Digitalisation and Digital Innovation for Sustainable Business Model Development and Value Creation: Implications for Policy and Practice for African SMMEs

Since it is well documented that no business can succeed persistently without recourse to business model re-engineering, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been lauded for their strategic manoeuvring, elasticity and flexibility. Yet, the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the fragility of SMMEs’ brick-and-mortar business model predominantly founded on location-based production and delivery of products and services. The Covid-19 pandemic has proven that, in highly disruptive and turbulent environments characterised by social distancing and limited logistical delivery of goods, digital technologies could become the epicentre of new business models for SMEs. In fact, digital innovation in business model development and value creation has proven to be pivotal in preventing business bankruptcy, expanding to foreign markets and increasing the competitiveness of these businesses. Drawing on (Christensen in The innovator's dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail, Harvard Business School Press, 1997) Disruptive Innovation Theory, the concept of institutional voids and extensive review of literature, this chapter argues that digital platforms (“platfirms”), crowdfunding, cloud-based computing, social media marketing, tockenisation and securitisation of assets, big data-driven decision-making and artificial intelligence (AI)-informed business processes are business model forms and processes that could transform the digital futures of African SMEs. As such, these firms cannot afford to ignore these model forms and processes as they constitute critical business survival and continuity strategies. The study contributes to the development of a recursive, self-perpetuating and self-regulating system comprising the acquiring, assembling, combining and integration of resources that trigger digitalisation processes, digital innovation and business model development and value creation. The study concludes with some policy and practical implications for African SMEs.