IoT enables business growth – Vodacom

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Vodacom says the adoption of new technologies such as the Internet of Things and big data analytics will boost the growth of African businesses by transforming the business world.

The Managing Director, Vodacom Business Nigeria, Lanre Kolade, made this known while speaking at the Business Day CEO Forum Nigeria 2017 in Lagos.

Kolade called on Nigerian businesses to adopt new technologies to drive productivity and efficiency to remain competitive.

“Technology such as the IoT enables growth across business sectors. Today, many organisations are using this technology to cut costs, reduce risk, increase revenue and efficiency,” he said.

He explained that businesses in Africa were gradually adopting the IoT, with Nigeria being one of the leading IoT markets in Africa.

According to him, this adoption is driven by the increasing availability of affordable smart devices, coupled with the need for enterprises to deliver shareholder value.

The Vodafone’s Global IoT Barometer Report 2017 showed that the adoption of the IoT had grown significantly from 12 per cent in 2013 to 29 per cent in 2017 and 49 per cent of these adopters used the IoT in conjunction with analytics to improve business decision-making.

He said that in Africa, disruptive technologies such as the IoT held significant potential and the opportunities were found in different sectors such as finance, insurance, manufacturing and agriculture as well as the education sector.

The Vodacom boss added that organisations of all sizes were using the IoT to optimise processes, automate production and monitor the supply chain.

Kolade said, “We can use technology to disrupt education; with broadband penetration, digitisation becomes possible and education contents will be more accessible to all in Nigeria.”

According to him, the company is using technology to address challenges in education, health care and agriculture in Africa and has recently deployed the IoT solution in education and health care in Kaduna State using a mobile school management solution which provides real-time visibility of all administrative activities at over 4,000 schools.

The health care solution monitored stock level and distribution of essential medicines in over 250 medicine dispensary facilities in the state, he added.

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