Telecom
IBM’s AI-powered Solution enhances Descasio’s Employee Productivity
The IBM Watson Workspace, a messaging application which helps teams improve work productivity and also provides the capability to hold group conversations and share data files is now available to companies in Nigeria.
Through its built-in AI capabilities, the solution enables sales and technical teams to create workspaces where they can collaborate on all sales activities.
Watson Workspace also enables companies to significantly reduce the time group members spend reading through conversations to obtain information relevant to them.
Descasio, a leading cloud services provider in West Africa, has adopted IBM Watson Workspace to enhance its existing email services and provide a smart employee collaborating tool on desktop and mobile devices.
The company was looking for an application that could enable smarter and seamless communication, helping their teams to focus on the strategic aspects of their business.
Dele Nedd, Co-Founder and CEO, Descasio, said ”One of the things that really excites us about this platform is the ease with which we can build new solutions using APIs.
“We are now thinking about ways we can use IBM Watson APIs to create value-added solutions such as virtual assistants, which could help to automate repetitive tasks.”
“As a new reseller of the IBM’s Watson Workspace Essentials in West Africa, Descasio plans to sign on clients for this solution.
“To achieve this, the company is working with a team from IBM to integrate IBM Watson Workspace into its cloud services portfolio—enabling it to deliver the solution as a service to clients across the region” he adds
Watson Workspace helps companies turn conversations into actionable insights, summarized information, prioritize next best actions and make recommendations enabling its employees to connect and collaborate with their teams and other work groups on any device.
For example, the solution has enabled teams save up to 30 minutes per team member on responding to issues relevant to their role.
It also provides a full, searchable history of all conversations and one central place for all shared images and resources.
Dipo Faulkner, Country General Manager of IBM Nigeria, said “Organizations have seen a proliferation of tools and applications that employees use to get their jobs done at the workplace which has often caused information overload, interruptions and difficulty getting back into the flow of productivity.
“What IBM Watson Workspace does, is take away these pressures, allowing employees to focus on the activities that really matter.”
Meta may shut down its Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria in protest against the substantial fines imposed by multiple government agencies.
The tech giant has been ordered to pay nearly $300 million in fines in Africa’s most populous nation, following regulatory demands which Meta described as “unrealistic.”
In July 2024, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), imposed a $220 million fine on Meta for allegedly discriminatory and exploitative practices against Nigerian consumers.
The commission stated that Meta had failed to engage a Data Protection Compliance Organisation and had not submitted a Nigeria Data Protection Regulation audit report for two consecutive years.
Similarly, the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON), demanded $37.5 million over unapproved advertising, while the Nigerian Data Protection Commission (NDPC), announced a $32.8 million fine for an alleged data privacy breach.
Meta challenged the decisions at the Federal High Court in Abuja but was unsuccessful, as the court upheld the fines in a ruling delivered last week.
The court directed the company to comply with payment by the end of June, but Meta has indicated it may not do so, according to the BBC.
“The applicant may be forced to effectively shut down the Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria in order to mitigate the risk of enforcement measures,” the company stated in court documents.
Responding to the NDPC’s assertion that Meta’s data processing could expose Nigerian users to health and financial risks, the company said the agency had failed to “properly interpret the laws guiding data privacy.”
Telecommunications services disrupted in Kogi State have resumed following a resolution of the dispute between MTN Nigeria and the state government, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has said.
Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of ALTON, told TVC News that the issues that led to the shutdown of telecom masts in the state, primarily affecting MTN, had been addressed, paving the way for service restoration.
TVC News earlier reported that businessmen and women were counting their losses as they suffered the impact of a shut down of telecommunication service in Kogi State
Over the past two weeks, telecoms connectivity had been erratic, with competing brands experiencing glitches, particularly in the Lokoja metropolis.
The State government suspended the operations of some telecom services citing unpaid taxes and fibre-related dues.
The shutdown stemmed from a compliance dispute between MTN and the Kogi State Utility Infrastructure Management and Compliance Agency, which accused the telecom giant of violating operational rules and under-declaring the extent of its optic fibre network coverage in the state.
The protracted Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) debt misunderstanding between the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and telecommunications operators appears to have been resolved.
This was confirmed by the Chief Executive Officer of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, Thursday, March 1, when he appeared on Arise TV to speak on the firm’s first-quarter 2025 result, where the telecommunications company reported over N1 trillion in revenue earnings.
Recall that the USSD debt had been a major issue between the DMBs and telcos and had lasted for about five years.
In the third quarter of 2024, the telcos had threatened to withdraw their service over the lingering debt, which was around N200 billion at the time. This led to the swift intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and an agreement was reached on payment.
As of November 2024, the NCC put the debt at N160 billion. However, earlier this year, when it appeared the banks were not forthcoming with payments, the NCC directed the telcos to withdraw the USSD services from debt-owning DMBs, where about 18 banks were listed.
This directive prompted the banks to look inward and start to comply with an earlier circular signed by the CBN and NCC, which articulated the payment patterns for the debt.
Speaking, on Arise TV this morning, May 1, Toriola confirmed that the matter has been fully resolved and that banks have made payments.
“I can confirm that the matter has been fully resolved. We have received payments in full. Special thanks to the CBN, NCC, the banks, and other stakeholders that intervened in the matter,” the MTN CEO stated.
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