Mozambican companies are not yet fully exploiting the opportunities created by technology to improve their businesses, reduce costs and deliver more efficient services. Resistance to change and the persistence of traditional processes are among the factors constraining that transformation, according to executives from Raxio Mozambique and GoFuel.

The issue was debated on Thursday, 5 November, during a panel on innovation and business model transformation at the Synapse Strategy Summit 2026. Participants argued that technology should be used to fundamentally improve the way companies operate and deliver services — not merely to digitise existing procedures.

Emídio Amadebai, CEO of Raxio Mozambique, highlighted the importance of data centres to technological development, noting that such infrastructure makes it possible to host applications, digital platforms and artificial intelligence solutions. In his view, Mozambique already has this capacity, but the market has yet to make full use of it.

He cautioned, however, that 'we cannot say we are digitalising the state, or the company, when we are simply digitalising routines or bureaucracy.'

For Amadebai, digital tools must enable concrete improvements in service quality, organisational efficiency and the consumer experience. As an example, he cited prepaid water services, observing that the introduction of digital payment mechanisms does not necessarily resolve user difficulties when customers remain dependent on additional procedures to actually access the service.

In the same session, Edilson Paco, commercial director of GoFuel, presented an innovation experience from the fuel industry — a sector traditionally characterised by competition based on price and product availability.

He explained that the company developed an application that brings together different fuel supply networks on a single platform, allowing customers to access multiple operators without needing a separate card for each network.

Paco added that the application emerged from the identification of customer pain points in the sector. He argued that companies need to understand how the activities in which they intend to innovate actually function, and to grasp those problems thoroughly before developing new solutions.

He also identified employee resistance to new systems as one of the main obstacles to transformation. 'We need to be close to our customers, provide them with training and support, and even run pilot projects. We do not go from zero to one hundred overnight,' he said.

In his assessment, gradual implementation allows users to understand the tools and build confidence in new solutions.