COUNTRY FOCUS
SOUTH AFRICA
Strong business innovation,
weak e-governance
South Africa has plus points including healthy business innovation but is
being stagnated by lack of ICT government vision and drive to implement.
workforce and staff ICT training, followed by mobile phone
subscriptions, technology absorption by businesses, capacity
for innovation, ICT usage for B2B transactions. It scores low
in ICT usage by the government.
In the fourth category of parametres, namely economic and
social impact of ICT, South Africa’s rank is lower still at 93 out
of 139 global countries. It still has relatively high scores in the
area of ICT patents, impact of ICT on organisational models
and creation of knowledge intensive workforce and jobs.
South Africa is ranked 65 out of 139 global countries in terms of its
Network Readiness Index.
South Africa is ranked 65 out of 139 global countries in
terms of its Network Readiness Index, prepared in the Global
Information Technology report 2016. Its rank has risen this
year from the previous 75 out of 143 global countries in
2015. Out of the four categories of parametres that influence
the Network Readiness Index, namely economic and business
environment, business and ICT readiness, ICT usage, and ICT
economic and social impact, South Africa’s highest strength
is in its economic and business environment.
In the first category of parametres used to prepare the country
specific Network Readiness Index, namely economic and
business environment, South Africa is 33 out of 139 global
countries. In the economic and business environment, South
Africa has high scores for its laws relating to ICT, judicial
independence, availability of latest technologies, intensity of
local competition, quality of management schools.
Despite a mixed performance, South Africa is making
progress in the Network Readiness Index rankings, driven
by improvements in infrastructure and affordability. South
Africa’s digital transformation is mostly business driven.
Although the country is perceived to be performing relatively
well in terms of regulatory and political environment, its
innovation and business environment is showing signs of
weakness. This is especially true regarding technology and
venture capital availability, government procurement of the
latest technologies, and procedures to start a business.
On the other hand, investments in infrastructure have significantly
increased international Internet bandwidth and put the country
amongst the top 20 globally on this particular measure.
Furthermore, mobile and broadband tariffs have dropped reducing
barriers to adoption in terms of affordability. Going forward, for
any significant impact, more buy-in from government will be
needed in vision, promotion, and usage of ICT.
In the second category of parametres, namely infrastructure,
affordability and skills readiness, South Africa ranks 69 out
of 139 global countries. In this category, South Africa scores
high in the areas of electricity production, mobile network
coverage, Internet bandwidth, secure Internet servers.
In the third category of parametres, namely ICT usage
amongst individuals, business and government, South
Africa’s rank slips further to 75 out of 139 global countries.
In this category, South Africa scores very high in the area of
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Scores of various parametres in the South African Network
Readiness Index.
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