…Dare Ogunlade is the general manager, Cisco, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra-Leone. In this interview with BEN UZOR JR, he talks about how the Internet of Everything (IoE) is impacting and redefining people, data, processes globally. He says Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is critical to the company’s global business strategy.
Cisco is involved in quite a few developmental initiatives in many countries but Nigeria seems to be a different market where it’s important to be in the big cities in order to compete. This has led many organisation to settle within the big cities leaving the rural areas unattended to. Is Cisco doing anything to develop the rural areas
Cisco is all about the network and anywhere there is network connectivity typically, you will find us trying to partner with those playing in the rural areas with our technology. In the case of Nigeria we have sub-sea fiber-optic cables bring an enormous amount of broadband to our shores.
Now, various stakeholders are working towards getting this broadband to the hinterlands, including of course, the rural areas. Since our technology is centered on the network connectivity there has to be that infrastructure before we can step in. In our model, we work with partners; we sell our products through partners and at the end of the day we enable our partners work with infrastructure providers in those remote areas to be able to deliver service to them.
We rarely hear about Cisco these days, even in critical areas that we believe are Cisco’s major focus. Could it be that you simply work from the background?
For example, when we talk about cloud we seem to hear more from players like Ericsson, even EMC a cloud computing company, but we are aware that Cisco has been here for quite a long time. Can you tell us why Cisco keeps a low key on activities in Nigeria?
I am assuming you have this perception because we do not allocate a significant portion of our marketing spend to advertising when you compare us to some of the other big technology players out there. This is part of a calculated strategy. We focus our spend on supporting our partners and their efforts to market to their customers – that is how we are creating awareness. We also invest heavily in roadshows and events designed to educate business leaders, customers as well as perspective customers about technology and its key drivers in Nigeria. We have also been very vocal in Nigeria through our PR activities and I’m sure you’ve read the coverage where you would have seen a lot of coverage around our strategy around the Internet of Everything (IoE) and how this is impacting and redefining people, data, processes and things both here in Africa and globally..
Now that we are talking about Internet of Everything (IoE) and the internet is in some ways expected to do everything, don’t you think that the internet is going to affect the labor market in some negative way
I do not agree because the more connected the world is, the more productive it will be. Indeed, economists have proven that internet penetration and overall internet connectivity do have a very positive impact on country GDP. The more connected the world, the better the quality of decision making for instance and the less is the transaction costs. For example, imagine if we conducted this interview with you being in your office and me in mine and we could chat, you could see me and we have crystal clear communication. The hours spent on the road trip could have been used on something more productive.
Data warehousing is getting more popular in Nigeria. What do you think has brought about this trend
Globally, the impact and the importance of wholesale data centers continues to grow as companies realize the value of minimizing infrastructure investments on the balance sheet and freeing up capital to strengthen their core business activities. Let’s look at data centers from a Telco perspective: regulation forces them to keep records for a long time so they must have a huge data centre capability. Banks as well, because of the nature of their work and the sensitivity of the information they carry, must also have a robust data centre infrastructure. However, it doesn’t make economic sense, for instance, for 23 banks to build 23 data centers, which is what is pushing consolidation. Regulators are also encouraging the idea that instead of investing money in something that is not your core area, why not just come together and build a world class infrastructure that you can use on a shared basis.
Now, will that bring an opportunity? Yes, because historically, we have never really held people accountable in this country. For instance, if I go to my bank and the banking navigation is down or not available before now there was really no one to hold anyone responsible. But now, we can start holding people accountable because it’s our right as consumers to actually demand good service and this is one of the elements that will make the vendors provide that good service. This is in addition to the fact that operators are fewer now and competition, much stiffer. Gone are the days that you could be a little unperturbed with your business: you have to be innovative, provide very good customer service to be able to retain and keep your customer base
On the skill set aspect, I think it is an opportunity for Nigeria to take advantage of it. We have a huge youthful population that can be trained and equipped with the skills and wherewithal to support this emerging data industry.
Some of people complain that Cisco’s products are expensive and considering that 80 percent of Nigerian businesses are SME’s struggling in terms of how they contribute to the economy. What plans does Cisco have for that segment in terms of the kind of solutions you provide
For us when we look at cost at Cisco, “cost” does not only encompass acquisition cost, you have to look at total cost of ownership and the return on investment (ROI). Most times, people only look at one side and say we are expensive but by the time you bring together all the components of the jigsaw puzzle together, you will realise that we are not.
We have different products offerings targeted at different segments: we have products targeted at SME’s which offer value for money which we know is what they are looking for.
Let’s talk about telepresence. We remember that Cisco made history when telepresence was launched but we do not seem to hear about it anymore. Plus, looking at other disruptive technologies like Skype which is practically plug and play and very affordable. Do you think it will affect or has affected the adoption of telepresence in Nigeria
I think there is a target market for both segments. Cisco TelePresence is typically for an enterprise or organisation while Skype has more of a residential play. An organisation looking for quality of service, security and how it can also integrate with existing tools will definitely subscribe to Telepresence.
We have a number of customers in Nigeria using our TelePresence Solution today including MTN Nigeria, which in collaboration with Cisco and Resourcery plc, became the first service provider in Nigeria to offer Cisco TelePresence. The public Cisco TelePresence rooms in Nigeria, known as ‘MTN ePresence rooms’, provide convenient local sites for virtual in-person meetings and are active in three locations: the Southern Sun Hotel in Lagos, the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja and the Le Meridian Hotel in Port Harcourt.
In 2011, we also acquired Tandberg which today provides customers of all sizes with a complete portfolio of endpoints, infrastructure and TelePresence cloud services. Together, Cisco and Tandberg are transforming the collaboration market by helping to accelerate video adoption and interoperability between all vendors to create more demand for collaboration technology and tools.
Also as part of our collaboration portfolio, we offer WebEx Meeting solutions for business customers looking to create a richer, more productive web meeting experience with high-definition video, integrated audio and real-time content sharing.
With WebEx, meetings are more efficient as documents, agendas, notes and recordings can be adhered in a convenient and accessible online meeting space.
It also team members to collaborate easily using their mobile devices, including two-way video and offers strict policy and access controls built into the Cisco WebEx Cloud.
You manage the West African business, where does Nigeria stand in Cisco’s Global business strategy and is there a long- term investment plan for Nigeria
The structure we have in Africa is that we have four focus countries and five areas. Our focus countries are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt and our focus areas are our South African business, East African business around Kenya, English speaking West African countries around Nigeria, Egypt and other countries that make up Africa, which we call Emerging Africa.
BEN UZOR JR
