The Corona Virus (Covid19) is leading the whole world towards a whole new economy. Zimbabwean companies will not be spared from this transition. Advancements in Computer Science has giving rise to a whole new digital economy and will likely see a rise in Digital Marketing, Social Media Management and Computer Science related jobs. Even before the pandemic the demand for Digital skills was increasing though Africa seemed to have been trailing behind. The pandemic outbreak has however given a real wake-up call across the African continent.

The newspaper industry has seen a massive drop in sales of the printed copy. The Zimbabwe Education Sector on other hand has for a long time been reluctant to offer digital education services. The pandemic has crippled all education systems relying on face to face contact. The Music Industry has also been hit hard by the novel corona virus disease. Musicians have been left on ground zero as more than 70% of their income comes from live shows. The list goes on and on. The corporate world has to respond quickly to get back to winning ways. Below are the some of the critical skills required for companies to survive the digital era. Winding back the clock will be futile.

Content Marketers & Copywriters

Content marketing is a marketing skill which involves the creation of highly search engine optimized quality content to attract potential clients and for client retention on a consistent basis online. Ultimately, the increased traffic which comes to the company’s website is as a result of the work done by content marketers. The work of content marketers is to push the brand of the organisation online but with a strategy to attract customers with interest to the products and services offered by the brand. Content marketers are the first digital profit drivers of an organisation.

Although some organisations take content marketers as copywriters, copywriting is a different and unique skill altogether. Copywriters are experienced in writing a copy which persuades a person to take action or to buy. Copywriters usually develop landing pages on websites and their role is to ensure that once a person opens a particular landing page, they spend money. If you subscribe to a service which sends you emails now and then persuading you to buy, well that email was written by a copywriter too. For an organisation to leverage the digital economy, these two related skills are key.

Inbound Sales Specialist

An inbound Sales specialist is a sales consultant who is able to use digital tools to identify new prospects, connect with them, explore their needs, and proffer a solution. An inbound sales job involves looking for clients online where there are (be it LinkedIn, Twitter etc.) then use digital tools to understand their needs and create buyer personas before finally directing them towards making a decision. Visualize an inbound sales specialist as a door to door sales man. The only difference is the door to door sales has no idea if the clients want or do not want their product. An Inbound sales specialist uses digital screening tool depending on people’s various online behavior traits and group them into different buyer personas before s/he engages them.

User Experience Manager

User Experience Manager also called UX Manager is a key skill in migrating to the digital economy. UX designer’s role is to give life to your products and grow the bottom line by improving the experience customer have with your products. So this skill isn’t about mere designing or user testing. User Experience Managers focus on the entire process of acquiring and integrating a product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function. In traditional business models, UX Designers exist but their role is absorbed by other traditional functions. To fully implement a digital strategy, a User Experience designer must be given enough room to ensure that the whole digital experience is flawless, simple and less technical.

Network Engineers

In a digital economy, connectivity is key. Once there is no network, business is crippled. Thus a Network Engineer’s role becomes critical. The role of a Network engineer is to ensure that there is connectivity between the computer hardware and the rest of the e-commerce digital infrastructure and also offering support when they fail. In any organisation, if you don’t ever call the network engineer, it means they are doing their job well. In a manual setup, an organisation can afford to operate for a few hours with systems being offline, but in a fully digital structure, if the system goes offline, this will result in huge loss of revenue.

Digital Business Analyst

Competition online is won by the one who controls data and to control data you must let it speak to you. Digital analysis thus becomes a handy skill. This task will involve analysing search engine marketing efforts, traffic, traffic sources, website bounce rate, lead generation rate, social media ads, website banner ads, and online branding. This is critical in shaping the direction of the future marketing campaigns and ensuring the overall objective of the organisation which is making sales is met. Without data analytics, marketing efforts will be futile.

Conclusion

These are our five critical digital skills that will be on demand in Zimbabwe after Covid19. This doesn’t mean an organisation should hirer five different individuals. Some of these skills might be found in a single individual. If you don’t know where to start, we have a Digital Consultancy team at ZimInvestors with more than 10 years digital marketing and digital strategy experience. This is an opportunity for SMEs to level the playing field. The ZimInvestors team is more than willing to help. Send an email on invest@www.ziminvestors.com.

As always, to your continued success.