Advice You - Internet and Businesses Online

In simple terms, E-business (doing business on the Internet) can enable small scale businesses in emerging markets gain greater bargaining power in the global economic exchange despite their limited capital, and mobility. The world economy is moving online. Today people are meeting online and eventually getting married, people who do not have the capital to establish physic

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

al stores are getting rich maintaining only online shops, small musicians who find it difficult getting producers are uploading their tracks on ‘Napster’ to be downloaded by millions of people around the world, even politicians are using video-sharing tools like ‘Youtube’ to reach potential voters, etc. Therefore, the action or inaction of African businesses to take advant

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

ge of e-business will determine how much they grow in the coming years.

E-readiness Ranking
Every year Economist come up with a table of e-readiness ranking from a selected number of countries. It is not surprising that African countries often rank lowest in most e-readiness reports. That is not very promising considering that most investors today will be interested n

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

t only on the investment climate and infrastructure in a country but also on e-readiness indices such as national connectivity, e-leadership, information security, human capital, and e-business climate.

Interpreting E-readiness Indices There are many indices used to measure e-readiness. The most common ones are:

• Connectivity: Addresses the ability to exchange informati

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

n, goods and services with the rest of the world.

• E-leadership: Addresses the commitment of a national government to partner with industry leaders to create conditions favorable to electronic transactions.

• Information security: Addresses issues concerning the protection of personal data, intellectual property, and effective privacy laws.

• Human Capital: Emphasis on

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

developing competent manpower including IT managers who can manage complex technology tasks, policy analysts who can make informed inputs on government policies and regulations that are capable of stifling technology growth; local content creators who can either customize or adapt global technologies to the specific business needs in the country, software and hardware engin

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

ers.

Beyond the indices, e-business also requires a larger population of end-users or consumers who don’t have to understand how the technology works, but can use the technology.

How Small Businesses In Africa Can Benefit From E-business:

Individual Action:
Even in challenging environments such as Africa, small businesses can still benefit from e-business. Simple in

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

ormation websites with product and contact information, as a first step can open new doors for small businesses locally and internationally. Hospitality industries stand to gain more exposure and market through e-business. Tourists and people in the Diaspora are excellent target customers for hotel and tourism information for online reservations.

Group Action:
Busines

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

associations, Chambers Of Commerce, Cooperative societies, and NGOs in Africa can bridge the economy of scale on the technology required for e-business by setting up online malls showcasing a pool of their members’ sites, products and services. Through the online mall people in the Diaspora may order local goods for friends or family. These associations can also help to gu

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

arantee the quality of products advertised on the site, as well as the credibility of its members to ensure fraudulent people do not seize the opportunity. Only certified members and certified products will make it on the site. ‘Ghana Mall’, for instance, sells goods made by Ghanaian artisans internationally. It also rakes in some $500 million a year in goods and cash that

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

re sent to the country from abroad. Funds to develop such malls can be sort as grants from multilateral agencies as the World Bank Group’s Small and Medium Enterprise Department.

Payment:
No doubt, credit card acceptance is the heart of e-commerce, but technological hindrances and doing business in local currency can drive up transaction costs. There are rules and pr

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

tocols to gain access to international card association systems, which currently do not favor African countries. The amounts of online transactions originating from most African countries hardly meet the rules required by the international card associations. So there must be a way around it. Therefore, banks in Africa need to establish special ‘Merchant Accounts’ for small

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

usinesses to enable them accept secured payments in foreign currencies processed in the same way as credit cards. Online payments will still have to go through SWIFT, encryptions, or other secured sites, as PayPal to ensure adequate security.

Shipping:
Most national and international courier services are currently equipped to handle shipping to any location in the wor

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

ld. Business organizations can enter into partnership agreements with these postal and shipping agencies to either enjoy special shipping rates or develop more efficient shipping methods that can guarantee delivery. In addition, the Customs department should make available list of prohibited items, duties and fees to the business organizations. One workable model is to post

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

their personnel at the post offices to facilitate the inspection of goods.

Government’s Role
As a private-sector crusader, I dislike prescribing any solution that will depend on governments. But E-commerce requires vendor credibility. Apart from technology, the greatest impediment African businesses face in embracing e-business is fraud. This is where the governments

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

hould play important role. Law-makers should strengthen existing laws to stem out corruption in their countries. People who thrive on advance fee fraud should be put out of business. It is possible! Anything that works through technology can be stopped through technology. It’s simply a digital war amongst programmers (it’s like the virus and anti-virus battle among programm

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

rs). Moreover, the world wants to see trials, prosecutions and convictions to believe that African countries are serious in their war against corruption.

How This Will Work
For this to work it must exist as one bundle. A customer does not want to be bothered by the backend technology and how it works. They want an easy-to-use, time-saving, front-end screen. As for now

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

, cross-continental partnerships will play a major role in helping businesses in Africa cross the e-commerce threshold, as African businesses will still need international partnerships to help complete orders. PeopLink offers such a partnership. They have developed free, downloadable tools to help small businesses build virtual product catalogs, which they then upload to a

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

earchable catalog on their database, thereby offering small businesses the opportunity to benefit from collective marketing power.

One Stop Tech Support Centers:
Technology investors should also consider going into one-stop tech support centers. For instance, in Ghana BusyInternet is such a one-stop IT center with a cyber caf?, call booths, video conferencing service

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

, document services, web hosting, space rental and other tech support for e-businesses.

Exploring E-business will help small businesses in Africa increase their market share in the global marketplace? There should be a concerted effort to make this happen. The World Bank developed a collection of free tools called ‘SMEToolkit’ to help small business develop such potentials

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Advice You - Developing E-Business For Small Businesses In Africa

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