By: Nada Adel Sobhi
Cairo – Mubasher: Cairo witnessed its first E-commerce Summit on Wednesday, 26 September, bringing together CEOs and top executives from top brands and startups from across the country.
Hundreds of people, from managers, entrepreneurs, media personnel, to those who were simply interested in the development of the digital scene in the country attended the event held at The Nile Ritz Carlton.
E-commerce websites in Egypt have reached around 450 different online retailers and marketplaces in 2015, while in 2017, e-commerce turnover for business-to-consumer (B2C) grew 22%, data released by the E-commerce Summit ahead of the one-day event showed.
With panels held in three venues, topics tackled included: e-commerce for fast-moving consumer hoods (FMCGs), driving digital transformation and how businesses can adapt to those resisting transformation, monetising innovation, the purpose of collecting data, among others.
The three tracks or venues were: strategy, tactics, and implementation.
Several speakers presented case studies about their products and businesses, highlighting the pitfalls they have suffered and how they were able to overcome them.
“To understand the potential of e-commerce we should benchmark our progress against developed markets, for instance online transactions account for only 2% of total sales today in Egypt versus 20% in the US, this is where we need to be,” robusta managing director Hussein Mohieldin said previously. Robusta was the main sponsor for the E-Commerce Summit 2018.
Education vs Expectations
One of the topics tackled at the E-commerce Summit was the role of education and how it could contribute to the rising digital scene.
Universities should offer what is needed in the market, said Slim Abdennadher, vice president of Academic Affairs at the German University in Cairo (GUC). He highlighted that graduate students often find a stark contrast between what they learn in universities and what they confront in the job market and real-life.
Similarly, Walid Gad, chairman of the Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications (CIT), noted that there was a gap between what is offered by academia and work, but he stressed that the role of academia was to merely give students a background.
Universities cannot produce students who are 100% compatible with the job market, he stressed.
As to the chamber’s role in education, Gad said that the CIT often worked with universities, particularly when it came to graduation projects. He also said that the CIT’s job was to convey the ongoing trend to universities.
Driving digital transformation
Businesses and their employees are often resistant to change was among the topics handled in a panel discussion in the Tactics section of the summit.
Commenting about the topic and dilemma of resistance, Manal Negm ElDin, E-business head at Alaraby, said that in order to drive digital transformation, businesses had to give value to the transformation.
Similarly, Fadwa Weheba, head of consulting at PractiQ Consulting, said that to take on such a step the decision had to be agreed upon and come from a company’s top management.
She explained that top management ought to start with a small group or “task force” who would begin to implement this transformation, noting that constantly incentivising this group would eventually make the rest of the company interested in joining the transformation and becoming part of those select view who have gained the top management’s attention.
Monetising innovation
In his case study, Martin Janzen, managing director at Simon-Kucher, discussed how companies could become more profitable.
“Innovation is only meaningful if solves a problem,” Janzen stated. Citing data compiled by his company, he said that globally, around 72% of new products do not reach their profit target, even if they achieve early success.
He gave examples of Kodak, which invented digital technology for cameras in the 1970s, had early success but eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
He went on to say that a lot of startups and small companies often focus on their products and at a later stage consider pricing, a process which he said was totally wrong.
“You need to think about price at the beginning,” he stressed, reiterating the phrase “price before product.”
Simon-Kucher, which recently opened an office in Egypt, has over 1,200 employees worldwide and logged $300 million in revenues in 2017. Its purpose is to help companies earn more.
Legislation for E-commerce
A topic that garnered significant interest at the E-commerce Summit 2018 was the legislation and taxation of e-commerce.
The speakers on this panel were: Dr. Amr Badawi, former executive chairman of the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and former deputy to the minister of finance; Mostafa Moharram, managing partner at Moharram & Partners; Dina Gobran, country manager at OLX Egypt; Mohamed Abdel Gawad, partner at Sharkawy & Sarhan Law Firm; Mohamed Hegazy, chairman of the Legislative Committee at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT); Dr. Nidal El Said, chairman of the ICT Committee at the Egyptian House of Representatives; and Osama Tawakol, advisor to the minister of finance for taxation policies.
The speakers highlighted the need for having a law that protects people against cyber-crimes, which have grown significantly over the past few years, especially with the rise of e-payments.
Many Egyptians who shop online still do not trust e-payments, which is why cash-on-delivery is still a major method of payment in the country, one of the speakers said.
Dr. Nidal El Said, chairman of the ICT Committee at the Egyptian House of Representatives, discussed the differences between online payments and e-commerce, stressing that they were not the same thing as many believe.
He stressed the government’s need to bear in mind that while it seeks to impose and collect taxes, it should also consider small companies, and the burdens they would suffer if taxes were high.
The government ought to ensure that taxes do not scare away Egyptian and international investors, whether in e-commerce or otherwise, Dr. Nidal El Said said, noting that having a good infrastructure and legislative environment would be helpful.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Hegazy, chairman of the Legislative Committee at the MCIT, said that the government was working on a law that would protect against cyber-crimes and maintain customers’ privacy as well as data privacy.
“The government has taken steps to enhance digital security, protect privacy, and enact harsher laws against cyber-crimes” was among the session’s highlights.
(Image credit: Some by E-Commerce Summit, others by Mubasher)
