E-Business
Why Sustainable Supply Chains are Critical for the Channel

By Bradley Pulford
The need for sustainable business practices is becoming weightier by the moment. With headlines dominated by protesting students and images of plastic waste polluting our waterways and oceans, we now live in a world that is awakened to the necessity for businesses to ensure they are not negatively impacting our planet but helping to reduce their carbon footprint.
As Gen Z enters the workforce with clear purpose and enlightened consumers put pressure on businesses to offer transparency around supply chains, all industries are faced with the same prospect: adapt or be disrupted.
Success is, and will increasingly be, defined by a business’ ability to demonstrate its focus on sustainability.
That means more than just lip service, and for the channel it requires smarter collaboration and shared goals. From energy hungry data centres, to increasingly complex supply chains, the technology sector has a huge role to play. Like all other industries there are environmental, social and economic implications.
In fact, the technology that is set to tighten up sustainable practices will by default be data-centric and lead to further pressure on the channel to build environmentally sensitive, resource savvy supply chains and practices.
By now we all know that a data explosion is on the horizon. According to an IDC report, the Global Datasphere – a measure of how much new data is created and replicated each year – will grow by more than five times over the next seven years. The total amount of new data created in 2025 is forecast to increase to 175ZB from 33ZB in 2018.
The report suggests that nearly a third of the Global Datasphere will be driven by growth of video surveillance, signals from IoT devices, metadata, and entertainment.
One of the top five fastest-growing segments of data creation is attributed to user-created and user-consumed online video like YouTube. We’re on the cusp of an incredibly exciting moment technologically and businesses are looking for trusted advisors to provide intimate knowledge of their environments, to guide them through tailored transformations that enable them to seize the opportunities afoot. And sustainability must be a part of this equation.
Some businesses may still be ‘scratching their heads’ when it comes to truly understanding what the term sustainability means for them.
For example, Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) is a process by which public authorities seek to achieve the right balance between the three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – when procuring goods, services or works at all stages of the project.
This is the point at which channel partners could find themselves in a tight spot, when a potential customer asks at the point of tender how their business is working towards minimising its impact on the world? Those prepared with comprehensive and concrete proof-points are more likely to win the deal – and rightly so.
As the IT industry grows and data centres boom, it is important that partners take this seriously. But ultimately, businesses need to be led by example – and that needs to be set by the government. Improvements in sustainability practices can be influenced from the outside in, with the EU Public Procurement Directive of 2014 stating that businesses must consider how sustainable their IT choices are, instead of focusing on competitive pricing, the initiative is there.
But this needs to backed-up by and scaled out with businesses across all industries being held to account under the same guidelines – creating standardised and easily navigable goals.
Take for example, the EU Commission-funded EURECA project, which was set up to help public sector organisations across seven European countries to identify the environmental and financial impacts of their data centres.
In 2018, after three years of work, the project revealed that assessing 350 public sector data centres helped save 45 gigawatt hours of energy a year and €4.5m in cost savings annually.
This calls to attention both the environmental and financial burdens that hidden unsustainable practices and technologies can bring to an organization, as well as the substantial gains that can be made from tweaks to existing process and operations.
With pressure from end-customers and policy-led sustainability requirements and government initiatives raising the bar, channel partners need to look internally, too. After all, trust in a company starts with transparency and customers expect it.
This means creating open, knowledge sharing relationships with partners and peers in order to progress sustainable working practices – and from collaboration, innovation is born. Supporting and empowering those in the supply chain to evolve and align will only bolster transparency and trust.
Ultimately, progressing towards sustainable supply chain goals gives businesses a competitive edge, while contributing to the ongoing innovation set to enable future businesses – in a world where environmental and social resources are gold. But no partner is in it alone, the extraordinary is only achieved together and that includes sustainability.
Bradley Pulford, is Senior Director, Channel Sales, Africa, Dell
E-Business
Transcorp Hotels Delivers Stellar H1 Results, Declares Over ₦1Bn Dividend

Transcorp Hotels Plc has delivered a stellar performance in the first half of 2025, recording a 60% year-on-year surge in revenue to ₦47.57 billion, up from ₦29.72 billion in H1 2024. Gross profit climbed 71% to ₦36.21 billion, maintaining a strong 76% margin despite inflation and operational headwinds.
The hospitality giant, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation Plc, also announced an interim dividend payout of ₦1.024 billion — offering ₦0.10 per 50 kobo ordinary share to shareholders.
In a bold move, the company unveiled Nigeria’s largest corporate venue — the 5,000-seat Transcorp Centre — staking its claim as the new leader in event hospitality. Chairman Emmanuel Nnorom described the results as proof of Transcorp Hotels’ transformative strategies and unwavering investor commitment. MD/CEO Uzo Oshogwe attributed the success to relentless execution and a resilient business model.
Transcorp Hotels, renowned for iconic assets like Transcorp Hilton Abuja and its digital platform Aura, says it isn’t just leading Nigeria’s hospitality sector — it’s redefining excellence across Africa.
E-Business
Microsoft Servers Hacked by Chinese Groups

Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
E-Business
NIMC Warns Nigerians of Fake NIN Website

National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
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