In The Rise of the Sharing Economy, Kevin Govender shares his insights and expertise on the evolution of the sharing economy, consumer behaviour, and alternative business models, and empowers consumers to rediscover and realise the enormous benefits of access over ownership, and the potential savings in time, money, space, and the opportunity. Access is a cultural and socio-economic phenomenon that is transforming businesses, consumers, the way we live, work, learn, consume, commute and play.

Access-based consumption is becoming an alternate mode to ownership and certainly has long-term growth potential. The sharing economy has been widely hailed as a major growth sector, by sources ranging from Fortune magazine, World Economic Forum, to former US President Barack Obama. The total value of the global sharing economy is estimated to grow from $14-billion in 2014 to $335-billion by 2025. 

It has disrupted mature industries, such as hotels and automotive, by providing consumers with convenient and cost-efficient access to resources without the financial, emotional, or social burdens of ownership. Businesses and organisations are facing a dilemma that could ultimately affect the future of their profitability, existence, and sustainability, even though ownership and access will coexist for years to come. 

This creates the opportunity and demand for both ownership, and access-based capabilities and service based offerings. Organisations can no longer afford to ignore the rise of the sharing economy and collaborative consumption offerings, the most prominent examples being the taxi service Uber and accommodation rental service Airbnb. In this global and competitive economy, it is a great opportunity and imperative for business leaders to seek and drive innovative strategies and/or business models and rapidly increase the pace towards a sharing economy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Govender is a Partner/Director at Deloitte. He is an experienced business enterprise architect and strategist who has led and advised a wide range of projects including large business and technology transformation programmes, turnaround programmes, strategy development and business improvement initiatives across a diverse set of industries including the mining, oil and gas, logistics, professional services, healthcare, financial services, public sector, telecoms and manufacturing sectors. Kevin has a diverse understanding of business, technology and leadership gained through experience across a variety of industries, functional areas, and geographies both locally and globally. He has extensive experience in Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, Business Advisory, Management Consulting, ERP Implementation and Assurance, CIO Advisory and Leadership, Tech Trends, and implementing Turnaround, Transformational and Improvement programmes.

'The rise of the Sharing Economy: Access is the new ownership' is published by Tracey McDonald Publishers