As digital technology helps to drive growth in the non-oil sectors of the Nigerian economy, ranging from media and entertainment to finance and fast-moving consumer goods, many organisations are struggling to define the appropriate technology roadmaps for responding to challenging business environments.
“Digital technologies are disrupting the way businesses are run; even the essence of business models of many organisations. And as a result of that, organisations are having to rethink the way they do business in such a way that they can respond to the disruption that is going on in terms of digital technologies,” said Niyi Tayo, managing director, Accenture Technology at the just concluded Economic Summit in Lagos.
“To do that effectively, organisations can collaborate with Accenture to define their appropriate roadmap to actually respond effectively to what I call the digital technology disruption going on in different industries in the country,” he added.
Accenture, one of the partners at the summit, commissioned the study to look at digital technology, a topic that is germane to the Nigerian economy today; and how it is impacting the Nigerian economy. And it is something experts believe that is key to driving growth within Nigeria if it is adopted effectively.
Although, organisations are still struggling to adopt and deploy these technologies in a way that will impact customer service and customer satisfaction, BusinessDay findings revealed.
According to a recent research conducted by Accenture, it shows that though, digital technologies such as social, mobile, analytics, cloud and increasingly the Internet are actually redefining and shaping customer behaviour and needs, but because of the way organizations are adopting digital technologies, they are not able to do it in such a way that it helps customers address pressing problems, or to even address their needs. So customers tend to switch a lot between organisations, particularly when they are not able to address their needs effectively.
And what happens is that organisations result to playing catch up in terms of being able to deploy the right technologies to address their customers’ challenges, the research further revealed.
Digital technology is essential for Nigeria’s diversification. Access to internet and mobile has improved markedly over the last decade, helping drive non-oil GDP growth. The creative industries, financial services, fast-moving consumer goods and leisure have all benefited from digital.
The current low oil prices lend further urgency to the issue. Digital technology could play an enabling role in increasing access to government services like health and education, improving financial inclusion through mobile money, and helping businesses overcome infrastructure deficits.
Over the last ten years, average GDP growth rates of around 7% were driven not by oil, the major export, but by the non-oil sector, as shown by African Development Bank, Nigerian Economic Outlook. The most recent data suggest that services account for 57% of GDP which was attributed to growth in ICT. The sector grew 7.7% in the third quarter of 2015, above overall growth which slowed to 4.7% in the same period. And the National Communication Commission (NCC) estimated that telecoms contributed up to 10% to economic output in 2015, with the potential to increase to 25% by 2050.
CHIGOZIE EGWUATU
