Post Covid-19 – era digital transformation in gambling industry

Digital transformation is well underway in Africa’s gambling industry. It is a change in how an organization delivers value to its customers, which marks a radical rethinking of how an organization uses technology, people, and processes to fundamentally change business performance.

The Africa region is starting to show signs of recovery from its coronavirus lockdown period, and digital transformation has sprung up on a wide variety of businesses. The gambling industry is one of those sectors in Africa that innovate their online service offerings amid the health crisis. The lockdown was effective at getting some of the bookmakers’ companies that weren’t willing to go outside of the box before by doing so now by improving their online services offering different content to meets customers’ needs. Going digital is one sure thing we know happened in Africa.

Digital transformation is well accelerated in the continent, especially the gambling industry, which transforms rapidly, particularly in urban and rural areas. Thanks to the Fintech penetration available, i.e., mobile money acceptance made it easier for customers to go online, placing a bet. Though In the post-Covid-19-era, the rest of the future is still uncertain if players will return to their usual offline betting or stick to igaming betting experience.

However, as mentioned above, digital transformation is taking shape in the Africa gambling industry, which is hard and digital customers are even more demanding. Even if we know the covid-19 pandemic lockdown, it derives new customer value to bookmakers during the lockdown. It has also helped bookmakers win new customers and recurring businesses in the post-covid19 time in Africa. How do gaming companies retain customers that went online during the related lockdown, and how do gaming companies accelerate digital transformation? Focusing on customers’ interest is a deep understanding of the customer’s need is the essential starting point in understanding how to lead the digital transformation. We shouldn’t forget offline customer-centric players who went online during lockdown have no choice but to go online; now that ease of lockdown is underway in several African countries.

Gambling brands need to put customers at the center of endeavors not to focus on operational efficiencies and reduce costs. The goal is to create a competitive experience to differentiate the igaming betting experience from offline betting by bringing values and incentives promotions, which keeps them coming back. Finding a customer’s interest can be challenging from my research, using the ” design thinking” step can make things easier. Empathize with your users. The define-your user needs their problem and your insights, ideate-by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for an innovative solution, pro-type-to start building solutions, Test-solutions, and having the right digital and business savvy leaders in place.

Therefore, igaming companies should know that digital transformation is business transformation; no one individual can altogether lead to digital transformation because of digital cut across marketing, technology operations, and finance. The most crucial person in operationalizing the road map should be the one who understands your customer most, followed by technology experts in a different area from my research. These usually involve the team in achieving transformation are Marketing, IT, and product.

Furthermore, transformation is about things that have never been done before, and for this reason, there is often no playbook to follow. One way to achieve successful teamwork is to empower the people to try new things and learn along the way by setting up a common goal for the vital leader from 3 sectors. Everyone understands not only what their responsibilities are but also how their work will have resulted. After any crisis, there is an intense desire for rebirth and renewal. For example, after a war, there is a post-war-boom after the .com bubble busted; we have the internet era. So gaming brands need to understand the importance of digital transformation in the crisis simultaneously as consumers’ behavior in all sectors has shifted to digital.

Offering that incredible experience of what they want is crucial, especially in Africa. Where retail betting is dominant, usually limited numbers of people go online to place bet retail still that has not been the case since covid-19 lockdown, which saw several players went online to bet. Gaming companies need to take this opportunity by using the existing data available to offer a great customer experience, making sure consumers don’t have to return to offline betting.

As mentioned earlier, it is critical to understand what content your customers want. Are there satisfied with the customer’s experience online in the related lockdown in Africa? That question is yet to be answered, but the long-term digital transformation is paramount for the African gambling industry.

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