Mteto Nyati is the group chief enterprise officer at MTN. In this interview with BEN UZOR on the sidelines of Inspiring Business Growth in Africa Forum organised by MTN Nigeria in partnership with CNN, Nyati talks about the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon and the prospects for Africa. Nyati cites practical example of how MTN’s IoT platform helps sustain economic growth. He also pointed out that the telecoms company is making massive investments in data centre infrastructure across the continent to support the adoptions of cloud-based technologies by Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Can tell us about MTN Business? What role does this platform play in the development of African businesses?
Within MTN, we serve two types of customers – consumers and businesses (Small Medium enterprises and large corporations). MTN Business focuses on stimulating growth of businesses by leveraging Information Communication Technology (ICT).
What calibre of businesses does this segment of the company provide solution for?
In MTN Business, we serve three different types of customers. Firstly, we serve those large companies that are working across countries. We provide technology solutions for global and African multinationals. Our aim is to help them to expand geographically across Africa. The second group of customers that we are interested in is small business. If you look into almost all of our countries, this is probably the biggest segment. We want to help stimulate growth of small businesses by providing cutting-edge connectivity solutions tailored to their needs and requirements. We want to help them to access new markets through the deployment of technology. The third one is the public sector. Government plays an integral role in almost all of the countries where MTN has operations. Government delivers services to the citizens. As MTN Business, we want to help government to deliver services effectively to the citizens using technology.
For the SME segment, how critical is cloud computing to improving their levels of efficiency and productivity?
There are many things that are critical to improving the efficiency of small businesses. Cloud computing is but just another critical requirement. The other requirement is just basic connectivity – the ability to connect to the Internet and get access to relevant and quality information. Quality information helps small businesses make better decision. Cloud computing helps reduce the capital expenditure on deploying technology infrastructure and services. It levels the playing field smaller companies. A small business is able to access at affordable rates the same technologies large companies used to have monopoly over in the past. Cloud computing is an important strategy for our company.
What is your assessment of MTN’s approach to African businesses?
We are actually making progress. We are making progress because we’re rooted in the countries. We are not sitting in a country somewhere in Europe or Asia, trying to do things remotely. We have skilled professionals on the ground. If you want to understand the challenges facing small businesses in Nigeria, you must be on ground to address those challenges. MTN has employees in all of the 22 countries where we operate in. We have invested significantly on data centres to drive cloud computing. We have invested in an Multiple Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network that helps with improving the speed of communications amongst countries.
Apart from providing technology solutions, does MTN provide seed funds for small businesses?
No, we are not yet there. When you look at where we are going as a business, our objective is to develop strong partnerships. Because the needs of small businesses are broad, we create partnerships that deliver value to small businesses. A partnership of MTN and a bank is an important partnership because it provides small businesses access to finance. A partnership of MTN and a software solution providers is another important partnership because those small businesses are looking for solutions. We need to craft and build these partnership for these small business.
You recently launched the Internet of Things (IoT) in Africa. What does it ential? How does this platform help strengthen Africa’s internet ecosystem? How does it aid economic development?
We launched the IoT platform for Africa about a month ago. We are targeting three to four industry verticals. Firstly, we are looking at fleet management. We are conducting trade in several countries in Africa. Our vehicles and trucks traveling across borders, we need to know where these trucks are and monitor them. In the past, if these trucks move from a country to the next, owing to high roaming rates, these trucks and vehicles end up being charged exorbitant prices. We are providing Africans a uniformed pricing mechanism across all of our 22 countries. The other area of focus is vehicle tracking. Critical to Africa’s development is the work we are doing in agriculture. We intend to help companies launch drones to map and analyse soil to enable the farmers treat and get the best out of the soil. These are just a few of the many benefits. The biggest challenge we face in Africa is energy constraints. Smart metres, managing the metres in such a way that you switch them on and off remotely is another application that the IoT brings. Many of the municipalities in our countries have the opportunity to use this application to manage electricity.
When do we expect ths platform to come to Nigeria?
We have already launched IoTin South Africa. By September, we will launch this innovative platform in Nigeria.
In terms of the deficiency in broadband infrastructure, how does this impact MTN’s ability to deliver these sophisticated solutions to its growing client base?
In terms of connectivity, MTN has covered 95 percent of the country. From this perspective, it does not have too much of an impact. However, if we had better connection via fibre, the speeds are faster. Having fibre connection across the length and breadth of the country enables us to run complicated applications. A limitation exists when taking into consideration the systems that we run over the mobile network. In Nigeria, government is keen on implementing the national broadband strategy. Two players have been selected as InfraCos (Infrastructure Companies). Our intention is to partner with them to bring efficient and affordable broadband to Nigerians.
