Lanre Kolade, managing director of Vodacom Business Nigeria, has called on Nigerian Businesses to adopt new technologies to drive productivity including Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analytics to transform their businesses and remained competitive.
Speaking recently at the BusinessDay CEO Forum Nigeria 2017, an annual thought leadership initiative held in collaboration with McKinsey & Co, Kolade said “Technology such as IoT enables growth across business sectors. Today, many organisations are using this technology to cut costs, reduce risk, increase revenue and efficiency”.
He said that businesses in the Africa are gradually adopting IoT, with Nigeria being one of the leading IoT markets in Africa. “This adoption is driven by the increasing availability of affordable smart devices, coupled with the need for enterprises to deliver shareholder value.
According to the Vodafone’s boss, Global IoT barometer report 2017 shows that the adoption of IoT has grown significantly from 12 percent in 2013 to 29 percent in 2017 while 49 percent of these adopters use IoT in conjunction with analytics to improve business decision-making.
“In Africa, disruptive technologies such as IoT hold significant potential and the opportunities are found in different sectors. From Finance and Insurance to Manufacturing and Agriculture, including the Education sector, organization of all sizes are using IoT to optimize processes, automate production and monitor the supply chain.
Speaking further, Kolade said “We can use technology to disrupt education, with broadband penetration, digitization becomes possible and education contents will be more accessible to all in Nigeria”.
Vodacom is using technology to address challenges in education, healthcare and agriculture in Africa. It recently deployed IoT solution for education and healthcare in Kaduna state using a mobile school management solution which provides real-time visibility of all administrative activities at over 4000 schools. The healthcare solution monitors stock level and distribution of essential medicines in over 250 medicine dispensary facilities in the state.
