Lungi Sangqu warns software purchases won’t fix broken processes in African enterprises

Lungi Sangqu, founder and CEO of Africa Digital Success, told TechCabal that millions of dollars in enterprise tech spending across African organisations are squandered when executives treat software as a product rather than a solution to a defined problem. She argues that C-suite leaders must stop delegating technology strategy solely to IT departments and instead own the decision-making process.

Drawing on a career that spans government, banking, logistics and education in 49 African countries, Sangqu cites the digitisation of UNISA’s student workflows and DHL’s continent-wide operations as examples where launches succeeded only as milestones. She highlights governance gaps, shadow-IT, and the tendency to measure success by platform acquisition rather than improvements in service delivery, staff productivity or revenue.

Sangqu advises boards to articulate the specific operational challenge before deploying AI, to assess local technology on reliability, security and cost, and to reskill employees for higher-value roles. She contends that human-centric design and executive accountability, not merely code, determine whether digital initiatives deliver lasting value.