² The importance of applying innovation across firms of all sizes is emphasised in another description of the word.¹³ Another classification of the term under reference refers to it as the process of making changes.¹⁴ At the centre of the definition of innovation is novelty, which is its distinctive feature.¹⁵ This can be in the form of enhanced products, processes and routine of management. Although the word, novelty, does not satisfactorily typify innovation, the basis of the concept is the value that the innovative product generates when compared to existing solutions.¹⁶

Innovation is known to bring about a difference in value,¹⁷ while the level of usefulness is significantly dependent on the judgement of the product user.¹⁸ Viewed from another perspective, customers will perceive a product or service as an innovation if the performance exceeds something they had previously experienced.¹⁹ An obvious stance of the subject in question sees it as a dynamic process that constantly responds to the changing needs of customers and concurrently adapts frequently to the external pressures in the competitive landscape.²⁰

Sustaining competitive advantage with innovation

In the last few decades, there have been several debates about the importance of competition and innovation across the world. Certainly, innovation represents one of the bases of competition and requires improvements together with investments in various industries in areas such as Research and Development (R&D).²¹ Within a system, innovation can occur at different levels. At the functional level, it can come by way of improvements, while at the corporate level, it can take the form of new products and services, and business models. Technological breakthroughs, on the other hand, are ascribed as innovation at the level of the industry.²² Given that innovation has been acknowledged as a core renewal process in an organisation,²³ executives have consequently realised that it is only through the creation of new products and services, in addition to practices and processes, that their companies would continue to grow and flourish.²⁴

The need to examine innovation as a solution for securing competitive advantage and growth²⁵ should therefore not be overlooked. We cannot also muse over the survival of companies without bringing to the fore factors that give them a competitive advantage. This brings us to the related concept of business innovation. From a definition standpoint, the notion of business innovation is described as new ideas or solutions that create business value and increases the competitive advantage of a firm.²⁶ The changing world we live in today requires businesses to satisfy customer needs using innovative products they have created.²⁷ Meanwhile, the competitiveness of most organisations is underlined by their innovative capabilities which include their innate abilities, processes and services that increases value for customers.²⁸

There are several interpretations and forms of innovation which bring to light its importance in transforming an uncertain world.²⁹ Broadly, there are two types, namely incremental and disruptive. The continuous improvement of features of existing products is known as incremental innovation.³⁰ This form of innovation is also characterised by the extension of current organisational capabilities.³¹ Further description of incremental innovation sh...