Based on the forecast that 80% of African industrial growth and innovations will be driven by 3rd platform technologies by the year 2020, the International Business Machines (IBM) has urged African leaders to speed up innovtive ventures to ensure the potentials are harnessed.
It is believed that by 2020 IT would have transformed industries’ processes in the way of mobility solutions, customer experience, partners and employees treated as individuals, whereas anyone could be engaged anytime and anywhere and using cloud to drive strategic plan solutions, while business analytic would have gained more grounds.
Speaking at the presentation of IBM’s suite of capabilities and assets, in Lagos, on Tuesday, Mr. Ladi Fabiyi, software group, West Africa (IBM), said that IBM as a global leader in technology and solutions provision will not relent in assisting companies and governments in Africa to build their processes and grow the revenue base.
“Africa is seen as the next big growth opportunity. It is expected to achieve average GDP growth of 50% through 2015. We want to help stop brain-drain in the Continent too. So, IBM as a global leader in technology will support innovations that will make these happen.
“In Africa, we are focusing on key areas like geo-expansion, select industries for development, talents development and community impact,” he said.
Ajamu reiterated at the event attended by the legendary Carl Lewis, that Nigeria will actually have the biggest GDP in Africa.
Also Mr. Ajamu Akinwumi Wesley, IBM’s vice president, Africa Skills Initiative, said that the world is dynamic, igniting change with the transformative power of computing following translation to personalized engagement.
He listed some of the trends in the industry to include, the migration from millions of personal computer to billions of mobile devices; structured data to unstructured big data; rigid infrstructure to an elastic cloud; static applications to dynamic services and reactive security to proactive protection.
Thus, transformative forces are fundamentally reviving the way society works. “Together social media, mobile, big data and cloud create the potential for sustained competitive advantage. To seize the opportunity, organizations must adopt and lead in the research carried out,” he said.
He described as disturbing the report that only 29% of organizations are ready to adapt to new technology while 82% are under-prepared.
He further suggested social technologies have changed how people interact and share information as 57% or internet users in Africa visit social networking sites often, hence organisation should through the social media connect with customers.
IBM believes that business leaders must grow above amidst complexity and focus on innovations that offer quick, flexible and secured environment. These, IBM said its solutions offer to the market.
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