Understanding the new Global and Digital Order

In life, people may respect your intelligence, many may recognise your certificates but, ultimately, you are rewarded for your contributions – David Adeoye

The world as we know it has changed. As it is, we are plunging deeper into a dynamic digital world with each passing day and moving away from the world as we know it. In this new global order, opportunities have no respect for age, race, gender and geography.

These are the times of the “Davids” versus the “Goliaths”, with young minds giving industry giants a run for their money. Competition in industries is no longer neatly skewed between the industry leaders (who in most cases make up about 70% of the market share) and the rest. It is now demystified across industries and amongst varied players especially unconventional and unassuming players like young individuals.

These Davids are not approaching the market with the proven business strategies like their Goliath counterparts. Rather, as a way of business intervention, they are coming with seemingly simple but obvious products that are confounding the incumbents because of their plainness, low cost structure and matchless returns. Majority of these Davids didn’t even plan to be disruptors. Yes, they intervened to solve problems that were too simple to catch the sophisticated gaze of industry giants. Appearing like grasshoppers in the eyes of the incumbents, they were not paid any worthy attention, till they noiselessly captured the juicy parts of the coveted market.

These young individuals do not even know so many business jargons and that in itself has been a great blessing; not having enough experience to justify why things cannot work. They think and they do. Unfortunately for the incumbents, it is not business as usual anymore and their recycled strategies cannot survive in this current global order. But fortunately for these young entrants, their age and little experience of the old global order is their unfair advantage; so young and full of courage to risk it ALL! as they do not know too much not to. Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi (software developers and longtime friends) are a typical example of Davids. They founded the recently acquired Paystack, a Nigerian Company, in 2015. As at today, Paystack, with around 60,000 customers is worth about N74 billion! which is more than the market capitalisation of Unity Bank (N6.6 billion), Wema Bank (N21 billion) and FCMB Group PLC (N44.8 billion) combined according to Tekedia.

Collaboration over competition in the new world

Again, as against competition, collaboration is another newness that comes with the freshness of these times. For instance in Nigeria, like never in its history, we are seeing youths working together to demand change with the #EndSARS and #EndSWAT campaign. In the past, it would have taken months of planning and brainstorming by a select few to achieve such feat. And you usually would have a protest leader that would end up being cowed by the powers that be to dispel the teeming crowd. Today, we see young Nigerians coordinating themselves as individual leaders to fight for a common cause. In the ongoing campaign against Nigerian SARS (the Special Anti-Robbery Squad), it is observed that there are organised private security championed by folks that were once labeled thugs (‘agbero’ – as they’re usually called in Lagos, Nigeria), feeding for the hungry, free medical services for the injured, public defenders for the arrested, free sanitation services by volunteers, seamless communication system (there is even a dedicated helpline – 01 700 1755 – to seek help in any of the listed areas), transparent budget and procurement. These inexplicably organised system have become a major cause of bewilderment for the Nigerian government; how does one nip such a crowd in the bud? How does one play defence where there are no attackers? How does a squad of fully-equipped Giants go after an invincible crowd?

Needless to say, the temper of the times has indeed changed! Asides the above, everything around us speaks to this; the rate of change and pace of technological advancement, COVID-19, the massive shift and reliance on online systems, the globalisation of education, skills and business, etc.

In today’s world, skills and good works that speak – regardless of qualification, age, race and gender – are the qualifying attributes for success. We have our digitised global village to thank for this. This is the ageless era where even kids can be billionaires just by creating content on Youtube (checkout the 2019 highest-earning Youtube star; 9-year-old Ryan Kanji, who started creating content at the age of 3 and was estimated to be worth $26 million as at June 2019). No doubt, this is the finest time in human history to be alive. Man is free to think, do and become. And being young is the highest privilege of the times.

Exploring uncharted territories has never been easier

A couple of weeks ago, I had a discussion with my career mentor David Adeoye and the crux of his discussion with me was on “courage” and “making valuable contributions”. Allow me charge you also on this note.

These are times to have courage to go boldly in the direction of our dreams and face our fears – So, step out of the familiar into the new (consider learning a new skill and researching into new areas that leverage on internet power; embrace digital media, digital marketing, doing business online… consider simple ways of doing what you love and channel your various gifts using digital platforms). These are also interesting times to walk on water; be daring and explore uncharted territories – Question the norm, find time to think daily, test new ideas, don’t be afraid to step out of your safety net and comfort zone, do something that scares you and keeps you up late at night… Again, these are times to be authentic! – find your true identity in God your creator and be you! Let everyday, be a journey in self discovery and actualisation. So, work on refining your skills, gifts and abilities and give the waiting world the very best of you.

Above all, don’t just focus on chasing, making or gathering money, certifications and 'social media likes' but be deliberate about making valuable contributions through your skills, gifts, products and service.

Finally, everyone agrees that the world is changing rapidly, but only a few are actually changing themselves to fit this new world. What have you done to change? What about you is changing? Are you still doing the exact same things by rote? What’s new with you? What about you or your skill is digitally relevant? Who are you in this new global order… where do you fit in… who would need your skills in the next 5-10 years? What skills will be relevant in the next 5-10 years? who would you become? I hope these questions stir your heart to go beyond speaking about change to taking the needed action.

Going forward, constantly renew your thinking… have courage… take action… and make valuable contributions!

PS: As a way of renewing your thinking and seeing life through the lens of the new order, please checkout Paystack’s about page here; – It is the most refreshing site I have come across in a long time. For instance, they have the names and pictures of all their Team members (who are equally young) displayed and over 200 customer testimonials on what they call “Wall of Love” …Not to mention the very simple but pungent core ideas that drives their business (refer to ‘Our Value’ section under the about page hyperlink above).

If you have an online business or are considering setting up one, check out their free commerce toolkit for collecting payments from anywhere in the world even without a website, incoming orders and inventory management and more here.

If the questions in this post challenge you and you sincerely don’t know how to go about rethinking your life’s journey in this new world, please feel free to contact me at oluwatoadeyemo@gmail.com and I would be happy to help or direct you to resources that can jumpstart you.

See also: Thriving in the digital age