Infomediation | “Falling Through the Net: The Role of Small and Medium Tourism Businesses in Digital Value Chains”

This is a short interview I did for Tourism Watch on our work on Digitalisation of the Tourism Sector in East Africa

With the installation of fibre optic cables in East Africa, internet connectivity got a lot better and cheaper. On one hand, this has facilitated the expansion of larger international tour operators and hotel chains into East African markets and allows them to better manage and control local suppliers. Due to cheap and reliable forms of digital communication local East African SMEs do not just compete with one another, but with global players as well. In our research we found, that large international tour operators were able to cut out some Kenyan and Rwandan ground handlers and intermediaries as they are able to communicate with the service providers directly online.

Full interview on Tourism Watch (German version)

On the CII blog I recently wrote a summary of some of the current thinking on new models of IT outsourcing, and particularly ideas around socially responsible outsourcing.

This discussion stems from recent discussions that took place at the University of Manchester workshop on IT Sourcing and development.

The idea of this workshop was to revisit IT outsourcing which has become a significant industry and employer in some countries. This particularly comes in the context of growing interest in ‘impact outsourcing’, the idea that IT outsourcing can be designed to include substantial social as well as economic goals.

Here I wanted to summarise what I saw as some of the key discussions, and what it implies for our future work on outsourcing and micro-work in sub-Saharan Africa.

See full article on the CII blog