Assabi believes that, while technology is supporting online growth, local businesses are not making the most of the power of the Web, especially in some of their most important vertical markets.
'Internationally,' Assabi says, 'cost-effective broadband has led many European and American businesses to new levels of connectivity, allowing them to make better use of their existing technologies to improve service to consumers and businesses.'
While broadband is present in the local market in some shape or form, and adoption is seen to be high amongst businesses, according to the incumbent operator, the overall adoption figures make up a small percentage of the total market.
Having said that, SA is slowly making its mark in the international market by adopting Web technologies to better integrate business functions and deliver relevant information to relevant people.
The rest of Africa, Assabi says, still lags SA in many respects.
'The digital lifestyle driven by the online experience has proven its case globally,' Assabi notes. 'What we may see with regards to Web technology adoption is that SA may skip one or two generations of technology on the way to playing adoption 'catch up' and mobile devices of the future will drive the technology.'
Challenges
Africa lends itself to the widespread adoption of Web technologies, because of the chronic challenges that businesses face on a daily basis.
Mobile commerce (m-commerce) is one of the obvious technology candidates that Africa stands to benefit from. With an estimated 62 million handsets in Africa and a majority of the population being unbanked, putting one and one together is not very hard.
Assabi maintains that there is still a genuine need in the African market for mobile connectivity. According to Cellular.co.za, some 32 million calls are made per month from 2,135 of Vodacom's rural and township public handsets, which means that there is a potential market for businesses to offer data services to these traditionally under serviced areas.
'The trick with the technology,' Assabi says, 'is that with the diversity in handsets, OSes, platforms and banking systems, technology needs to deliver multiple presentation layers to a single communications source.'
Underutilized
It is not a matter of the past mindset, where you either had 'e-business or were out of business', but of making use of the Web as an enabler for business, and that is where most of the dotcoms went horribly wrong.
The Web, says Assabi, is the most cost-effective self-help channel, because of its pervasive nature. And a lot of service industries are cottoning onto the fact that the Web brings a new dimension to customer service and servicing the supply chain.
Particularly in the travel industry, companies are looking to 'Dell' their business (i.e. go direct via the Web).
Locally, Kulula.com is an excellent example of how companies can offer Web-based self-help services, connected to various seemingly disparate systems and integrated via the Web into a single user interface.
When booking a trip on Kulula.com's Web site, travellers can book a flight, rent a car through Kulula Cars (operated by Imperial), book hotel rooms (Protea Hotels) and even book adventures such as shark cage diving or a trip to Robben Island.
'And with the wealth of overseas tourists flocking to SA's shores, more of the travel industry should look at adopting these technologies to make the process easier for local and international travellers; a massive marketing boost for SA. The Web allows for integration across all the traditional systems being used in the travel agencies such as Galileo, WorldSpan and Amadeus.' Assabi says.
Delivering consistency is the business challenge, but it is not a huge hurdle to overcome if the correct balance between people and technology is put into place, he concludes.