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‘Technology as elixir for business growth’

By Adeyemi Adepetun
01 June 2016   |   2:03 am
West Africa has seen increasing economic growth in the past few years. This growth has been driven by changes in the economic focus and also facilitated by developments in the technology landscape in the region.
SOURCE: Jovago.com

SOURCE: Jovago.com

West Africa has seen increasing economic growth in the past few years. This growth has been driven by changes in the economic focus and also facilitated by developments in the technology landscape in the region.

This was the submission of the Regional Director for Sage in West Africa, Magnus Nmonwu, who stressed that for enterprises in this region to keep pace with their competitors, they needed to start investing in the right business management solutions that offer digitalisation, mobility and security.

According to a recent GDP report released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s economy fell to a 25-year low of –0.36 per cent growth rate. Keeping this recent economic development in mind, businesses need to start digitising their business processes in order to save costs and to increase their competitive advantage.

Digitising the business landscape
According to him, digital transformation means it is important for organisations to be able to extract meaningful information from data quickly and easily, to enable them to be responsive to the needs of their customers and business, ensuring that they make the right decisions at the right time, wherever they are. They do not want to waste valuable resources inputting data multiple times, when there are integrated systems that are there to ease this burden.

These categories of users in this space, according to Nmonwu increasingly want speed, convenience, mobility and ease of use. “To stay competitive, businesses must adapt to customers’ needs and must be more agile to this environment.

“Adapting to the digital business landscape will mean that these enterprises will be able to offer products and solutions targeted at stakeholders in a personalised manner by gathering insight from interactions with these stakeholders.”

Mobility
He disclosed that customers are not the only ones that are looking to business for digital solutions, employees are as well. Accordingly, an increasing number of employers are actively seeking out business management solutions such as HR packages that allow its employees to apply for leave, submit claims and access payslips from a mobile device through an employee self service offering.

Employees also want web and mobile tools to be able to work from anywhere and at anytime. “Currently, we see situations where new employees bring their own device to work (BYOD). The future is mobile and business owners and decision makers want the power to control their businesses from the palm of their hand.

Cloud security
While the benefit of mobility that a digital business offers is of great value, the risk of security breaches is a concern. In West Africa, Nmonwu said businesses are increasingly looking and asking questions about various cloud offerings and this calls for relevant stakeholders to start looking to the cloud to assist them with IT security.

Leading providers of online payroll and accounting solutions, offer the services of secure data centres that are underpinned by world-class technology and high-tech security. “One of the greatest threats is the theft of physical devices that holds sensitive data. Businesses need to have a security protocol in place to remotely wipe devices that hold business data. With the cloud, there’s less risk of losing data, than those stored on a laptop or a USB stick because everything is stored in the cloud and not on devices that could be lost or stolen.”

Closing
In a time of seismic technological change and digital invention, today’s consumers want service in demand from a handset and the employee wants to be productive, regardless of their location.

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