Entrepreneurship and ICTs: The Creation and Growth of Startup Companies in Senegal, A Case Study of CTIC

REPUBLIC OF SENEGAL
Un Peuple Un But Une Foi
MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Institut Suprieur de Management

THESIS FOR COMPLETION OF THE BACHELOR IN INTERNATIONAL
MANAGEMENT
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGIES: THE CREATION AND GROWTH OF STARTUP
COMPANIES IN SENEGAL: A CASE STUDY OF CTIC
Name: Ms. Mamouna DIOP
Supervisor: Ms. Mame Yauto Faye,
Bachelor in International Management
Entrepreneurship and Marketing Teacher at

ISM Dakar
Maymouna711@gmail.com
Academic Year: 2013/2014
[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

THE CREATION AND GROWTH OF STARTUP COMPANIES IN SENEGAL: A CASE
STUDY OF CTIC.] 2014
To my late Grandfather, Idrissa WONE, for his influence on my life. I

salute his humility, his kindness and his simplicity. May ALLAH Swt have
mercy on his soul.
To my beloved Mother, Assatou WONE, for her love, for the

unconditional support in all the domains of my life, for the prayers, for the
advices.
To my Father Mouhamadou DIOP, for his contribution in my school career and

the great care.
To my lovely Aunt, Salamata WONE NDIAYE, my second mother, for

the advices and the permanent support.
To my Sister and Brothers, for the understanding and encouragements.
To my Cousins, my Niece, my Friends.
Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -
maymouna711@gmail.com

I am especially grateful to the amazing CTIC staff, for accepting me as an intern and for patiently
helping and guiding me through the research done in Entrepreneurship and Information
Communication Technologies.
To Mrs Eva S. EBION, Mr Yann LEBEUX, Mr Jean R. S. MANGA, Miss Anta NDIAYE,
Mr Abdoul Aziz SY, Ms. Fabienne DIALLO, Mr Mamadou L. DIALLO, Mrs Rgina MBODJ a
devoted and inspiring staff.
I wish to express my utmost gratitude to Miss Mame Yauto FAYE, for her precious and dedicated
support as my thesis supervisor.
To Mr Brian Henia, who kindly accepted to provide information for the writing of this thesis as an
iHub manager.
I also specially thank my lovely Mother for her invaluable prayers.

ADEPME: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency

ADIE: Agence de l'Informatique de l'Etat
ADL: Agence de Dveloppement Local
ARTP: Autorit de Rgulation des Tlcommunications et des Postes
CDE: Centre de Dveloppement des Entreprises
CEO : Chief Executive Officer
CMD: Crdit Municipal de Dakar
CTFK: Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids
CTIC: Centre incubateur des Technologies de lInformation et de la Communication
FDSUT: Fonds de Dveloppement du Service Universel des Tlcommunications
FICTIS: Fondation des Incubateurs Tic du Sngal
GDP: Gross Domestic Product
GIZ: Gesellschaft fr Internationale Zusammenarbeit
ICT: Information Communication Technology
iOS: iphone OS
IPO: Initial Public Offering
IT: Information Technology
NBIA: National Business Incubation Association
NGO: Non Government Organization

PACC PME/PMF: Programme sngalo-allemand d'Appui la Comptitivit et la Croissance des
PME et la Performance du secteur de la Micro Finance
RFI: Radio France Internationale
SBC: Sen Business Consulting
SCA: Stratgie de Croissance Acclre
SGBS: Socit Gnrale des Banques du Sngal
SME: Small and Medium Enterprises
TFM: Tlvision Futur Mdias
UN: United Nations

Dedication..............................................................................................................................................2
Acknowledgements...............................................................................................................................3
Abbreviations................................................................................................................4
Summary...............................................................................................................................................6
Introduction....................................................................................................................................7
FIRST PART: GENERAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORKS
Chapter I: General framework........................................................................................................11

Chapter II: Methodological framework..........................................................................................26
SECOND PART: ORGANIZATIONAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Chapter III: Company presentation.................................................................................................30

Chapter IV: Generalities on the main concepts of our study.......42
THIRD PART: ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
Chapter V: Identification of the ICT entrepreneurs.....51

Chapter VI: Analysis of the factors of creation and growth of the technology startups.....56
Chapter VIII: Benchmarking against an Anglophone Country, the case of Senegal and
Kenya...62
Chapter IX: Recommendations....74
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................76
Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................78
Appendices
6

Introduction:
From the prehistoric period to the twenty first century, technology has proved to be a
necessary and instinctive mean to solve problems or adapt to the environment and make great
progress in all the domains from the less to the most important; examples include medicine,
education, science, technique, communication, etc.
Thus, it permitted to some societies especially the western ones- to reach such a level
of development that technology became a mainstream fact. More than ever, the majority of
people in the world are using in their everyday lives Information Communication
Technologies, defined by the Larousse dictionary as a set of techniques and computer
equipments allowing long-distance communication by the use of electronic tools. There are
several, for instance the television, the mobile phone, the computer, etc. Knowledge and
information became easy to acquire and barriers have been removed, making communication
easier too, mainly due to the Internet.
The world became a real global village with the Internet; everything and everybody can
meet up in this virtual world. Besides, in 2012, the census of Internet surfers has been
assessed to 2.4 billion in 2012.1 The smooth running of information, the everyday
innovations, the exchanges and all the achievements that people contributed to build the web
made the globalization necessary.
Added to this, around the thirties, still in the western countries, and thanks to
technology, a new kind of business came into being: websites, software and applications
became source of revenue and a great advantage for their economies. Founded in 1939, the
famous Hewlett-Packard made a turnover of 118 billion in US dollars in 20082, other
companies can be named like Ebay, one of the biggest worldwide e-commerce website or
Dailymotion, the French video sharing website.
These companies are the result of innovative ideas; most of the time linked to
Information Communication Technologies, growing rapidly and proposing new products or
services that have a large scope impact on populations. Also, the dynamism of this sector is
important in the way that it is considered as a factor of growth and one of the main insights of
1
World Internet Usage Statistics News and Population Stats - World Internet Users and Population
Stats
2
http://fr.wikipedia.org - Hewlett-Packard
7

a countrys level of development. In short, talking about development without taking into
account the digital economy would be senseless.
In all over the world, at different levels, the number of startups is increasing. Startups
are companies that are in the first stage of their operations, the early stage in the life cycle of an
enterprise where the entrepreneur moves from the idea stage to securing financing, laying
down the basis structure of the business, and initiating activities or trading.
In the United States of America, around 6000 technological companies are established
in the Silicon Valley, around 3000 in France3. The phenomenon is growing slowly but surely
in Africa; more in North Africa and less in the Sub-Saharan part. This part of the continent,
with a global GDP of $1.290 trillion in 20124 really needs to seize the opportunities brought
by the digital economy, especially by using technologies to solve some everlasting issues;
websites for job offers, waste management softwares or even mobile applications for the
farming sector, some high impacting solutions to the numerous preoccupations of the African
communities. Started in 2011, the Cameroonian search engine Njorku reached 15.000 visits
per day for about 50.000 job offers coming from several African countries in 2012.5
More and more, strategies are drawn up to encourage and support technology
entrepreneurship from competitions to investment aids to incubators. Entrepreneurship
defined as the capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture
along with any of its risks in order to make a profit.
From 2010 to present, more than 20 African incubators have been founded. Their
common missions are to support and accelerate the fulfillment and development of business
ideas. One example and the case of this study is the Centre incubateur des TIC, the first
incubator of this kind in West Africa, founded in 2011 and established in Senegal. The choice
of CTIC is justified by the fact that its achievements can be improved if its strategies to
promote technology entrepreneurship and incubate the startups are oriented towards analyzed
and discussed results linked to the Senegalese environment and realities.
http://www.myfrenchstartup.com/
http://data.worldbank.org - Sub-Saharan Africa (developing only)
5
http://79.170.40.42/ - Top 5 applications made in Africa
4

Despite the great fad and the incentive measures, some African countries most of
them are the francophone- like Senegal still struggle to reach a satisfactory level of
involvement in this domain.
The particularity of Senegal resides in the fact that it is a pioneer in the field of ICTs
with an excellent digital penetration as Kenya and South Africa but which success has a
poorer echo.
The Senegalese new graduates are likely to search for jobs than thinking to be their own
bosses and given the present economic situation, the Senegalese firms are not numerous
enough to employ all of them. There is also another dimension of African entrepreneurship to
take into account which is the level of awareness of the environments problems of an
individual. Entrepreneurs are known to be very conscious of the needs and issues relating to
their communities, in this way, technological companies are very helpful, because of their
rapid growth capacity and large scale impact. It would be a godsend if many of the countrys
issues were tackled in this manner. To know why this issue remains, it is compulsory to
understand the behaviors and motivations these entrepreneurs involved in the technology
sector and the enabling and preventing factors to raise it to the top.
Another question which will be brought up in this study is the differences between
Anglophone and francophone countries that influence the populations regarding technology
entrepreneurship. This is justified by the outstanding and very achievements of Nigerian,
Ghanaian or Kenyan startups in comparison with Senegalese or Togolese ones which are quite
unsung. In its February 2012 issue, Forbes Africa magazine published its list of Africas
top 20 tech startups 6 and only one of them was from a francophone country, Cameroon, to
be specific. Assuredly, the technological culture seems more marked in the African
Anglophone countries.
The following study represents an answer bid to the questions related to the
improvement of this important sector of activity. It will be divided in three parts. First, the
general and methodological framework, then the contextual framework and finally the
analytical framework.
http://www.forbes.com/ - Top 20 Tech Startups in Africa

9

FIRST PART:
GENERAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORKS
10

Chapter I: General framework

Section 1: Problem statement
Senegal is a developing country of which some localities have some very poor
communities. Thus, improvements in many sectors that assess the welfare in a country are
actually really needed like the quality of hospital services, the system of free health care for
those on low incomes, the alimentary self-sufficiency, the quality of education linked to the
recruitments of teachers especially in the secondary schools, the overcrowding of universities
etc. Many issues are being debated and tackled. Many of these issues can be solved by
innovative solutions through entrepreneurship and despite the great number of enterprises,
whether informal or formal, they are not able to enroll all the unemployed young people. The
unemployment rate in Senegal represents 48% and the young people under 25 years old are
more than 50% of the population, i.e. there are urgently lots of actions to take to go over the
situation.7
More than ever, an increase of the number of the entrepreneurs is witnessed. Innovative
companies, created by individuals from different social and educational backgrounds struggle
to reach the success they have fixed to themselves. It represents a kind of compulsory panacea
to reduce the rate of unemployment and poverty, and also to generate a competitive advantage
for the country but another kind of entrepreneurship emerged; technology entrepreneurship, a
growing sector which encompasses many important domains that help in finding solutions of
the populations or enterprises preoccupations.
More and more people, young and adults are founding and growing technology
startups, sometimes by themselves, often thanks to incubators like the CTIC, located
downtown Dakar, which accompanies project designers in the creation and development of
their ICT companies. The aim of this study is also to give to CTIC information and insights
on the technology entrepreneurs and their environment that may not be thought of before and
in that way their incubation process can take into account some new factors.
Much effort is being made in this sector. However, the rate of Senegalese startups
could be increased. Senegal is one of the most digitally covered countries in Africa and has
National Agency of Statistics and Demography in Senegal, 2013

11

lately involved in this movement. Technology entrepreneurship seems to be not really known
or not taken into account in the professional projects and aspirations of the future graduates.
Also, technological companies can have an enormous growth capacity and a large scale
impact thanks to the number of users of the internet and ICT tools. They may be very helpful
to the development if these entrepreneurs use it to solve social or economic problems.
Paradoxically, The ex CTIC general manager Oumar Ciss informed in may 2013 that 80% of
these companies fail to reach their third year of growth.8 This cannot be achieved if the
opportunities and threats linked to the subject are not identified.
In Africa, there is a real presence of technology in some countries particularly
Anglophone ones. In Nigeria, we count many technological companies. The country has a real
technological culture, thus many of its problems are solving Nigerian problems. There is
Jobberman, a website recording resumes of unemployed people and job offers from
companies. It has been founded by Nigerian entrepreneurs and it is an actual working system
that helps solving the problem of unemployment. There are also many innovative ideas in
South Africa, Ghana, etc. Many of these countries are taken as examples of African rising
countries unlike Francophone ones.
Those are the reasons why it would be logic to ask:
- Who are those IT entrepreneurs? Which specificities do characterize them? Which
incentives do motivate them?
- What are the factors to take into account when tackling startups creation and
development?
- Are there any differences between IT incubators and ecosystems from Anglophone
and Francophone African countries? What are the reasons of these disparities between
Anglophone and Francophone countries?
http://www.pressafrik.com/ - CTIC Dakar : Les difficults de la cration dentreprise mises nue.

12

Section 2 : Objectives
A.
General objective :
The general objective is to know how to improve the ICT entrepreneurship sector and
the accompaniment of startups by CTIC by taking into account the individual (as an
entrepreneur), his environment, the influencing factors and other keys to success resulting
from benchmarking.
B.
Specific objectives :
- Identify the IT entrepreneurs in Senegal and their distinctive characteristics

- Understand the motivations and factors that influence the IT entrepreneurs in the
creation and growth of ICT startups in Senegal.
- Analyze the differences of incubation models between Anglophone and Francophone
incubators to draw keys to success.
Section 3: Hypotheses
As first assumptions, we have drawn the following hypotheses:
- The technology entrepreneurs in Senegal are for the majority young people, from
Dakar that take the initiative to create their own companies after their graduation. They are
high qualified, are also aware of the problems around them.
- The factors to take into account as influencing the creation and the growth of
technology startups are the level of education, the place of education, the competences, the
infrastructures, the market, the funding of the startups etc.
- The differences of incubation models are linked to the services provided, to the
manner that the incubatees problems are handled and the structure of the business and ICT
ecosystems.
13

Section 4: Relevance of the study

The choice of this subject is the result of a deep reflection on the situation and the
evolution of entrepreneurship in Senegal. For business schools students, it is primordial that
their researches are based on the nature of their studies first and on the improvement of an
organization. It is also important for future graduates to better know about this domain; that
would be the beginning of their involvement in it. For entrepreneurs or those who want to
have an impact on their communities or beyond by enterprising further, that need a large
analysis of the subject to have an insight on the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities
and the threats of the sector.
Plus, more and more, in Senegal technology startups are being founded, incubators
settled up, events like the Startup week end all organized in all over the world, the
entrepreneurship contests taking in account the place of the ICTs in the projects.
This study could lead to a desire of improving it from decision makers, authorities,
every player of this domain, and also to other worries and questionings, for it is one of the
first dissertations on it. It proves that the subject is not tackled enough; the stakes and the
limits are not well assessed and determined by the entities.
Entrepreneurship is becoming widely recognized for its role in economic growth
through youth employment to solve problems that improve the living standards of the
communities. Hence, there is a need for more research to be done on tech hubs to understand
the implementation of the models and entrepreneurs to ensure a sustainable approach in the
making.
It offers to be, not only for CTIC, but for any other technology incubator in Senegal an
elaboration of keys to success by means of analysis of incentives and breaks and
benchmarking, according to well-considered methods. It appeared important to figure out
such a subject. These strategies include the promotion of technology entrepreneurship, the
incubation, and any other mission that is fulfilled for the success of the startups.
In brief, at the end of this study, the incubators, the entrepreneurs or future
entrepreneurs, any interested person will be able to find in it many answers about the situation
and the improvements main lines of technology entrepreneurship in Senegal. For the
researchers, it will be either a source of information, or a basis for further works.
14

Section 5: Critical review of literature

Entrepreneurship can be considered as an unavoidable aspect of the growth of the
economy, its catalyst. Every developed or industrialized country made it thanks to the creation
of companies. Closely linked to the dynamism of the society or the country, its model has
evolved incessantly to adapt to the adequate circumstances and events. It then deserves to be
popularized by the work of thinkers, scholars, any player of the field. It seems essential to
present a general idea of the works that have been achieved on the topic and other related.
Innovation holds a capital role in ICT entrepreneurship. Therefore, it is essential to
develop strategies to enable and facilitate its integration in the process of startup creation. It
defines the putting into practice of inventions or the new approaches about products or
processes. In the book Entrepreneurship, Innovation and economic Development9 written
by Wim Naud, Adam Szirmai, and Micheline Goedhuys, The interplay between market
development, systems of innovation and government science, technology and innovation
policies in developing countries is an important discussed theme. Innovation by entrepreneurs
can play an important role in catch-up and growth in a global economy.
The link between the innovation and the market development here is that entrepreneurs
are driven by profit motives. The degree to which the entrepreneur will engage in technical
innovation and specialization depends on the size and functioning of the market. In
developing countries, the benefits of innovation by entrepreneurs also depend on the
characteristics of the system of innovation within which they are embedded. The better the
system of innovation, the more able a developing country will be to tap into global
technology. The book puts a stress on the fact that sometimes, even an adverse environment
can spur innovative behavior and entrepreneurs may become the drivers of policy and
institutional change, rather than only being determined by the policy and institutional
environment.
Moreover, there is an emphasis on the importance of SMEs both in advanced economies
and developing countries. SMEs employ a substantial number of people in developing
countries across the globe. Most small scale entrepreneurs, however, are survival
entrepreneurs who are hampered by weak infrastructure, lack of finance and a lack of
Wim Naud, Adam Szirmai, Micheline Goedhuys: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and economic
Development, Hardcover, 25 June 2011, 256 Pages
15

capability. The systems of innovation are often not providing the best incentives for
entrepreneurs to become more innovative.
Africa can consider itself as lucky on this one. It can benefit from a global diffusion of
technology and can access new technologies without bearing all the costs and risks of
investment in new knowledge. This work urges to think about the place of high institutions in
the innovation in the continent; it is an essential issue, not to neglect because of its utility
when it comes to solve some matters that are gone on too long already. To sustain ICT
entrepreneurship, innovation and research have to be integrated in the schemes of all the
players of the domain.
The study report Putting Young Africans to Work: Addressing Africas youth
unemployment10 draws on a series of Dialogues held in May 2011 with the governments of
Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland. The Dialogues were convened by The Brenthurst
Foundation and comprised distinguished experts from the United States, Costa Rica,
Argentina, the Ivory Coast and South Africa, all of whom contributed to this volume. With
diverse backgrounds in government, business, policy implementation and academia, each
expert brings a unique perspective to bear on the pressing issue of youth unemployment in
Africa. Their contributions range from detailed entrepreneurial-led solutions, examples of best
practice and initiatives from Latin America, technical proposals drawn from recent African
experiences, and global trends in unemployment, economic growth and competitiveness.
There is some variance in their respective observations and interpretations of the same
socio-economic data from Africa and abroad. Nevertheless, across all the chapters there is a
common emphasis on the need for governments to reduce the costs of formalization for
businesses and workers alike. This requires creating an environment in which labour is more
productive and opportunities for innovation and growth are created largely by government
setting the right conditions and then getting out of the way. It is business, not governments
that will put young Africans to work in sufficient numbers to turn the continents population
time bomb into a demographic boon.
10
Jonathan Oppenheimer, Michael Spicer, Alberto Trejos, Paul Zille, Jessica Benjamin,
Domingo Cavallo, Eric Kacou and Benjamin Leo: Putting Young Africans to Work: Addressing
Africas youth unemployment, study report, 92 Pages.
16

The third work to be introduced is Entrepreneurship and Business History: Renewing
the Research Agenda.11 It is a working paper that summarizes the ideas and theories of
different scholars as Schumpeter, Chandler or Weber on the evolution of entrepreneurship
taking into account the history, the culture and values, the political economy, the corporate
entrepreneurship and the financing. Here, Geoffrey Jones and Daniel Wadhwani highlight
the fact that there are no much contributions about entrepreneurship made by scholars, it has
been shifted by studies on corporations, leaving it fragmented and marginal, then it suggests
the definition of a new agenda of researches about entrepreneurship.
This contribution is quite interesting; it regroups much information about the factors
that can influence the creation of a company and the way it does. Many geographical areas
and populations behaviors are discussed of in the work. However, the place of Africa in these
studies seems inexistent, probably because of the poor economy of the majority of its
countries. The recognition of the entrepreneurship in the sub-Saharan Africa was slow and
late. Also, a larger consideration of the identity it includes opinions, origins or experiences,
career etc.- of the individual as an entrepreneur would have been helpful to determine other
factors.
Les TIC: une chance pour l'Afrique?12, by Ahmed Dahmani. The extract deals with
the place of ICTs in the developing countries, the issues that need to be solved and the
opportunities to cease to insert it in the development phase. In the 90s, improvements and
change in the field of technologies have been witnessed in United States of America and in
Africa, a considerable growth; the spread of cell phone users and internet surfers is
impressing. Nevertheless, the information about the productivity derived from this
technological advance is barely perceptible. That is the reason why it is more assimilated to
the result of the innovation than the premise of the new economy, although it brought
knowledge, the master of information, a better reinforcement of international relations and
societies. It also permits an easier management of the world for all the decision makers.
Besides, it is reported to represent a chance for Africa to jump into the future, to break
decades of stagnation and decline. Africa has to rapidly cease this opportunity. If Africans do
not manage to take advantage of this revolution, they will be overwhelmed by it.
11
Geoffrey Jones and R. Daniel Wadhwani: Entrepreneurship and Business History: Renewing the
Research Agenda, working paper, 2006, 51 pages.
12
Ahmed Dahmani : Les TIC : une chance pour lAfrique ?, in Socit numrique et dveloppement
en Afrique, Ed Karthala, 2004, 22 pages.
17

Many attempts at spread of the ICTs in the continent and in developing countries from
elsewhere by international organizations and USA have been developed but the archaism of
the educational system, the lack of appropriate training, of scientific and technological
infrastructures make it difficult to happen.
There is another dimension not to forget which the digital divide is. In 1998, Africa
counted 13% of the worldwide population for 1% of net surfers. In 2002, 40% of them were
from South Africa. It is due to the fact that the access to ICTs is subordinated to the incomes;
the computer materials and the communication prices are expensive. Survival issues turn out
to be more important. However, it is not a fixed criterion that is applicable to all those
countries, sometimes it is because of the absence and the weakness of telephone
infrastructure, and those who have access to internet are in the urban areas, the people from
rural areas are far more numerous.
For the opportunities to explore, Ahmed Dahmani proposes the integration of ICTs in
the betterment of the key sectors of the development like the medicine, the education, the
acquisition of competences and knowledge because if they are improved, it will be easier to
popularize those technologies. With the issues Africa has to tackle, follow the occidental
trends, is a real struggle. The rise of Africa is late, digging in the same time the disparities
between the North and the South.
Yvon Gasse, the Director of the entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprises
center at Laval University, in his article Linfluence du milieu dans la cration
dentreprise 13, enumerates and analyses the factors that he considers as the main influencers
of the entrepreneur. He has elaborated for them a quite accurate classification in levels. Then
the desirability level, the feasibility level and the creation level represent the basis that
supports the work and its thesis.
The desirability level includes: the family and the relatives, the immediate environment,
the educational background, the psychological profile and the experiences and age. The
feasibility level is all about perceptions; the perception of the entrepreneur of the business
idea, the attitudes of the environment as a booster or a break, the companies clusters that are
definitely helpful to access new markets, get manpower, suppliers etc. The creation level is
about all the means necessary to the achievement of the entrepreneurs activities, for instance,
the nature of their ex jobs, the firms expansion, the creation of teams, the presence of
13
Yvon Gasse: Linfluence du milieu dans la cration dentreprise , Laval University, article, 2003,
16 pages.
18

universities, the location; the closer the companys is located from the entrepreneurs region,
the more information he can get. The aforesaid categories also impact on the entrepreneurial
process, from which it can be concluded that they are to be taken into account.
The article is very rich in information and complete. It permits to better understand the
link between the environment and the entrepreneur in many pertinent and deepened ways.
Nevertheless, at the end of the reading, one question remains: do those influencers vary
according to the sector of activity? For example, taking the age criteria; are the entrepreneurs
in the sector of sports older or younger than the majority of entrepreneurs? These
interrogations are worth exploring because the influences are numerous and varied and every
single of them matters.
Lions go digital: the Internets transformative potential in Africa14 is a report
published by the McKinsey Global Institute. Today, following a decade of economic
expansion, Africa is going digital. Only 16 percent of the continents one billion people are
online, but that share is rising rapidly as mobile networks are built out and the cost of
Internet-capable devices continues to fall.
Evidence of what is to come can already be seen in Africas major cities, where
consumers have disposable income, more than half have Internet-capable devices, and 3G
networks are up and running. There is a growing wave of innovation as entrepreneurs and
large corporations alike launch Web-based ventures, from e-commerce sites and digital
entertainment platforms to mobile health technologies and online educational content.
Governments have placed Internet-driven growth firmly on the agenda: Rwanda, Morocco,
and Nigeria, for example, have ambitious plans to expand high-speed Internet access to most
of their populations. Most countries have developed national ICT strategies, but many are still
in the early stages of implementation.
Demand is also being driven by government ICT strategies. Many countries are moving
processes such as benefit payments, tax filing, and passport applications online, and efforts
are gearing up to digitize education, health, and public services.
As the Internet expands across Africa, it has become a launching pad for a new
generation of digital entrepreneurs. Success stories are attracting global investors and spurring
the formation of local angel investor and venture capital networks. Incubators are also
springing up across the continent.
14
McKinsey Global Institute: Lions go digital: the Internets transformative potential in Africa,
report, McKinsey & Company, November 2013, 24 pages.
19

Today, the Internets contribution to Africas GDP remains low. But the Internet is
likely to take hold on a much larger scale in the coming decade, and previous research has
found that its impact is magnified in emerging countries.
In this report, Senegal reveals itself to be a leader in the list of African countries which a
big part of the GDP is due to the Internets contribution. Its advance is certain, however, for a
country to unlock the Internets full economic potential and foster and sustain companies,
some pillars must be in place.
Innovation and ICT in Africa15, published by African Economic Outlook is an article
about the necessity of favorable ICT conditions for African countries to enable innovations.
The cell phone is an integral part of the majority of the inhabitants of the world. In Africa, the
telecommunication market rules. It is the only continent where mobile phone revenues are
higher than fixed line bringing with it more and more independent telecommunication
regulators; they are now a fact of life around the world.
According to the article, Africa has proved that mobile phones can be acquired and run
on limited wages, but the spread of internet has been far slower and general access to ICT
services is much lower than the rest of the world. Thus, it looks at the bottlenecks impeding
growth that have to be identified to allow the spread of the innovation. Improving education
to speed up the move to the knowledge economy and boost growth is crucial to the go over
the situation and it can happen if interaction between indigenous practices and customs and
new technology can inspire new products and services.
Besides, some science and technology advocates say that innovation does not get a high
enough priority when donor nations are pressing policies. The UNs Millennium
Development Goals do not explicitly mention innovation but do acknowledge its importance
by including indicators related to technology access such as the number of fixed-lines, mobile
phone subscribers and internet users. Most Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers for heavily
indebted countries do not make full use of innovation and information and communications
technology policies unless there is strong local support. There are suggestions about the
conditions to be taken advantage of and faults to be addressed in the Africa technology debate
that are highlighted at the end of the article: the integration of science, technologies and
innovation policies into broader strategies, the improvement of regulatory systems in ICTs,
the improvement of government service efficiency and education quality that helps cutting the
15
www.africaneconomicoutlook.org : Innovation and ICT in Africa (access on March 2014)

20

cost of doing business. There is a real importance of the implication of the governments in
those policies.
Participation of ICT in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Development in the
Education and Research in Senegal16 by Thiam Ndye Fatou Coundoul. This working
paper gives some answers to the questions on the possible policies on entrepreneurial
education in general and presents the different institutional reforms of the Senegalese
government about the strategies concerning the ICTs domain. They are reported to take a big
part in the poverty reduction process.
For this end it (the government) would have to boost the educational system by
spreading the master of the technology and permanently calling into question the contents of
the academic programs. Thusly, as concrete examples of these improvements, we have the
creation of the Senegalese Agency of Technological Innovation which objectives are to
promote invention and technological innovation, to ensure the protection, to foster the
intellectual property system and the competition among SMEs. Another example is the
Regional African Center of technologies; its ambitions are to be an efficient tool of
reinforcement, to coordinate and integrate the technological abilities and national strategies.
The Senegalese authorities have drawn up some realizations seem very helpful and
pertinent to the blossoming of the ICTs in the educational system. However, given the
slowness of satisfactory results, we can be tempted to wonder whether these efforts are
enough, whether the Senegalese policies should not be copied on those from other successful
countries.
Technology business incubators to help build an innovation-based economy17 by
Lustham Lalkala. This is an article about the place of technology incubators in the economic
growth of a country. They nurture nascent ventures by providing focused counseling and
facilitation services together with smart workspace and shared office facilities. An incubator,
often sited within a technology park and affiliated to a technical university or research
institute, provides a platform for convergence of support in a synergistic system. The state,
business, venture capital and community each have special roles to play in stimulating the
venture creation process. Examples are given of incubation arrangements in the USA and in
China, Brazil and India, each customized to the local conditions and culture.
16
Thiam Ndeye Fatou Coundoul : Participation of ICT in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Development in the Education and Research in Senegal, MCTTIC / SENEGAL, Genve, 1921
January 2011, 7 pages.
17
Rustam Lalkaka : Technology business incubators to help build an innovation-based economy,
Journal of Change Management, vol 3, n 2, Henry Stewart Publications, 2002, 11 pages
21

The technological innovation, the entrepreneurs that take the advantages from it, the
raise of competitiveness have driven to define some essential measures to help build an
innovation-led economy: the establishment of supportive policies and instruments for
education, research, health care, the infrastructure, the long-term national competitiveness
strategy, the environment and regulations policies.
The build and focus on the education system because major investments are essential
for strengthening the research and learning bases, starting at the school level, through tertiary
education and vocational training, including the capabilities required for measured risks to
start and grow a business, to the benefit of the person and community. The overcome of the
obstacles from venture concept to commercialization in order to become and stay competitive
by eliminating mind-set, market, money and management constraints. The Financial support
to promote innovation; there exists a variety of financing sources for entrepreneurs, but these
are often poorly managed without an understanding of the mentality and special needs of the
inventor-innovator. Business development services because small enterprises will be the
prime creators of employment and growth in the future, but need special help. Such services
have to be subsidized initially, which the developing countries can ill afford and donors
usually resist. The promotion of innovative structures such as technology business incubators
to facilitate the early-stage of entrepreneurial firms, universities and laboratories to move their
research work through pilot testing, seed financing and market entry.
Business incubators proved to be very helpful when it comes to provide affordable work
space as well as shared facilities, counseling, training, information and access to external
networks for entrepreneurial groups and growth has been very rapid, and what the world
needs now is not just more incubators, but improved ones to ensure their sustainability.
For Rustam Lalkaka, in industrializing countries, many technology incubators function
in a weak business environment and are characterized by the poor practices of a haphazard
selection process for clients. The poor performers should indeed prospect for the best
practices the world over, and then adapt these, building upon what they have and know,
towards practices suited to their own culture, constraints, climate and other conditions.
Raising the majority of these incubators to the higher middle ground as they reconnoitre
globally, reengineer locally would help enhance the image of the whole incubation industry.
Obviously, it turns out that incubators wherever they are located have to adapt to their
immediate environment to serve their clients in an optimum way. But for developing
countries, doing it without benchmarking on other successful countries can be
22

disadvantageous. One part of this study treats this aspect; it is applied to Senegal (a
francophone African country and other African successful countries).
Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa18 examines the growth of
mobile phone technology over the past decade. The potential impacts upon quality of life in
low-income countries, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa are also considered. The
working paper first provides an overview of the patterns and determinants of mobile phone
coverage in sub-Saharan Africa asserting that by 2008, 60 percent of the population i.e 477
million people had mobile phone coverage, and an area of 11.2 million square kilometers had
mobile phone service equivalent to the United States and Argentina combined.
Second, it describes the characteristics of primary and secondary mobile phone
adopters on the continent. Then, it discusses the channels through which mobile phone
technology can impact development outcomes, both as a positive externality of the
communication sector and as part of mobile phone-based development projects, and analyze
existing evidence.
It has identified five potential mechanisms through which mobile phones can provide
economic benefits to consumers and producers in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, mobile phones
can improve access to and use of information, thereby reducing search costs, improving
coordination among agents and increasing market efficiency. Second, this increased
communication should improve firms productive efficiency by allowing them to better
manage their supply chains. Third, mobile phones create new jobs to address demand for
mobile-related services, thereby providing income generating opportunities in rural and urban
areas. Fourth, mobile phones can facilitate communication among social networks in response
to shocks, thereby reducing households exposure to risk. Finally, mobile phone-based
applications and development projects, sometimes known as m-development have the
potential to facilitate the delivery of financial, agricultural, health and educational services.
While current research suggests that mobile phone coverage and adoption have had
positive impacts on agricultural and labor market efficiency and welfare in certain countries,
empirical evidence is still somewhat limited. In addition, mobile phone technology cannot
serve as the silver bullet for development in sub-Saharan Africa. Careful impact evaluations
of mobile phone development projects are required to better understand their impacts upon
18
Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti: Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa,
working paper 211, Center for Global Development, 2010, 45 pages.
23

economic and social outcomes, and mobile phone technology must work in partnership with
other public good provision and investment.
24

SECOND PART:
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
25

Chapter II: Methodological Framework

The second chapter is the part where the methodology of the research is explained. It
shows how the study is carried out and involves the framework of the study, the delimitation
of the study framework, the research tools, the sampling and the difficulties encountered.
Section 1: Framework of the study

Entrepreneurship is an essential domain in a countrys economic life. It generates a
considerable number of jobs, contributes to the dynamism of the economy by reviving the
competition between corporations and completing the already made efforts, brings
diversification to the industries core activities. It also represents an important source of
innovation which permits to standardize the technology developments to the markets needs.
Moreover, according to a study conducted by the National Science Foundation, to United
States of America, one dollar invested in the Research and Development in a SME brings in
24 times more than one dollar invested in a big corporation.19
The generated dynamism of the economies all around the world made it go through
many states. Today, the term digital economy is trending in almost every actuality website or
magazine. It refers to the sector of economic activity related to Information Communication
technologies, particularly the production and distribution of services with digital contents. It
encompasses the e-commerce, the m-commerce, the new economy, the businesses related to
the telecommunication services, the software industry etc.
These services are needed, particularly in Senegal because of the essential and economy
driving issues it could solve concerning health, education, and farming. It may also be a
source of social evolution in many ways; by the acquiring of knowledge, competences, by the
social communication and cohesion.
The originality resides in the fact that the technology is usable in the remote regions of
the country if the conditions are combined. Only this can be a catalyst of boosted growth since
the mobile penetration is in the upper 93%20.
In Senegal, this kind of activity is little known. Many Senegalese students are involved
in computer science programs and the growing access to technology made people realize that
e-business, creating a technology startup is not beyond their abilities. Most of the time, the
19
Yvon Gasse : Linfluence du milieu dans la cration dentreprise , article, Laval University, page
2.
20
ARTP report, June 2013.

26

activities of these technology startups are of various fields; agribusiness, fashion, culture, ereputation, etc. 90%21 of them are located in Dakar and some of them are incubated by CTIC,
the incubator who is the case of the study.
Section 2: Delimitation of the study framework

The improvement of the CTICs accompaniment system of startups is the ultimate
objective of this research. It will show how some unconsidered factors can impact on the
success of a startup. To be able to give to the incubator pertinent recommendations about it,
this work will focus more precisely on the reasons that influence the entrepreneurs and the
performances of their companies and try to define some lines of action resulting from
benchmarking against Anglophone countries.
Then to collect relevant data and to correctly answer to the questions, the choice of the
investigations have been made on the different players of the domain; entrepreneurs, ICT
experts, incubator managers.
Section 3: Research Tools

To ensure accurate results of our study, the needed data should be collected by with
cautious consideration of the means and manner. To attain the purpose it has been necessary
and appropriate to use the following tools.
A.
Documentary research
The documentary research has been absolutely useful to better understand some
concepts related to the subject. It consisted in searching for books, theses, studies, articles,
video films on internet and also in going to the Enda library.
What were surprising are the various findings in terms of materials or approaches for
treating the subject, due to its link with ICTs.
It provided many interesting works, old and recent, that allowed perceiving the
evolution of the issue over time and its situation according to geographical areas. And despite
the quite newness of the topic in Senegal, much information have been found and turned out
to be pertinent, which rendered the study more fascinating.
21
Mr Yann LE BEUX, Catalyst at CTIC Dakar

27

B.
Questionnaires
The questionnaire is a tool used to record and gather quantitative and qualitative
information to be explained and analyzed. It allows studying psycho sociological facts. It can
touch a large population and give a clear vision of the situation.
Here it is relevant to use it because we need to know about the entrepreneurs and the
internal and external factors that affect their companies.
The questionnaire targets the ICT entrepreneurs that started their businesses for a
maximum of 5 years now.
C.
Interview guide
The interview guide will allow gathering qualitative information from people who work
in incubators in Senegal and Kenya. It will be the source of our comparative study and be
about the following themes:
The model of incubation
Their incubatees
Their ICT entrepreneurship ecosystem
Since it will permit to compare the two models of incubation, the same criteria to assess
their differences will be taken. That is the reason why the choice has been made on Kenya
because:
It is a country with about the same economic structure as Senegal, if we proceed by
elimination.
It is well known as a country with a high concern with the ICT place in economic
development.
We chose to get in touch with two incubators managers, Yann Lebeux from CTIC
Dakar and Brian Henia from iHub, for semi-directive interviews.
28

Section 4: Sampling
The questionnaires have been submitted to technology entrepreneurs who run startups
that are less than 5 years in Senegal; it includes those who are incubated by CTIC and those
who are not. They are 60 in number.
The sample is composed of:
30 incubatees
30 non incubated technology companies
We assessed around 180 technology entrepreneurs in Senegal. Given that the sample
represents the third of the technology entrepreneurs in Senegal, their representativeness is
assured.
Section 5: difficulties encountered

The writing of this thesis has been a quite interesting research work. The experience
was thrilling and required much goodwill despite some obstacles to its achievement that, more
or less, have been settled in quite ingenious ways.
Indeed, it was a real problem to find non incubated companies and their entrepreneurs to
distribute them questionnaires. The entrepreneurs are most of the time busy, out of their
offices for business or in travel. The difficulty has been handled by a practical way of sending
questionnaires which is the use of Google forms and Google analytics. Actually, more than
150 emails had been sent to be able to reach the right number of entrepreneurs.
At the beginning of the study, the benchmarking was supposed to be against two
Anglophone countries, Ghana and Kenya. However, the Ghanas incubators had not been
cooperative to allow gathering information on them. We were compelled to work on only one
incubator, iHub from Kenya.
The fond wish of accomplishing the work in the right way made it possible to get round
all those difficulties and respect the deadline.
29

CHAPTER III: Company presentation

Section 1: General Presentation of CTIC (Centre incubateur des TIC)
A.
CTIC: Historical background and Environment
The Centre incubateur des Technologies de lInformation et de la Communication

of Dakar is the first incubator and accelerator dedicated to technology entrepreneurs launched
in Francophone West-Africa. Started in April 2011, CTIC Dakar is a new model of incubator
initiated by the government of Senegal, the Foundation of ICT Incubators of Senegal and
supported by the World Bank Infodev Program.
It has two main characteristics: be public-private, and be sustainable after 5 years, i.e. be
able to work with no support from public bodies or international donors. Unlike many tech
hub or co-working spaces on the continent, its chorus target is not only young entrepreneurs
or mobile app developers but above all high-potential existing companies eager to growth at
the continental level.
However, to build a pipeline of interesting enterprises, CTIC works with universities
and has launched an accelerator program dedicated to web and mobile startups.
To reach sustainability, CTIC business model is simple: take 7% to 9% of the revenue
growth of the companies and develop business development services to other companies and
organizations. In other words, if they do not grow, CTIC does not either and cannot survive
without international donors.
From its start to the end of 2013, CTIC has supported around 50 projects.
B.
Vision, Missions and objectives of CTIC
a.
Vision
The vision of CTIC is clear: Become the leading Hub in West Africa for the emergence
and the growth of high-potential IT and mobile entrepreneurs and foster real socio-economic
changes in the region.
30
[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:
THE CREATION AND GROWTH
WTH OF STARTUP COMPANIES
COMPA
IN SENEGAL: A CASE
STUDY OF CTIC..] 2014
C.
Missionss and Objectives
The missions of CTIC are to:

- Promote tech startups and support universities in entrepreneurship curriculum
- Identify talented developers and build high-impact entrepreneurs
- Facilitate access to market and finance for SMEs
- Build high-growth and international companies
D.
Staff and Departments
The incubator is composed of a little staff of 8 very dynamic persons.. Their job consists
in the organization of the activities related to the incubation, the coaching of the enterprises,
the communication with stakeholders. Achieving these tasks in a daily basis is a quite tough
and exhausting. The internship at CTIC showed us that it was a sustained
sustained work pace and very
different from the majority of enterprises. It bears witness to the commitment, the passion and
the unity of the team.
Regina MBODJ
Executive Director
Yann LE Beux
Jean MANGA
Catalyst
Business Developer
Mamadou L. DIALLO
Eva S. EBION
Administrative and
Financial Manager
Communication
Manager
Abdoul Aziz SY
Fabienne DIALLO
Anta NDIAYE
Program
Manager
Business
Developer
Administrative
Assistant
Figure 1: Organizational Chart of CTIC in March 2014

Source: CTIC, March 2014
31

Section 2: Support Services and Types of customers

E.
Offered Services and Incubation
The incubation is a unique and flexible combination of business development processes,

infrastructures and people, conceived to promote and develop new ICT companies by
supporting the first stages of their growth. CTIC offers a wide range of services to the tech
entrepreneurs and their startups or growing companies which are: the incubation, the booster
program and the on demand services.
1.
The incubation
The incubation proposes rent services, support and business development for
entrepreneurs who are starting up their ICT businesses and those who already created theirs.
- The Provision of office spaces with high-speed internet
- The Follow up meetings : 1 hour per week
- Business development : 2 hours per week
- Coaching and competences improvement of the teams
- Tax and accounting management
- Meetings with principals (ADIE, ARTP, etc)
- Organization of meetings to promote the products of the startups
- Consultancy : marketing (full time), Finance, Legal
- Medias and Communication Pack: website, facebook, press briefing etc.
- Visibility of Entrepreneurship days and other networking events
- Support to participations in international IT exhibitions and conferences- grouped
stands
- Lobby and introductions to decision makers from the public and private sectors
- Free trainings and certifications (Finance, Management, etc)
- Support for fund raising and recruiting
- Internal technical trainings
- Networking with other entrepreneurs
32

2.
The booster program
BuntuTEKI22 is a 6 months startup booster program which first edition began in

2012. It is the first startup booster program in Francophone Africa. CTIC has coached 10
startups in this Accelerator program. The chosen startups will be enable to enjoy specialized
accompaniments, marketing trainings, business model, design and ergonomics, corporate
finance, and meet many high class technical experts. The most successfully completed
projects will have the chance to be supported for fund raising.
The program includes:
- Equipped premises located downtown with other entrepreneurs
- Coaching and training (business model, marketing, human resources, fund raising,
pitch for investors, etc.
- Accompaniment in business development (public or private partners seeking, meetings
organization, support for contract negotiations, etc.)
- Visibility during events and testimonies in universities
- Communication and media linkage (CTICs social network, journalists)
- Support for fundraising (introductions to backers, preparation to competitions, etc.)
3.
The On demand services
Besides the formalized incubation process, CTIC provides on demand services to

entrepreneurs according to their needs and welcomes enterprises of the sector to ensure the
highest possible rate of occupation.
22
Doors of success in Wolof, the Senegalese official language.

33

4.
The incubation process
CTIC bases its procedures on the method proposed by InfoDEV23 and a demarche in
four
stages:
Stage zero: It is about contributing on the awareness of the importance and the
opportunities linked to innovation and entrepreneurship. This stage is not taken in charge by
CTIC.
Stage one: To go from the idea to the fulfillment, allow to the enterprise to set up and
start working to make the business plan viable. This is the pre incubation stage.
Stage two: Support the development of the companies of the ICT sector that have a
recognized presence and experience which have a high growth potential. This stage is the core
activity of the incubation.
Stage three: Accompany the qualified companies in their consolidation in a postincubation stage. This phase allows forming a resources network that can be mobilized in
support to the companies during the incubation.
F.
The incubated companies
To better understand the field of activities of the incubated companies, we decided to

describe some of them; here is the list of the companies in 2013 and the success stories.
1.
The types of clients:
The incubator offers it services to two types of clients the resident clients and the virtual
clients.
a)
The resident clients
The resident clients are those who are located in the same space as the incubator.
The resident clients are:
23
infoDev is a multi-donor trust fund within the World Bank that seeks to empower innovators to test,
shape, finance, make, and distribute their products influencing transformative solutions to local and
global challenges.
34

Created in 2011, INTEK SOFTWARE accompanies insurance companies in the
choice and the use of new technologies. It edits and sells turnkey products as: customer
relationship management softwares, production and accident management softwares,
reinsurance management softwares, Accounting and regulations softwares.
Rhsus SARL is a Senegalese multi channel contact center which evolves in the field
of telemarketing and web promotion. It proposes to local and international companies several
services like sale, customer relationship management, web traffic creation, web content
production and net linking.
SeySoo is a company created in 2008 specialized in software development, counsel,
audit, assistance to projects and training. It proposes services in information systems counsel,
development and integration of applications, transfer of competences. Besides the services,
SeySoo is a software editor with value added applications going from E-business to customer
relation tools.
Created in 2012 Xtreme Design and Engineering SA is an enterprise that provides
computer engineering services. It is specialized in the development of software, web and
mobile applications. Xtreme Design SN supports its clients from start to finish in the
achievement of their mobile or web 3.0 projects.
BY FILLING is an African agency of digital conversation created in 2012. BY
FILLING helps brands and organizations in the digitalization of their management and
communication to make it easy to adapt to the habits of the new generation of customers. The
objective of BY FILLING is to transform digital challenges in success stories.
Dariss Consulting has been created in 2009. It provides web services, digital
communication, information system development, platforms and applications (web, mobile,
and computer). It also helps in Information system projects of all kind: Intranet, Extranet,
collaborative work, decision making tools.
Created in November 2011, Niokobok24 is a startup that is providing services to
Senegalese people in Senegal and abroad which mission is to help the members of the
Senegalese Diaspora better support their families via an online order service. From the
24
We share it , in Wolof the Senegalese official language

35

website, Niokobok permits to choose products and fill up a basket, to settle transactions and
choose the way by which the family will receive the order.
ITECH Solutions puts its competences and its technology at the disposal of its clients
to bring them complete solutions composed of: materials, support and services, management
solutions, computer security, Information Systems, trainings, application development.
The graphic studio Tagoor is specialized in graphic creation and conception of visual
display units. It elaborates graphic structures, the new appearance of packages with the
objective of sales increase, the product setting-off according the companys target and its
competitive sector. Tagoor is also specialized in comics trips and animation films.
The company Soft Solutions Sarl works for the achievement of national policies by
popularizing ICTs. To reach its objectives, SOFT SOLUTIONS SARL has developed several
softwares in the domain of health, education, and management. It has opted for a partnership
strategy based on networking, to allow the involved players give structure and rationalize
their action.
Created in March 2008, Nelam Services is a company which mission is to propose web
solutions adapted to African organizations to allow them develop their potential thanks to new
technologies. The portal AGENDAKAR.COM, the first website in Senegal dedicated to
culture and events has been launched by Nelam in 2009. It also handles the community
management of big companies.
Started in March 2012, Mlouma25 connects the players of the farming world through a
web and mobile application that permits to know in real time information about the prices, the
quantities, and availability of farming products. Partnerships with farmers economic interest
groups have been formed and the solution is currently being implemented.
b)
The virtual clients
The virtual clients are those who are located in their own premises but benefit from the
services of CTIC and possibly form the shared resources (meeting rooms, business lounge
etc.)
25
Agricultural products market , in Wolof the Senegalese official language

36

TongTong is a startup which proposes to buy several items at once and to be delivered
consumer goods. The business model is based on the margins negotiated with suppliers.
Inaota is a startup which provides web services. Its objective is to become the
recommendation concerning creative and affordable solutions for the of the African
companies requests. For two years now, it has been working for the main operators of the
country and other well established corporations. Ianota is also behind the most visited
platform dedicated to technology in Francophone Africa, AfriqueITNews.com, which can be
considered as its first success.
SenNgunu26 is a web application for the management of poultry farms, the only one in
the market. This method of management allows poultry farmers handle their business by
following up the growth of the chicks and the vaccinations. Also, the expenses and incomes to
integrate in the statements and the invoicing are included. A cartography platform supports
SenNgunu, giving to the poultry farmers the possibility to publish their available stocks for
potential customers.
Dakar bus time is a mobile Android27 and iOS28 application developed by the startup
DevEngine. The application permits to know the bus itineraries and their arrival time. Its
technology makes in contact the community of users of the bus to allow them share the
information.
SamaEvent29 has developed a web and mobile application allowing the reservation and
purchase at distance of shows, conferences and sportive events tickets. The platform also
allows to organizers the creation of web pages for their events and the management of their
guests. SamaEvent has now tested and implemented its product on about ten events thanks to
its partnerships.
Ujamaa30 is an online market that wishes to offer electronic products, outfits, fashion
accessories and furniture easily, with security, delivery, and the payment systems adapted to
26
Your poultry farm , in Wolof the Senegalese official language.

Android is a computing platform designed for use in some smart phones and other devices. This
technology, which is owned by Google, Inc., includes an operating system, software, and applications.
28
iOS is a mobile operating system developed and distributed by Apple Inc. The user interface of iOS
is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements
consist of sliders, switches, and buttons.
29
My Event , in Wolof the Senegalese official language.
30
Achievement through the community , in Swahili.
27
37

Senegalese people. The products are checked by the suppliers and chose for the guarantee.
The delivery addresses are defined by an improved localization system.
SenMobile is a startup specialized in innovative mobile solutions. It provides mobile
solutions focused on the children apprenticeship, on health with solutions for drugstores, on
entertainment, and on accounting with applications for small enterprises. All the solutions are
adapted to local needs to improve productivity.
2.
CTIC success stories :
Since the beginning of CTICs activities, one of its incubated companies have graduated
and achieved their goals. The duration of their incubation is 3 years maximum.
The success stories have been chosen in consideration of their brilliant achievements.
We have:
PEOPLE INPUT
- More than 200 references in West Africa
- Offices in Cameroon, Ivory Coast & Burkina Faso
- 30 employees
- End of incubation in July 2013
SEYSOO
- Mdicis: first solution for medical and radiology offices in Senegal, sale in 2013 of the
radiology version to the medical imaging
- Winner of the FDSUT ARTP prize with SeedCom
- Study and implementation mission of a research institute for ADL
- Design of a workflow tool for SGBS with CMD as client
- Design of a profiling tool for ADEPME with GIZ as a client
- Design of an electronic payment declaration for the taxes and property office of Gabon
- Design of a web portal on finance for SBC (Sen Business Consulting)
38

NELAM SERVICES
-Agendakar.com,
-Web
presence
first
of
cultural
Cultura
website
Dakar
in
Senegal
Spain
Embassy
- Launching of the TV show Whats up Dakar? On TFM

- Design and launching of the mobile app NDAKAARU31 in collaboration with the
French Institute and RFI
- Digital services for Samsung, Western Union, and Orca
- AgenDakar and NuulKukk32 invited to the 4M Forum in Nairobi
- Design and management of the digital campaign for large public NO SMOKE
REVOLUTION33 for the American NGO Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK)
Section 3: The CTIC network and impact

G.
Organized Activities and Events
To ensure a bright future to its companies and promote IT entrepreneurship, it is

important for CTIC to build a solid network, make them known by the general public, and
attract investors. Thus, more than 60 activities have been held in three year. Here are some of
them:
The Tekki34 48 The Startups booster event in Senegal , organized in some regions
of the Country like Saint-Louis and Ziguinchor during 48 hours. It is a boot camp where
trainings in business are provided for students and projects applicants. It is an event with an
important press follow up.
The Connectic is a monthly imperative rendez-vous for ICT entrepreneurs in a
professional and convivial setting. It is a moment of share, exchanges on a precise theme,
propositions of projects and solution.
The Networking Breakfast is a meeting between ICT SMEs and decision makers of
key sectors, a set of themes and defined sectors with 20 to 40 key actors of the targeted sector
in a professional and business setting.
31
NDAKAARU is a mobile application that allows better knowing Dakar.

NuulKukk is an online movement initiated in 2013 that intends to fight against skin lightening.
33
NO SMOKE REVOLUTION is a campaign conceived to arouse the awareness and necessity of
passing a law against tobacco.
34
Success in Wolof, the Senegalese official language
32
39

The ICT and Governance Forum is a launching of a 6 months program for ICT
accompaniment projects for Good Governance with an original format to approach a major
and media-friendly topic. It includes 60 experts, entrepreneurs and politicians from the whole
West Africa, keynote speakers, brainstorm and practical workshops.
The ICT and Governance Demo Day is the outcome of 6 months of
collaboration between the entrepreneurs and the organizations of the civil society with 200
investors, entrepreneurs, sponsors and decision makers of the public and private sector and
idea pitches from entrepreneurs from the whole West Africa.
The Business Angels35 Dinner organized or the emergence of the first Business
Angels club in Senegal with 10 to 15 high class investors, presentation pitch of 2 enterprises
per dinner. The companies are prepared by CTIC before and the networking is assured.
The Web Awards is the first gala organized to award IT entrepreneurs and players
achieving great technology innovations. Web personalities, startups and innovative
technologies are nominated. 500 to 800 entrepreneurs, executives and decision makers, public
institutions, companies and partners of all sectors take part in the event. There is a very strong
media and institutional follow up.
The JETIC is an important event for the promotion of ICTs in Senegal and Africa
including 72 hours of exchange and share between entrepreneurs and managers of the sector,
panels hosted by international experts, propositions of solutions to boost the sector, 48 hours
of coaching and mentoring to help students fulfill their projects.
H.
Partners
Placed under the aegis of the Senegalese ICT incubators Foundation (FICTIS) the
project has rapidly aroused the interest of the World Bank infoDev program and numerous
public and private partners, local and international as:
- the Accelerated Growth Strategy (SCA),

- the ministry of ICTs and digital economy,
- The Regulation Authority of Telecommunications and Post services (ARTP),
- The Governement Computer Agency, (ADIE),
35
Business Angel: An investor who provides financial backing for small startups or entrepreneurs.
The capital they provide can be a one-time injection of seed money or ongoing support to carry the
company through difficult times.
40

- The Orange-Sonatel group,

- The Bruxelles Enterprise Development Centre (CDE),
- And the technical German Cooperation (GIZ) through the PACC PME/PMF program.
I.
The impact
From its beginnings to now, CTIC has got some outstanding results about its
contribution to the community and the development; this includes the number of jobs created,
the growth rate of the companies turnover, the number of students involved, the effective rate
of implementation of enterprises, etc.
In this way, it has coached 1000 young entrepreneurs, 150 jobs have been created, the
turnovers growth rate of the incubated companies are up to 90% and 85% of them reached
their implementation.
41

CHAPTER IV: Generalities on the main concepts of our study

Section 1: Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial motivation
A.
Entrepreneurship
The concept of entrepreneurship was first established in the 1700s, and the meaning has
evolved ever since. Many simply equate it with starting ones own business. Most economists
believe it is more than that.
To some economists, the entrepreneur is one who is willing to bear the risk of a new
venture if there is a significant chance for profit. Others emphasize the entrepreneurs role as
an innovator who markets his innovation. Still other economists say that entrepreneurs
develop new goods or processes that the market demands and are not currently being
supplied.
In the 20th century, economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) focused on how the
entrepreneurs drive for innovation and improvement creates upheaval and change.
Schumpeter viewed entrepreneurship as a force of creative destruction. The entrepreneur
carries out new combinations, thereby helping render old industries obsolete. Established
ways of doing business are destroyed by the creation of new and better ways to do them.
Business expert Peter Drucker (1909-2005) took this idea further, describing the
entrepreneur as someone who actually searches for change, responds to it, and exploits change
as an opportunity. For instance, a quick look at changes in communications from typewriters
to personal computers to the Internet illustrates these ideas.
Entrepreneurship is a discipline with a knowledge base theory. It is an outcome of
complex socio-economic, psychological, technological, legal and other factors. It is a dynamic
and risky process. It involves a fusion of capital, technology and human talent.
Entrepreneurship is equally applicable to big and small businesses, to economic and noneconomic activities.
Most economists today agree that entrepreneurship is a necessary ingredient for
stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. In the developing
world, successful small businesses are the primary engines of job creation, income growth,
42

and poverty reduction. Therefore, government support for entrepreneurship is a crucial strategy for economic development.
B.
Entrepreneurial motivation:
The word motivation has its origin in the Latin word movere, meaning "to move."
It is regarded "as the inner state that energizes activities and directs or channels
behavior towards the goal". It can also be seen as a process that arouses action, sustains the
activity in progress and that regulates the pattern of activity.
Motivation is central to the way an entrepreneur behaves in a business environment.
Motivation is dependent upon the potencies of needs. Maslow identified a hierarchy of needs,
which govern the pattern of motivation. These needs are physiological, safety, social, esteem
and self-actualization.
The strength of an unfilled need of an entrepreneur and expectations of beneficialoutcomes motivate an entrepreneur for efforts in venture. Combined with these, the individual
capabilities of the entrepreneur govern his performance. The opportunities in business
environment and risk due to future uncertainty affect the rewards, which are intrinsic and
extrinsic both. Intrinsic rewards are related to factors internal to the entrepreneur, such as selfsatisfaction, pride, etc. Extrinsic rewards are more towards material, wealth and growth.
Section 2: Startup Company

A startup company is a new business organization that has recently launched operations
and has not yet built up any degree of measurable history or business volume that allows for
comparison over multiple time periods.
Startup companies can come in all forms and sizes. A critical task in setting up a
business is to conduct research in order to validate, assess and develop the ideas or business
concepts in addition to opportunities to establish further and deeper understanding on the
ideas or business concepts as well as their commercial potential. Business models for startups
are generally found via a bottom-up36 or top-down approach.37 A company may cease to be a
36
The bottom-up approach means that local players participate in decision-making about the strategy
and in the selection of the priorities to be pursued in their local area.
37
The phrase top-down means that all the directions come from the top. Project objectives are
established by the top management
43

startup as it passes various milestones, such as becoming publicly traded in an IPO38, or
ceasing to exist as an independent entity via a merger or acquisition. Companies may also fail
and cease to operate altogether.
Investors are generally most attracted to those new companies distinguished by their
risk/reward profile and scalability. That is, they have lower bootstrapping costs, higher risk,
and higher potential return on investment.
Successful startups are typically more scalable than an established business, in the sense
that they can potentially grow rapidly with limited investment of capital, labor or land.
Businesses that are considered startups usually are seen as high-risk ventures, since they
do not have any track record of success, and in fact may still be struggling to build a client
base and begin to generate some type of revenue. Investors often look closely at the nature of
the products offered by a startup company, the expertise of the owners, and the business plan
for the operation before making a decision regarding whether to invest in the business, and
how much they are willing to risk.
There is some difference of opinion regarding how long these newly launched
businesses must be in operation before they cease to be considered startups. One school of
thought holds that a business is no longer a startup company once it has reached a point of
generating enough revenue to cover its day to day operational costs. Others hold that the
defining issue is not revenue generation but a matter of time, considering any company that is
not at least two years old to be a startup. The exact criteria for determining whether a
relatively new business is a startup company or not may vary based on standards set in
different industries or even in different countries.
Section 3: Information Communication Technologies

The abbreviation ICTs stands for Information and Communication Technologies. ICTs
refer to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is
similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication
technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other
communication mediums.
38
IPO: Initial Public Offering

44

Section 4: Business incubation and incubators

A.
Business incubation
There is no one standard definition of business incubation. Nearly three dozen

definitions are available in the academic literature and just as many have been adopted by
industry associations and policymakers in different countries, reflecting local cultures and
national policies. Germany for example, targeted innovative start-ups, while France and
Netherlands promote the university -incubator model (Aernoudt, 2000).
According to the NBIA39, Business incubation is a business support process that
accelerates the successful development of start-up and fledgling companies by providing
entrepreneurs with an array of targeted resources and services. These services are usually
developed or orchestrated by incubator management and offered both in the business
incubator and through its network of contacts. A business incubators main goal is to produce
successful firms that will leave the program financially viable and freestanding. These
incubator graduates have the potential to create jobs, revitalize neighborhoods, commercialize
new technologies, and strengthen local and national economies.
In a rapidly changing global economy, small and medium scale enterprises are
increasingly a force for enhancing national economic growth and employment. Many
government programs contain policy instruments addressing SMEs. New structures and
strategies that will help small enterprises to grow and provide a promising future in the global
market are being explored.
In a number of more competitive economies, business incubation is one of the tools that
have helped to create new entrepreneurial skills and new businesses. The incubation process
that was developed has included services for on the spot diagnosis and treatment of business
problems, dramatically lowering the usual early stage failure rate.
Business incubator programs, often called new entrepreneur creation projects helps
develop new entrepreneurs and supports them to start up business and be better able to survive
on a longer-term sustainable basis. The business incubator target group includes small
entrepreneurs that want to grow, new graduates and those who would like to develop their
talent and ideas and commercialize them.
39
National Business Incubation Association

45

The diagram below provides an overview of a typical business incubation process:
Figure 2: Business incubation life cycle

Source: Business incubation, Ammar Zakir, Sr. Process Associate at Lester
Infoservices Ltd
B.
Business incubators
1.
Definition
Business Incubators are defined as a location in which entrepreneurs can receive proactive, value-added support, and access to critical tools, information, education, contacts,
resources and capital that may otherwise be unaffordable, inaccessible or unknown.
Well structured incubators provide links to industry; business support services to
enhance and develop business; upgrade skills and techniques; technological advice and
assistance with intellectual property protection; financial resources for research and
development; initial marketing expenses; and access to potential private investors and
strategic partners.
2.
Types of Business Incubators
Incubators come in many formats, mostly fitting the following four types:
46

Public or not-for-profit incubators: government and non-profit organization, whose
primary objective is to promote economic development, sponsor these.
Private incubators: these are run by venture and seed capital investment groups, or by
corporations and real estate development partnerships. These incubators generally seek a
return on their investment.
Academic-related incubators: there are started where which have academic objectives
also focus on faculty development, and on creating business-spin-offs from faculty research
Public/private incubators: these are joint efforts between government and non-profit
agencies. This type of incubation offers the advantage that government funding can often be
secured to support private sector expertise and financing.
Section 5: the concept of Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the general name given to a range of techniques which involve
comparisons between two examples of the same process so as to provide opportunities for
learning.
Benchmarking can, for example, be used to compare how different companies manage
the product development processes; where one is faster than the other there are learning
opportunities in trying to understand how they achieve this. The approach has been widely
used, in the field of quality management where it is used to drive the development of
improvements in business performance, in software development and in developing
continuous improvement systems, for instance.
Benchmarking is a quality improvement tool that identifies:
What is being done,
How is being done,
How others do it,
How well it is being done in reference to measures,
What and how to improve.
47

1.
Types of Benchmarking
Different types of benchmarking can be identified on the basis of what is compared.

Among the commonly used benchmarking applications the following ones can be identified:
Strategic
it
Benchmarking:
involves
examining
long-term
strategies,
for
example regarding core competencies, new product and service development or improving
capabilities for dealing with change. This type of benchmarking is used by successful high
performers in order to improve a businesss overall performance.
Performance
Benchmarking: This looks at performance characteristics in relation to
key products and services in the same sector. In order to protect confidentiality, this type of
analysis is often undertaken through trade associations or third parties.
Process Benchmarking: it focuses on improving critical processes and operations
through comparison with best practice organizations performing similar work. This often
results in short term benefits.
Functional Benchmarking:
it compares a business with partners drawn from different
sectors to find innovative ways of improving work processes. This can lead to dramatic
improvements.
Internal
Benchmarking: This involves benchmarking businesses or operations from
within the same organization (e.g. business units in different countries). Access to sensitive
and/or standardized data is easier, usually less time and resources are needed and ultimately
practices may be relatively easier to implement. However, real innovation may be lacking:
best in class performance is more likely to be found through external benchmarking.
External
Benchmarking: it analyses best in class outside organizations, providing the
opportunity to learn from those at the leading edge. This can take up significant time and
resource to ensure the credibility of the findings.
International
Benchmarking: This identifies and analyses best practitioners
elsewhere in the world, perhaps because there are too few benchmarking partners within the
same country to produce valid results.
Globalization and advances in information technology are increasing opportunities for
international projects. However, these can take more time and resources to set up and
implement and the results may need careful analysis due to national differences.
The latter type is the one that interests the study.
2.
The Process of benchmarking
48
[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:
THE CREATION AND GROWTH
WTH OF STARTUP COMPANIES
COMPA
IN SENEGAL: A CASE
STUDY OF CTIC..] 2014
There is no single benchmarking process that has been universally adopted. The wide
appeal and acceptance of benchmarking has led to the emergence of benchmarking
methodologies and organizations that benchmark, adapt the process to best fit their own needs
and culture. To implement our study, we chose a benchmarking process
pro
that indicates that the
activity of benchmarking can be decomposed into basically five steps:
Figure 3: Benchmarking process model

Source: What is Benchmarking, www.totalqualitymanagement.wordpress.com
49

THIRD PART:
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
50

To give recommendations about their incubation model to CTIC, we found relevant to
know who the ICT entrepreneurs are and what do motivate them. It is also essential to
determine the factors that influence the growth of their companies. The two following
chapters will set out the identification of the ICT entrepreneurs, their motivations, and the
factors of creation and growth of the technology startups in Senegal.
CHAPTER V: Identification of the IT entrepreneurs in Senegal

The first step of the identification of ICT entrepreneurs hinged on their gender, then the
nationality, their age, the education standards, the subjects studied, the place of study, and the
type of universities frequented (private or public).
Section 1: Presentation of the ICT entrepreneurs

A.
Gender
In the spreadsheet below, the proportions of men and women that accepted to respond to
the questionnaire is represented.
Gender
Male
Female
93,3%
6,7%
Source: Field data, 2014
The noticeably large gap in male and female IT entrepreneurs reflects a larger country
wide and global trend. The gender gap in entrepreneurship especially remains very real in
Africa including in Senegal. Nowadays, more and more of them are going to work, some of
them create their own business but they are not numerous those who create their business in
the field of technologies. This is because women view computer science as a subject for men,
or has not developed skills in the field because they have not been exposed to the subject
matter or have been discouraged by family and friends.
51

B.
Nationality and Age
The following figure shows the number of Senegalese and non Senegalese people
interviewed among the 60 respondents and their age.
Nationality
Senegalese
53
Other
Age
More than 35
43,3%
Between 26 and 35
41,7%
Between 18 and 25
Less than 18
15,0%
0,0%

Among the 60 interviewees, 53 are Senegalese, which represents 88.3% against 11.7%
of non Senegalese. The non Senegalese people are composed of 2 Cameroonians, 2 French,
one Nigerien, one Togolese, one Mauritanian and one Beninese. The African people are those
who studied in Senegal and who decide to stay after having found a job or project
opportunities after their graduation.
The French people interviewed are people who came in Senegal either because of the
identification of an opportunity, or to achieve some humanitarian mission in Africa.
43.3% of the respondents age is more than 35 years, followed very closely by the
people between 26 and 35 years. None of them responded less than 18 years. The ICT
entrepreneurs that are more than 35 years, for the majority, are people who studied and
worked abroad for many years and came back to create their companies.
In Senegal, it is not frequent to see youths that are fewer than 18 creating their own
companies. Most of the time they do not have enough competences and resources to achieve
it. 18 years is the age by which people just leave high schools, the career plans are still not
well defined most of the time and they think about it during their university years.
52

The last group of people is composed of those who are between 18 and 26 years. They
are either people who decided to come back to Senegal right after their studies, or people who
decided to stay in the country. For them, the development of Senegal cannot happen without
the involvement of its youth in entrepreneurship.
Section 2: The education

C.
Study Standards and followed courses
The chart below shows the study standards and the courses followed by the respondents.
Study Standards
Master
76,7%
Bachelor
O'level
PHD
High School
18,3%
3,3%
1,7%
0,0%
Subject
Computer science
48,2%
Management
32,5%
Commerce
Other
Non rponse
12,0%
4,8%
2,4%
For the study standards, 46 people out of 60 answered that they have the master degree.
The master degree is the level of study at which people stop their studies most of the time.
Master graduates are already specialized in one domain; it gives them more confidence
to go through entrepreneurship.
Bachelor students represent 18.3% of the sample. Habitually, the bachelor students who
are entrepreneurs already have experience in that domain. For some of them, they are
influenced by the policies of their schools or entrepreneurship competitions they may have
took part in.
The number of ICT entrepreneurs who stopped their studies at Olevel is 2 out of 60.
ICT entrepreneurship requires high competences that cannot be provided by high school
53

education only. These are people who learned how to create and maintain a business as they
go along.
Only one respondent has the PHD. The fact is those who obtained this diploma are those
who teach in universities or work as consultants. Entrepreneurship is not a career path that is
often considered.
With no surprise, the majority of ICT entrepreneurs have studied computer science. It is
normal as it is the subject that is especially linked to the ICTs. Computer science is the study
of computation and computer technology, hardware, and software. It is all about the technical
competences that are needed to conceive the services.
The subjects that follow are management (32.5%), commerce (12%). These subjects are
linked to the running of a company and the commercialization of products. Those who study
these courses are more able to run their own businesses.
Some of the other subjects are also linked to business management as Marketing and
Communication. However, the subjects as Biology or Geology do not have any relation with
business, the people who gave those answers also answered either management, or commerce,
or computer science.
D.
Place of education:
The following spreadsheet shows the place of studies and the kind of universities of the
ICT entrepreneurs.

The majority of people interviewed answered Senegal as their place of study. Many of
them studied in Senegal and Europe. Europe is the first destination of graduate students who
54

want to pursue their studies. At the beginning we thought that the ICT entrepreneurs studied
for the majority in Europe or other it is not the case.
Most of the entrepreneurs who studied in Senegal are from private universities. This is
due to the policies in private universities that urge their students to create their enterprises to
get round the unemployment problems. Some of these universities conceive entrepreneurship
modules for their students. In the public universities, the students prefer apply for jobs linked
to more theoretical domains.
55

CHAPTER VI: Analysis of the factors of creation and growth of

technology startups
Section 1: The factors of creation of technology startups
A.
Their motivations
The diagram below represents the list of the 5 motivations that most of the technology
entrepreneurs ticked as answers.
Motivations
Take part in the development of the country
23,0%
Apply my own approaches and methods freely
20,6%
Take up a challenge linked to the creation and the development of a company

Implement my own ideas
20,0%
18,8%
Contribute to the welfare of the community I live in
17,6%

The main motivations of the ICT entrepreneurs are various. The more cited are:
- Take part in the development of the country

- Apply my own approaches and methods freely
- Take up the challenges linked to the creation and development of a company
- Implement my own ideas
- Contribute to the welfare of the community I live in
The taking part in the development of the country is justified by the context of the high
unemployment rate. Some people touched by it have no choice but entrepreneurship. There is
a real need of getting involved in the generation of wealth, the creation of jobs and the
contribution in the independence of individuals.
For those entrepreneurs, the application of their own approaches is a will of being
independent. Some people do not like to be subordinates and it is the first characteristic of an
entrepreneur; they are known to be leaders.
In the same way, they like to implement they own ideas, for example they can have the
idea of a solution to a need or problem and want to implement it through the creation of the
56

company, it helps the community to get better. Many innovative solutions developed by ICT
entrepreneurs have helped the communities so far against some everlasting issues.
The taking up of challenges linked to the creation and development of a company is
linked to the nature itself of entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is the one who takes the
initiative of creating his business and make it grow by getting round the related obstacles.
The influence of the familiarity with ICTs
B.
The following figure shows the influence of the familiarity in ICTs in the creation of
technology startups.
Familiarity with ICTs
Yes
No
88,3%
11,7%

88.3% of the respondents answered that they were already used to ICTs before creating
their companies. This meaningful figure shows that being used to ICTs can influence one in
creating their own technology startup. ICTs are a passion for the majority of those
entrepreneurs first, before they think about developing a product related to technologies.
Many of them also attended computer science courses.
C.
Circle influence and former job influence
This diagram shows the influence of the circle on the IT entrepreneurs.

Circle
2 or more
1
None
48,3%
26,7%
25,0%

48.3% of the IT entrepreneurs answered that their circle is composed of two or more
entrepreneurs. It is a real factor of creation of company by someone. Being in a milieu where
the people are entrepreneurs enhances the initiative spirit, especially when it is the family as
57

many people take members of their family as examples; we may think that entrepreneurs that
grow in this kind of family or circle considers the parents and close relations to copy.
The following graphic shows the influence of a former job on ones entrepreneurship.
Antecedence x Employment Influence
2,4%
41
39,0%
13,3%
33,3%
58,5%
53,3%
Your own boss
Yes
Employed in a company
No
Non rponse
24 IT entrepreneurs out of 60 asserted that their former job did influence them in the
creation of their companies. Generally, those who create their companies are former
employees who create other companies that are in the same domain. It gives them knowledge
that facilitates the recognition and action on opportunities as well as to organize and manage
new ventures. There is an important role of prior career experience for the development of
entrepreneurial knowledge. Previous career experience has for example been considered
helpful for building up valuable knowledge about relevant contacts, reliable suppliers and
viable markets, which enhances entrepreneurs ability to run their businesses.
8 of the respondents were their own bosses before creating their technology companies. They
are not numerous at the national scale. They are serial entrepreneurs who often come up with
new ideas and starts new businesses. As opposed to a typical entrepreneur, who will often
come up with an idea, start the company, and then see it through and play an important role in
the day to day functioning of the new company, a serial entrepreneur will often come up with
the idea and get things started, but then give responsibility to someone else and move on to a
new idea and a new venture.
58

Section 2: The factors of Growth of technology startups

A.
The positive and negative factors
The IT entrepreneurs were asked to tick the positive and negative factors that impact on
the growth of their companies. These are the top five of the answers.
Positive factors
Team spirit
25,4%
A good network (mentors, contacts)
20,2%
Human resource with technical competencies
19,7%
Support services
17,9%
Available clients or a new market
16,8%
Negative factors
No team spirit inside the company
24,8%
Difficulties to find funding
21,1%
The lack of competent human resources
20,3%
The lack of information on the market, technologies, regulations

The novelty of the service
19,5%
14,3%

The factors that make the list are:
-
The Team spirit,
A good network,
The human resources,
The Support Services,
Available clients or a new market (customers),
The difficulties to find funding,
The lack of information on the market, technologies, regulations,

The most cited positive factor is team spirit with 16.5% of respondents. Team spirit
is an essential aspect of an enterprise; either among associates (founders of the company), or

among the human resources. Effective teamwork among an organizations top management
makes employees happier and more productive, with positive benefits to the organization. It
59

builds stronger relationships with co-workers and gain the attention of upper management by
displaying good team spirit in the office and when speaking about the company to clients,
vendors, suppliers and other business colleagues.
The second factor is the good network cited with 13.1%. Indeed, networking brings
exposure to ones business; it is one of the best methods to be known in the business
community and also to spread the word about the brands. It allows building fruitful
relationships and it is important for the entrepreneurs to be good in inter-personal skills and to
permits to know to understand the market as well as the competition. It is also possible that
entrepreneurs would meet like-minded people who would like to collaborate or do business. It
is one of the most intended objectives of networking events. As they grow in their network,
their expertise in executing business also gets polished.
12.7% of the respondents answered that their competent human resources were
beneficial to their companies. The most important quality of a competent employee is subject
mastery. This means they must have a grasp on the company's services. They must also be
honest, as well as hard working and involved. The latter can ensure productivity across the
board, which can generate profits the business.
Support services come in the fourth position, with 11.6% of respondents. Support
services are vital for the success of any new business since few startups can afford to do
everything by itself. Many not-for-profits, academic institutions and other trade and
commercial
organizations
makes
available
many
support
services
to
promote
entrepreneurship. Such schemes provide startup entrepreneurs with technical expertise,

manufacturing know-how, marketing information, legal compliance help, opportunity to
benchmark, platform to network, access to low cost infrastructure and more.
The availability of clients or a new market comes in the fifth position. Obviously, when
the product or service of a company attracts no client, it leads it to bankruptcy. Technology
services are known to be innovative most of the time. The general public may immediately
adopt it or take time to get convinced; this factor is closely linked to the novelty of the
service factor.
21% of respondents answered they were facing lack of funding issues. Indeed, not all
the entrepreneurs have the means to fund their startups and it may result a standby of the
activities which seriously breaks the evolution of the company.
60

We are now living in a world where customer preferences are volatile and the identity
of customers and the technologies serving them are changing. The only way to create
defensibility against competition is to understand the dynamics of the core industry market.
Founders must understand how to develop and retain customers even in the face of hyper
competition. They must also know about the regulations of their sector of activity to be able to
anticipate the decisions to make.
B.
The influence of the support of an incubator on the positive and
negative factors
The following graphics show the influence of the business incubation on the growth of
the startups.
Support by an incubator x Positive factors
153 Yes
114 No
Team spirit
Available clients or a new market
Availability of funding
Human resource with technical competencies
Regulations that facilitate business
Availability of premises, logistics
Support services
A good quality of technology infrastructures
A good network (mentors, contacts)
Other
Support by an incubator x Negative factors

92 Yes
112 No
No team spirit inside the company
The market behavior is unfavorable
Difficulties to find funding
Absence of network (contacts, mentors)
The lack of competent human resources
The lack of information on the market, technologies, regulationsStrict regulations of the sector
Difficulties to establish the company (logistics, premises)
Technology Infrastructures of bad quality
Other
In the two graphics, we can notice that the incubated companies have fewer problems in
general than the non-incubated. The accompanied startups have a longer bar of positive
factors than the non-incubatees. They also have a shorter bar of negative factors.
The support services they are provided have a positive their effect on the situation of the
startups.
61

C.
The clientele
The IT entrepreneurs were asked to assess the growth of their startups on a scale from
Poor to Excellent. This is the cross analysis of their assessment and the acceptation of the
clientele.
Clientele x Growth assessment
17
17
17
13
0
Yes, the service is well
welcomed
Poor
Fair
No, the service is not so

appreciated
Average
Other
Good
Excellent

Attracting customers is the one best way to generate incomes, get known and ensure the
growth of the startup. It is important to know how to convince people to adopt a product and
get their loyalty. In the diagram above, we can notice that the enterprises with good and
excellent growths all have a good perception and welcome from the clients.
Those who have a mitigated or half hearted opinion on the perception of their clients
have assessed their companies as being either in a fair or average momentum. Attract the
appropriate clients that are ready to pay for a service is necessary for a startup.
62

CHAPTER VIII: Benchmarking against an Anglophone country, the

case of Senegal and Kenya
Senegal and Kenya are countries with high mobile and internet penetration. They are
similar in many domains as their high unemployment rates; youth unemployment in Kenya is
mainly attributed to the fact that its economy is currently dependent on agriculture. They also
strive to leverage ICTs in all sectors of their economies.
To be able to know why the African Anglophone startups are said to perform better than
Francophone ones; three aspects of the incubators have been chosen to analyze the differences
between CTIC and iHub. We will then draw keys to success thanks to the interview guide
which discusses these themes: the incubation model, the incubatees, and the ecosystem of the
sector. We will first present the Kenyan hub before the benchmarking.
Section 1: Presentation of iHub

Nairobi's Innovation Hub for the technology community is an open space for the
technologists, investors, tech companies and hackers in the area. This space is a tech
community facility with a focus on young entrepreneurs, web and mobile phone
programmers, designers and researchers. The iHub was started in March 2010 as part of the
Ushahidi strategy by a group of young developers, volunteers and journalists who were
passionate and energetic about technology assisted in developing the Ushahidi platform40 for
the global community.
Situated in Nairobi, the iHub provides a space where young entrepreneurial members
can receive mentorship, Internet connectivity and the possibility of venture funding through
connections with the international venture capital community. The iHub has been called the
"unofficial headquarters of Kenya's tech movement."
This co-working space is a nexus for technologists, investors, young entrepreneurs,
designers, researchers and programmers. It is part open community workspace (co-working),
part vector for investors and Venture Capitals and part incubator.
40
Ushahidi, which means testimony in Swahili, was a website that was developed to map reports
of violence in Kenya after the elections in 2007.

63

The space was made possible by funding to Ushahidi by the Omidyar Network41 and
Hivos.42
Section 2: The Benchmarking

Our benchmarking plan is inspired from the process model taken from the scheme titled
Benchmarking process model.
The following stages of the process show the way we proceeded to do the
benchmarking.
The iHub model is the object of the benchmarking and for this purpose we determined
three criteria to study which is their incubation model; their clients and their ecosystem. To
collect data, the interview guide as well and the documentary research have been used. Once
the information gathered, the differences between the two organizations will be drawn up.
That will allow the definition of keys to success and give recommendations.
Analyze the
information
gathered Determine
the
differences
Which tools
to collect
data?
The iHub
model
Determine
criteria
Gather
information
Draw
solutions Give
recommenda
-tions
Figure 4: Illustration of our benchmarking process

Source: The incubators benchmarking process model designed by us.
41
Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets
to create opportunity for people to improve their lives.
42
Hivos, a Dutch non-governmental organization that aims to contribute to a fair, free and sustainable
world.
64

A.
The incubator and its incubation model:
To the question what are the different services provided by your incubator
to the incubatees, the incubator managers answered:

CTIC provides an incubation program, a booster program for startups (coaching,
technical advices, marketing support) and on demand services to external companies; a wide
range of services including activities like bootcamps and Entrepreneurship days, networking
events with specific set of themes, pitching sessions, training, logistics and premises; support
that allow the companies develop.
iHub is a workspace where the members can find the setting to work on their projects,
to find partners for startups, jobs, build a network. It is mainly a place where they can share
and collaborate. The hub also organizes networking events to launch their products, fireside
chats43 with CEOs and thought leaders. Its website proposes to startups to publish their job
offers.
The differences between the two is that CTIC is more an organization that accompanies
businesses in their development whilst in iHub people are not really supported by the hub
itself but by the mentors, the entrepreneurs, the members who constitute it. The two models
are equal of merit; CTIC does its best to raise its incubatees to the top by various kind of
support but the iHub model implies that the entrepreneurs from Kenya can be more
independent than those from Senegal. Also, iHub organizes Launch product events and
Fireside chats with CEOs which would be really valuable for CTIC entrepreneurs.
The specific objectives of CTIC and iHub:
CTICs specific objectives are to promote tech startups and IT entrepreneurship, support
universities in entrepreneurship curriculum by organizing bootcamps, identify talented
developers and build high-impact entrepreneurs, facilitate access to market and finance for
SMEs, build high-growth and international companies, be sustainable by 2015, build and
structure a solid network with all the stakeholders and players.
iHubs specific objectives are to foster innovation by the appeal to great minds and
produce innovative applications, systems and ideas, to build a synergy in the Kenyan tech
43
Fireside Chats are talks with CEOs organized in the iHub premises. They are only open and
accessible to Green members.
65

community where stakeholders get to know each other, to rely on local competences to
attract, develop, and retain a vibrant base of world-class talent and encourage
entrepreneurship. Research is also a systematic process for iHub for problem solving and
analytical thinking, and for testing the feasibility of a product or project based on the research
findings.
For each of these incubators, the objectives depend on their sizes. CTIC is business
development oriented whereas iHubs goals focus on the community and the ways of
providing it the necessary resources to the members and make it easy for them to pursue their
daily activities, whatever the kind. For an incubator, the main purpose is to support the growth
of ones business.
To the question do you provide standard or tailored services, the
incubator managers answered:

CTIC provides tailored services to its clients. Beside the on demand services, the
incubatees are taken in charge according to their needs and objectives. Before the beginning
of their incubation, CTIC and the startup meet to make a diagnosis of the latter thanks to well
defined tools and methods. Then, strategic and operational plan of actions are drawn up and
every month, a review of the implemented activities is made.
iHub members benefit from kind of self services. Since it is a co-working space, the
members socialize and meet to form teams or to be mentored by others. There are various
professions going from developers, to mentors, to business men. Trainings are also provided
according to their needs.
Both of the incubators provide tailored services to their members and clients, in
different ways. CTICs system is closer to the incubatees, which can denote a better
accompaniment momentum.
Do you sometimes evaluate the results and performances of your
incubator? To these questions, the incubator managers answered:

The interviewed manager from CTIC asserts that it often auto evaluates its system
through the complaints and requirements of the supported companies and also thanks to the
World Bank and its established criteria grid which can determine whether the incubator
achieved it yearly goals or not.
66

iHub Research is a great way for the Kenyan hub to assess its performances. The reports
are centered on the community satisfaction, comparative studies with other countries, etc.
Assessing the results from time to time is very important in the way that it allows the
coordination and the control of activities. It is necessary for a company if it is wanted to go
forward. The two evaluation systems are equally valuable and appropriate to the situations of
the hubs.
B.
The incubatees:
On which basis do the incubators select the companies that they
accompany?
To be eligible for the CTIC programs, the companies that want to apply should have a
link with the ICT sector and be established, have a history, need a new boost. It can also be an
entrepreneur with an idea to be developed or a new company.
The candidates have to prove the financial viability of their project or propose a
financial plan staggered over a period of 3 to 5 years.
The candidates also have to prove that they need assistance from the incubator, for
various reasons as the lack of necessary competences to create, develop or fully operate, as
difficulties for financing their activities, assistance to reduce failure risks.
Some aspects of ones project can be valuable for the selection process as an important
job creation potential, products or services to export, an innovation, a solution to an
unrelieved need, the introduction of new competences in the incubator, etc.
Also, a trustworthy team is privileged.
The iHub system is based on the formation of a community of not only entrepreneurs
but all people who are interested in ICT and the requirement is that one who is involved in the
tech space is a programmer, web designer or mobile application developer, project developer.
White membership is the first level of membership that all iHub members must go
through. Membership is open and free to work from the physical space. It is also the
membership that the Green membership will default to after the arranged period expires.
Green Membership will be offered to white members who apply for it. The prerequisite
is that the member is involved in a project needs a physical location to work out off, to source
for other developers and designers to join the project, or when his project will grow, create a
minimal viable product or service that is ready for help to scale.
67

A Green member who has completed the 6-month period and has a minimum viable
product or service will be in line for Red membership. However Red Membership requires
one to pay for a desk, and a locker.
The adhesion requirements for iHub and CTIC depend on their activities and missions.
While CTIC has established some business development oriented criteria for businesses and
entrepreneurs, the membership at iHub is more based on the will of the individuals to go to
place where they can mainly express themselves as technology lovers. The projects come in
the second time. This is justified by the iHub community based model even if it does help the
startups members to be incubated. CTIC is an incubator and its model focuses on the success
of its startups.
The main difficulties encountered by the incubatees and the way they are
handled:
The main difficulties encountered by the startups and the entrepreneurs in CTIC are
linked to misunderstandings and conflicts between associate entrepreneurs and the lack of
competent human resources, the volatility of the market, and the lack of funding.
At the iHub, when asked to them, the first problem mentioned by the members is the
lack of financial means, then collaboration with the right mentor, and the revenue generation.
The CTIC startups are often founded by people who already have worked enough to
save a capital which permits to invest in the creation of their companies. It may happen that
young and talented entrepreneurs want to implement their ideas, and then the lack of financial
means is a real break.
To solve the conflicts between associate members, CTIC have recourse to mediation
and discussions with the parties. CTIC also helps its clients in the recruitment of staff by
giving advices and, taking part in the job interviews.
About the problems with the market, the entrepreneurs are used to do many tests and
learn to know well their clients. Sometimes, they switch their clientele from business to
consumer to business to business, for example, the startup Mlouma.com changed its target
after having realized that farmers were not ready to pay for its service, it is now dealing with
economic interest groups.
68

In the case supported startups do not have enough funding; CTIC has partners that put a
part of their incomes back into the funding of those companies through the incubator. Prize
won from competitions also prove to be very helpful as well as business Angels.
About the iHub entrepreneurs funding problems, the hub management started marketing
start-ups that have a good product to potential investors and clients, and also started formal
networks for seed funding opportunities. Finding relevant funding for startups has been a key
challenge at their early stages, although some innovators and entrepreneurs have found
avenues to get the funding they need through participating in pitching competitions.
Finding the right mentor is a hard task for entrepreneurs, something that the
management of the hub decided to work out through their networks, compiling a reliable pool
of mentors, which entrepreneurs can tap into for help.
The hub suggests the startups to make market research, for it is essential as the
organization is at a sensitive stage in understanding the needs of their target market and it
helps them in case of need.
In this case, the answers to the questions are different though the approaches used to
solve the issues are all appropriate. Some of their same issues as the lack of funding are
handled quite similarly; CTIC startups are helped by the incubator partners while iHub
startups benefit from the networking initiated by the hub. The two solutions involve the hub
network. For the other ones, each of them has its originality.
C.
The ICT and entrepreneurship ecosystem of the incubator:
The relationship the incubators have with their partners and the way they
are helpful:
CTIC partners are well known corporations and organizations as the FICTIS, the World
Bank, and the ARTP etc. These partners take part in the model of the incubator. The funding
of CTIC depended on them at 55% in 2013. They are helpful in the sponsoring of the
numerous events organized. However, for the majority of them the support is limited to the
funding and sponsoring despite the CTIC attempts to have a freefone or to get important
players coming for interactions and exchanges more often.
69

iHub has worked to create partnerships with individuals and corporates. Some of the
partners include diverse organizations such as: intel,44 which General Manager for South and
Sub Saharan Africa came for a talk to developers about Intels Software opportunities in the
region or the Europe Middle East and Africa Googles
45
Director, who also imparted some
great user experience wisdom for local startups centered on how Google has successfully
utilized user experience methods with examples from actual projects.
In any business model, having partners is an ingredient to success. iHub partnership
structure gives more various advantages. Its partners contribute to the community by offering
talks from experienced people. Most important is to build effective partnerships and structures
of collaboration within the community. The partners of iHub seem more flexible and involved
than those of CTIC.
To the question are the behaviors of the market and the potential
costumers in your country favorable to the growth of the companies, the managers
answered:
90% of CTIC startups conceive and provide business to business services as
management softwares or e-reputation management. This model works well as Senegalese
companies all trend toward the digitization of their systems. Figure out the behaviors of the
market for businesses is easy.
The e-commerce is the service par excellence of the private individuals. However they
are more difficult to satisfy. Senegalese recently began to use technology services and
products despite the high mobile and internet penetrations. The users are very few. Many
trying outs, service withdrawals or validation have to be carried out by a startup to manage.
In Kenya, there are a high number of mobile subscribers and internet users; they are
about 46 million from 4 service providers. Some of Nairobis success can be attributed to high
mobile penetration that has created a mass market for tech-oriented businesses. Due to the
high mobile penetration, and the mobile money system, Kenyan people turned out to be
flexible and adopted the technology services.
44
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation

headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Intel is one of the worlds largest and highest valued
semiconductor chip makers, based on revenue.
45
Google is an American multinational corporation specializing in Internet-related services and
products. These include search, cloud computing, software, and online advertising technologies.
70

The market structures of the countries are different. Senegalese consumers are not ready
yet to jump into the IT market because of several reasons. Despite the wide internet coverage,
the web or mobile services are not used for virtual transactions; there is a lack of confidence
in the security of those systems. In Kenya, the acceptance of the technology services is due
not only because of the engagement of the authorities and government in the digitization of
the country, but also because of the design and conception of impacting solutions that are well
known, and changing their everyday lives. There, technology services consumption is easier.
Are the ICT infrastructures of your country of good quality, well
managed, favorable to the growth of the ICT companies?

Senegal has a leader position in Africa in the domain of ICTs. In the 2006-2010 period,
the country has made enormous progress in the reduction of the digital divide thanks to a
100% digitized network and a good mobile penetration, an extension of the territories
coverage by the different telecommunication companies and a regular decrease of
subscriptions with steady special offers. However those telecommunication operators are not
nationals first, and their profit is their mainspring; the democratization of internet in short is
managed by private foreign entities. The overall internet coverage of the country is going on
but it will be slow and may discourage opportunities.
The Silicon Savannah46 would not exist without fast and cheap Internet and
communications infrastructure. The fiber optic cable laid in 2008 and price wars between
mobile network operators have created an enabling environment suited to tech-oriented
businesses and the easy exchange of information and ideas. Plus, Underground submarine
cables are currently under construction to ensure a widespread internet connectivity and
universal access to ICT services. The Kenyan government initiated many related projects
going from the Digital Village Project which is an innovative public private partnership for
taking ICTs to the rural communities in Kenya. Since its inception, 63 centers have been
established representing 30% coverage of ICTS in the country.
There is a National ICT Master Plan which targets to connect residents, citizens, homes
and institutions through a country wide robust, accessible and affordable ICT infrastructure.
The aim is to provide public services for all through ICT and build a society with
knowledge.
46
Silicon Savannah, like Silicon Valley refers to the Kenyan technology center.
71

There is a big difference between the two countries in terms of infrastructure
management. Kenyan government initiated diverse laudable projects to ensure the universality
of internet and network access in the country. There is a real momentum for the progress in
that domain; the public authorities consider it as the guiding line to develop the country.
Senegal is a lucky country in the sense it has a significant advantage on infrastructure thanks
to a large number of international connections to sea cables. The main operator holds the
dominant market position but Internet access is inexpensive compared to nearby countries.
However, the government should provide more direction on the role of ICT, either by being
the first mover and convener, or by setting a clear set of policies that would allow more action
from the private sector.
Are the current policies and regulatory regime concerning the ICTs and
enterprises in both countries favorable to the growth of the ICT companies?

Senegalese policies and regulations are most of the time decided around a table and
signed on papers. Their implementation either takes long time, or is not honored. It is the case
of the regulations linked to the grant of procurement contracts for SMEs; this regulation
impose that Senegalese SMEs be granted of a percentage of the procurement contracts from
the government. Its effective application could really help the SMEs in their development.
The Kenyan policies and achievements about the ICTs are numerous. Each big player
contributes to the ICT success of the country. They have decided to make it the mainspring of
their economy. Thus, the public sector acts in the creation of a legal and regulatory
framework, in the infrastructure development and the enhancement of manpower and
intellectual capital. The private sector works to provide and ensure quality goods and services
to the markets, to constitute investment in capital for growth and monitor policy
implementation.
After the analysis of the interview and documentary research data, we found out that the
two incubators have many similarities but also many differences.
CTIC is an incubator which core activity is business development. Its specific
objectives are the provision of facilities, trainings and network. The incubated startups are
followed closely and selected on strict and business oriented bases.
72

iHub is a community workspace which provides networking, collaboration and facilities
to its members. The members are of various kinds and come there for various reasons. There
can be found programmers, mentors, entrepreneurs etc.
The startups problems, for some of them are handled in the same way by CTIC and
iHub like the lack of funding which ends up solved by networking and partners.
However, their main differences rely on their countries market behavior, the
infrastructures and the regulations and policies.
Indeed the Kenyan market is more receptive to the technology services mainly due to
the wide infrastructure coverage, their good management and the strict and regulatory system
that support them. Thus, the main divergences are not within the incubators but on their
ecosystems. A startup, indeed, may need support services to grow, but most important is its
environment. The Senegalese environment is like an opportunity breaker for those companies
in some aspects. Our findings brought us to conclude that the two incubators are different in
the forms but not in their contents.
73

CHAPTER IX: Recommendations

During the research, we noticed that CTIC has achieved much in terms of business
accompaniment and promotion of ICT entrepreneurship in Senegal. As specified in the
objective statement, the identification of the entrepreneurs, the analysis of the factors that
influence the creation and growth of startup companies and the benchmarking against iHub,
the Kenyan incubator would help us draw up keys to success for CTIC.
However we also have drawn up a few lines of actions for the entrepreneurs and the
public authorities because some of the problems can barely be handled by the incubator.
To CTIC, we recommend:
The conception of an effective mentoring program including external collaborators as
CEOs and Business Angels to help the entrepreneurs in advices and experience share. Those
mentors can be appointed to the entrepreneurs in an appropriate way, according to their field
of activity or other similarities especially for young ones.
The creation of a market study unit that will help new ventures in the conception and
perfecting of their services by the census of the lifestyles, needs, and behavior of the targeted
customers (the private individuals).
As some startups at their beginning do not really know whether the service will be adopted or
not because of its novelty and the technology that characterizes it. This would actually fit the
incubatees of the booster program as they need to know quickly if their projects are worth
pursuing.
The design of a profiling tool or personality assessment grid for the candidates to job
offers. As many IT companies struggle to find quality employees, CTIC should help them in
the recruitment by the means of an attitude and aptitude assessment tool that will determine
which kind of person is in front of them during job interviews in a quite accurate and verified
way.
The organization of ICT services promotion events because Senegalese consumers are
quite skeptical towards these services. Starting up an e-commerce or m-commerce company

which implies virtual money transaction and delivery is not easy. It is a matter of worries
about the security and the reliability. CTIC could organize services events especially for their
e-commerce companies and invite the general public to tests and demonstrations for them to
be convinced.
74

As an incubator, CTIC cannot ignore the situation of its ecosystem. It has to play a
role in the structuring of the link between the concerned entities and the framing of policies. It
could involve the private sector as large companies are business and organizations that are
beyond the start-up and growth phases of the business cycle. They have more resources that
businesses that are lower down the business cycle can tap into. They can provide markets and
access to markets, inputs in terms of technology and funding and can lobby the government to
create an environment conducive to the entire ecosystem.
The creation of a research unit that will provide and publish evidence-based findings
in various subjects as entrepreneurship, ICTs, the market, information on the related

regulations and their impact, the role of the stakeholders. This will influence the latter to
better involve themselves in the development of the technology business field. Entrepreneurs
will be able to inquire after the problems they may encounter when starting a project.
To the ICT entrepreneurs, we recommend:
To foster the involvement of their human resources by a clear definition of the vision
of the company. Only a clear vision backed by a strong why transmitted to them can turn
employees into quality ones. As founders, entrepreneurs are most of the time driven and
passionate about their vision and they must rely on the workers to represent the company to
partners, customers and the community.
The ICT entrepreneurs should unite in one association to have their voice and opinions
took into account by the stakeholders. It could help them fight for improvements in their field
of activity.
To the public authorities and concerned agencies, we recommend:
The implementation of an investment fund pool that will settle the lack of funding of
the startups. The grants can be allocated after a selection of the best projects that submitted
their applications, all of this managed by a program.
75

Conclusion:
Entrepreneurship has always turned out to be indispensable for the emergence and
development of a society. Arguments of this fact go from examples of creation of wealth to
the decrease of the unemployment rate to the solutions to needs of the populations. As the
Information Communication Technologies evolve, innovation has become the main driver of
the rise to top for any country in this century. It is all the more important for African ones
since it is able to propose services adapted to their markets and realities.
In Senegal, ICT entrepreneurship has known great progress in the ten last years. More
and more technology startups are sprouting although their sustainability is uncertain for some
reason or another. This brought us to wonder: If entrepreneurship is a support to development,
what does support and foster entrepreneurship?
The purpose of this study consisted in the proposition of lines of improvement for the
ICT entrepreneurship sector and the accompaniment of startups by CTIC, the first ICT
incubator in Senegal and West Africa. This has been made by taking into account the
individual (as an entrepreneur), his environment, the influencing factors and other keys to
success resulting from benchmarking against an Anglophone country.
It appeared that the technology entrepreneurs in Senegal are for most of them
Senegalese who quitted their jobs with the ambition to develop their country and apply their
own approaches and methods freely. The factors linked to the development of their companies
involved the team spirit, a good network, competent human resources, difficulties to find
funding, a lack of information on the market, the technologies and the regulations among
others. The findings of the benchmarking also proved that the problems of the technology
entrepreneurship field in Senegal depended mainly on its ecosystem.
The hypotheses put forward have been partly confirmed, partly invalidated. The results
of the researches are surprising in some aspects. Many of the answers collected from the
investigations are not those which would come first to mind for novices. A few people would
talk about the lack of competent human resources as a major problem to the development of
those startups for example.
76

To settle those issues, the entrepreneurs should galvanize their collaborators by ensuring
that they understand and share the same vision about the company. That is the recipe to build
a strong team. Also, we suggested them to form their own association for them to facilities to
their jobs and be better considered.
CTIC should integrate some new departments as the one for market studies and
research. The first one is relevant to allow the startups reach their targets in an effective and
efficient manner, the second one aims to inform stakeholders and urge them to take
appropriate and well thought out decisions. It could also involve itself in partnerships with
mentors and the private sector as well as services promotion events and accurate means to
support the incubatees in the recruitment.
Finally, we may assert settling technology entrepreneurship issues are not a herculean
task. The players of this domain need to get more insights and information about it.
77

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79

Appendices
80

Appendice 1: The interview guide

I. The incubator and its incubation model
1. What are the different services provided by your incubator to the incubatees?
2. What are the specific objectives of your incubator?
3. Do you provide standard or tailored services?
4. Do you sometimes evaluate the results and performances of your incubator? On
which basis (criteria)?
II. The incubatees

1. On which basis do you select the companies that your incubator accompanies?
2. What are the main difficulties encountered by your incubates? How are they handled?
III. The ICT ecosystem of the incubator

1. What relationships do you have with your partners? How do they help you?
2. Are the behaviors of the market and the potential costumers in your country favorable
to the growth of the companies?
3. Are the ICT infrastructures of your country of good quality, well managed, favorable
to the growth of the ICT companies?
4.
Is the current regulatory regime concerning the ICT and entrepreneurship sector in
your country favorable to the growth of the ICT companies?
81

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REPUBLIC OF SENEGAL

Un Peuple Un But Une Foi

MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Institut Suprieur de Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION

Name: Ms. Mamouna DIOP

Supervisor: Ms. Mame Yauto Faye,

Bachelor in International Management

Entrepreneurship and Marketing Teacher at

Academic Year: 2013/2014

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

To my late Grandfather, Idrissa WONE, for his influence on my life. I

To my beloved Mother, Assatou WONE, for her love, for the

To my Father Mouhamadou DIOP, for his contribution in my school career and

To my lovely Aunt, Salamata WONE NDIAYE, my second mother, for

To my Sister and Brothers, for the understanding and encouragements.

To my Cousins, my Niece, my Friends.

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

I also specially thank my lovely Mother for her invaluable prayers.

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

ADEPME: Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Chapter I: General framework........................................................................................................11

Chapter III: Company presentation.................................................................................................30

Chapter V: Identification of the ICT entrepreneurs.....51

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

http://www.forbes.com/ - Top 20 Tech Startups in Africa

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Chapter I: General framework

National Agency of Statistics and Demography in Senegal, 2013

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

http://www.pressafrik.com/ - CTIC Dakar : Les difficults de la cration dentreprise mises nue.

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

- Identify the IT entrepreneurs in Senegal and their distinctive characteristics

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Section 4: Relevance of the study

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Section 5: Critical review of literature

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES:

Mamouna DIOP Bachelor in Business Administration -

[ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: