Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
AFRICA
PUBLICATION
Providing Unparalleled Technology Intelligence
ISSUE 23 // www.intelligentcio.com
Global Intelligent Intelligent
Cooling Partner Education Partner Phishing Partner
Intelligent
Manufacturing Partner
PRIORITY
FOR 2019
Two industry experts
look at what the CIO’s
priority is for 2019
GOING
GREEN
Morocco is competing to
be the renewable energy
leader in Africa
DRIVING
INNOVATION
How technology is being
used in the banking and
finance industry
SECURITY
ARCHIVING
CONTINUITY
www.mimecast.com
///////////////////////////////////////////////// 56 34
38
CONTENTS
ISSUE 23
47
07 NEWS: Latest news round-up from across Africa. 52 FEATURE: Going virtual with SaaS
18 LATEST INTELLIGENCE: NETAPP: NFLEX: 56 CASE STUDY: PPS leading the pack
Fulfilling the Promise of Converged Infrastructure through EAaaS
and NetApp AFF vs. Pure Storage FlashArray//M
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 3
CONTENTS
ISSUE 23
LYNCHPIN MEDIA TEAM
MANAGEMENT
MANAGING PARTNER Richard Judd
richard@lynchpinmedia.co.uk
+44 7534 132 966
61 INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGIES
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MANAGING EDITOR AND Mark Bowen
80
EDITOR, INTELLIGENT CIO mark@lynchpinmedia.co.uk
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AND PRODUCTION pippa@lynchpinmedia.co.uk
87
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4 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
NEWS
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• Scalable in increments of up to 70,000 m3/h Principles using Munters Heat Exchanger
technology or scan the QR code to go direct to
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• Munters advanced EPX technology www.munters.com/dcacademy
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/////////////////
RCS-Communication launches new
Ka-Band service in South Sudan
R CS-Communication, a leading ISP in
South Sudan, has established the first
site for Avanti’s HYLAS 4 high-speed satellite
broadband service in the country. Following
successful beam testing in Juba, the new
Ka-Band service with high throughput speeds
of up to 35Mbps download and 4Mbps upload
is now available to RCS-Communication’s
customers. RCS-Communication partnered
with iWayAfrica, an Avanti Master Distributor,
to bring the service to South Sudan.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 7
NEWS
8 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
NEWS
IT identified as a future-orientated
business in South Africa
R esearch shows that South African SMEs
are estimated to represent 90% of
formal businesses, provide employment
supporting several companies to conduct
in-depth research into the SME sector.
The research aims to establish the impact
to about 60% of the labour force and of SME-development projects, what the
contribute approximately 34% of the challenges are and where the opportunities
country’s GDP. lie within this vital sector.
To further grow this sector and boost a The companies supported by J.P. Morgan
struggling economy, J.P. Morgan has been include Catalyst for Growth, GIBS
Entrepreneurship Development Academy,
Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA) sectors,” said Sifiso Ndwandwe, Executive
and Tshimologong Digital Innovation Precinct. Director, Catalyst for Growth.
The four companies shared findings on how “The joblessness of a large majority in South
small and medium business can bolster Africa is a growing concern and prompted
growth in future-oriented industries such these partners to focus more heavily on
as IT and the green economy, as well as future-orientated industries. There is a
a general look at the role and success of definite opportunity for the country to
current business incubation. leapfrog based on experiences of other
countries in these sectors. Our research
“At the heart of all four research studies presents an analytical overview of the role
Lesley Williams, CEO of Tshimologong is a burgeoning optimism regarding the of business development support in terms of
potential of both the IT and green economy SME performance and sustainability.
/////////////////
Industry demand for Intelligent Data
Management continues at pace
grew 30%, licence and upgrade bookings “In Africa, one of the key drivers behind this
are up 19% year-over-year and the region is the ubiquity of mobile. The continent has
added 105 new customers during the long been labelled a mobile-first environment.
quarter. This growth is mostly driven by SMB Some might even say that it is mobile-only
and commercial customers. The quarter also given the challenges of rolling out fixed-line
saw 264 Veeam Cloud and Service Provider infrastructure to remote and rural areas.
(VCSP) transactions up 27% year-over-year Irrespective, with a mobile penetration rate
in Q3, which can be attributed to mid- of 43% and expectations that there will be
market businesses adopting cloud services. more than 690 million smartphones in sub-
Saharan Africa by 2025, the positioning is
The region added 43 VCSP partners and clear – mobility must be an essential part of
it was a notable quarter for one of the any data management strategy.”
existing partners, Silicon Sky, which achieved
platinum status, the highest level for a
reseller and the first to achieve it in the
region of Middle East and Africa.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 9
NEWS
dormakaba
IT security at risk in the
meets Africa’s
META region, according to
demand for
Kaspersky Lab
next-gen
access control
industrial and energy enterprises, as well unprecedented pace,” said Amir Kanaan, The company’s Automated Boarding Pass
as transport and logistics companies, Managing Director for the Middle East, Control system provides single-file access
have regarding the negative effects of Turkey and Africa, Kaspersky Lab. for passengers with space allowance for
cyberattacks on their industrial networks. carry-on luggage.
“Enterprises across the region have
However, when it comes to the issues started to pay a bit more attention to ICS
affecting their ability to keep networks cybersecurity issues and are evaluating
secure there are three key concerns the industrial segments of their networks
they can agree on – understaffing, and training employees. It is a good
underinvestment by senior management sign, because it’s highly important for
and the human factor. Algeria (66.2%), businesses to take proactive measures in
Morocco (60.4%) and Egypt (57.6%) order to avoid firefighting in future.”
10 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
NEWS
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 11
NEWS
//////////////////
Avaya showcased solutions at Cairo ICT
12 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
NEWS
IRESS
Lex Technologies announced
launches next-
as reseller for Predict360
generation
client portal Namibian based consultancy company Lex
Technologies is now a reseller for Predict360
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 13
Te ital
Th nica fras
NEWS
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ch In
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ad fo u
er r t str
in he y
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INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
NEWS
The full network deployment is set to start in the first quarter of 2019
and services are expected to launch mid-2019 when standards-based
5G NR devices become available in the country.
As part of rain’s 5G project, Nokia will deploy its AirScale radio “We are proud to be on the forefront of 5G worldwide and working
access network solution in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern with Nokia and other partners to connect as many South African as
Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Mangaung (Bloemfontein) regions. possible with affordable high-speed broadband services,” said Willem
AirScale offers a new modular way of building radio access networks Roos, CEO of rain.
/////////////////
Hughes’ JUPITER System selected by
three African telecom firms
H ughes Network Systems, the global leader in broadband satellite
networks and services, has announced three African telecom
companies have selected the Hughes JUPITER System to power
connecting businesses and homes. SatCoNet, the only native VSAT
operator in Tanzania, also chose the JUPITER System to improve its
service offering for the market with improved performance, better
delivery of satellite broadband services for their customers. throughput and a better experience for their customers.
Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, Satcom Networks Africa One of the largest telecommunications companies in East Africa will
Limited (SatCoNet) and a leading East African telecommunications implement the JUPITER System for video and broadband service in
company each chose the system based on its high performance, schools. The technology refresh begins with 1,000 sites, improving
operational efficiency and better customer experience. high-speed satellite performance and evolving their solution to meet
growing demand.
“Hughes is committed to the growth of our operations in Africa and
we have tripled our dedicated sales and engineering support across
the continent to serve growing broadband demand,” said Dharmendra
Singh, Regional Director, International at Hughes.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 15
NEWS
COMMVAULT
HYPERSCALE ™
Simplified architecture
in a remarkably flexible
scale-out solution.
Ducati boosts
Kenya pushes for stronger
business
support for ICT innovations
performance
with
modernised
infrastructure
from NetApp
N etApp, the data authority for hybrid
cloud, has announced the integration
of its industry-leading All Flash Storage
Array (AFF) Series into leading motorcycle
manufacturer Ducati’s Information
Technology (IT) environment.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 17
LATEST INTELLIGENCE
NFLEX: FULFILLING
THE PROMISE
OF CONVERGED
INFRASTRUCTURE
PRESENTED BY Executive summary of technologies with industry-leading benchmarks in
server and flash performance.
Converged Infrastructure (CI) was full of promises.
Some kept, and some never fully realized. Today, CI Converged Infrastructure continues to grow and
continues to provide the backbone to many data now maintains a large share of Tier 1 application
centers and provide a natural pathway to future deployments in the marketplace.
hybrid cloud infrastructures.
Introduction
Data center administrators have been successful
with the complete flexibility of today’s CI solutions, NFLEX leverages the value of today’s Converged
but they are enamored with the promise of HCI Infrastructure with the added promise of simplicity.
Download whitepaper here
simplicity. NFLEX fills the gap with a Converged Converged Infrastructure was designed with
Infrastructure solution designed to increase simplicity efficiency in mind, both from a technical standpoint
within a framework of flexibility, with the confidence as users looked to automate their IT processes across
of factory integration. components. And, from a business standpoint, CI
can deliver cost and manageability efficiency by
Fujitsu and NetApp are working together to deliver driving expenses down thanks to greater utilization
premier Converged Infrastructure based on industry and decreased physical hardware needs. In addition,
standard technology leadership and unparalleled the evolution of virtualized environments controlled
innovation, taking advantage of over twenty years via a single console was intended to help drive
of successful co-innovation. NFLEX is built on a core management efficiency for CI. n
18 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
LATEST INTELLIGENCE
O
Overview
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 19
ARE YOU
READY?
FOR CLOUD NETWORKING
66%
companies expect SD-WAN to help
achieve core strategic goal of
expanding cloud usage.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TRENDING
“
information stored in the cloud, SaaS collaboration and
IaaS/PaaS configuration mistakes, along with cloud
threats, are at all-time highs – creating significant risks
to enterprise data.
M THE REPORT
cAfee, the device to cloud The study found that while organisations
cybersecurity company, has aggressively use the public cloud to create
released its Cloud Adoption and
Risk Report, which analysed billions of events
new digital experiences for their customers,
the average enterprise experiences more than
REVEALED
in anonymised customers’ production cloud 2,200 misconfiguration incidents per month THAT NEARLY
use to assess the current state of cloud
deployments and to uncover risks. The report
in their infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and
platform-as-a-service (PaaS) instances. A QUARTER OF
revealed that nearly a quarter of the data
in the cloud can be categorised as sensitive, Cloud service providers only cover the
THE DATA IN THE
putting an organisation at risk if stolen or security of the cloud itself, not customer CLOUD CAN BE
leaked. Coupled with the fact that sharing
sensitive data in the cloud has increased
data or customer use of their infrastructure
and platforms. Companies are always CATEGORISED
53% year-on-year, those who do not
adopt a cloud strategy that includes data
responsible for securing their data wherever
it is, hence highlighting the need to deploy
AS SENSITIVE,
loss protection, configuration audits and cloud security solutions that span the whole PUTTING AN
collaboration controls will endanger
the security of their most valuable asset
cloud spectrum, from SaaS (software-as-a-
service) to IaaS and PaaS. ORGANISATION AT
– data – while exposing themselves to
increased risk of non-compliance with “Operating in the cloud has become the
RISK IF STOLEN
internal and external regulations. norm for organisations, so much so that our OR LEAKED.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 21
TRENDING
employees do not think twice about storing responsibility. With IaaS, customers behaviours and 31.3 are actual threat
and sharing sensitive data in the cloud,” said take on a much larger share of security events. In addition:
Rajiv Gupta, Senior Vice President of the responsibility that includes data, identity,
Cloud Security Business, McAfee. “Accidental access, applications, network controls and • Threat events in the cloud, such as a
sharing, collaboration errors in SaaS cloud host infrastructure. compromised account, privileged user,
services, configuration errors in IaaS/PaaS or insider threat, have increased 27.7%
cloud services and threats are all increasing. While this provides customers with an year-on-year
In order to continue to accelerate their opportunity to have greater control over • A total of 80% of all organisations
business, organisations need a cloud-native their cloud infrastructure, it also increases the experience at least one compromised
and frictionless way to consistently protect organisation’s surface area for security risks account threat per month
their data and defend from threats across and their responsibility for the same. • A total of 92% of all organisations have
the spectrum of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS.” stolen cloud credentials for sale on the
IaaS providers, like Amazon Web Services Dark Web
Cloud collaboration a blessing and (AWS), provide several infrastructure and • Threats in Office 365 have grown by
a curse platform services, each having deep and 63% year-on-year
complicated security settings. Magnifying
Cloud services bring a momentous the IaaS/PaaS security challenge is the fact To get ahead of comprised accounts
opportunity to accelerate business through that organisations use multiple IaaS/PaaS and insider threats, organisations should
their ability to quickly scale, allowing vendors running several instances of each understand how cloud services are used.
businesses to be agile with their resources vendor’s product. The research found: They should also identify anomalous
and provide new opportunities for behaviour, such as when the same user
collaboration. Cloud services like Box and • A total of 94% of IaaS/PaaS use is AWS, accesses the cloud from disparate locations
productivity suites like Office 365 are used but 78% of organisations using IaaS/ simultaneously, which could indicate a
to increase the fluidity and effectiveness of PaaS have both AWS and Azure compromised account threat.
collaboration. However, collaboration means • Enterprise organisations have an average
sharing and uncontrolled sharing can expose of 14 misconfigured IaaS/PaaS instances McAfee advises that, as a first step
sensitive data. Findings of McAfee’s research running at one time, resulting in over towards protecting data in the cloud, cloud
demonstrate that: 2,200 individual misconfiguration access security brokers (CASB) should be
incidents per month implemented. CASBs are cloud-native
• A total of 22% of cloud users share files • A total of 5.5% of AWS S3 buckets have services that enforce security, compliance
externally, up 21% year-on-year world read permissions, making them and governance policies for cloud services.
• Sharing sensitive data with an open, open to the public
publicly accessible link, has increased by They help organisations leverage and
23% year-on-year McAfee recommends that organisations extend their existing security controls where
• Sensitive data sent to a personal email continuously audit and monitor their AWS, appropriate and define and deploy new
address also increased by 12% year- Azure, Google Cloud Platform and other cloud-native ones where appropriate to
on-year IaaS/PaaS configurations as a standard enable enterprises to consistently protect
security practice, while protecting data their data and defend from threats across
To secure sensitive data in cloud storage, stored in IaaS/PaaS platforms. the spectrum of SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. n
file-sharing and collaboration applications,
organisations must first understand which IaaS/PaaS use is growing rapidly as an
cloud services are in use, hold their sensitive alternative to on-premise data centres.
data and how that data is being shared Businesses need to get ahead and address
and with whom. Once organisations have their security responsibilities – data
gained this visibility, they can then enforce protection and threat defence as they would
appropriate security policies to prohibit for SaaS cloud services and configuration
highly sensitive data from being stored compliance and workload protection for
in unapproved cloud services and provide IaaS/PaaS cloud services – before they
guardrails that prevent non-compliant experience a security incident.
sharing of sensitive data from approved
cloud services, such as when data is shared Compromised accounts and
with personal email addresses or through an insider threats
open, public link.
Most of the threats to data in the cloud
IaaS and the risks of misconfiguration result from compromised accounts and
insider threats. The average organisation
With SaaS, securing data, user identity and generates over 3.2 billion events per month Rajiv Gupta, Senior Vice President of the
access to data is primarily the customer’s in the cloud, of which 3,217 are anomalous Cloud Security Business, McAfee
22 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
S OMWARE
N
RA
DAILY AVERAGE
INFECTIONS RANSOM
3-5 bitcoins
4000+ $3500-6000
AVERAGE IMPACT
6 workstations 2 servers
AVERAGE AVERAGE
DOWNTIME REMEDIATION
Loading...
12 hours 12 hours
INFOGRAPHIC
INFOGRAPHIC
N
utanix, a leader in enterprise for South Africa, and more hybrid cloud
cloud computing, has announced users reported all their needs were
the findings of its first annual being met (49%) compared to single
global Enterprise Cloud Index, measuring public cloud users (37%). Furthermore,
enterprise plans for adopting private, hybrid organisations that use public cloud
and public clouds. spend 26% of their annual IT budget
on public cloud and 21% in South
The new report found enterprises plan to Africa. Perhaps most striking is the fact
increase hybrid cloud usage, with 91% that only 6% using public cloud came
stating hybrid cloud as the ideal IT model, in under budget with an average of 8%
but only 18% stating they have that model in South Africa, while nearly six times as
today. In South Africa, the results compared many (35%) overspent in their use of
strongly with the rest of the world, with public cloud resources with a staggering
a total of 93% of the local respondents 41% locally.
agreeing that hybrid cloud is the ideal future • Security is top of mind for determining
IT model, although only 15% responding workloads: 71% of respondents surveyed
that they have this model in play. for the report ranked data security and
regulatory compliance as the top factor
The findings also revealed that application in determining where to provision their
mobility across any cloud is a top priority workloads, locally the figures were almost
for 97% of respondents – with 88% of the same at 72%. This was followed by
respondents saying it would ‘solve a lot of performance at 62% (58% locally), ease
my problems’. of management at 53% (60% locally),
and cost at 52% which differed locally
Additionally, the report found public cloud weighing in at 34%.
is not a panacea; IT decision makers ranked • App developers today are circumventing
matching applications to the right cloud IT: 57% of respondents said their
environment as a critical capability and developers are circumventing IT when
“
35% of organisations using public clouds it comes to deciding where applications
overspent their annual budget. In South run, putting the organisation at potential
Africa this figure was 41% – a fair bit higher risk with this number even higher in South
that its global counterparts – highlighting Africa at 77%, placing the microscope on
that cloud cost management remains a Shadow IT.
problem locally. • Finding hybrid IT talent is difficult:
With clear benefits to a hybrid model,
When asked to rank the primary benefits respondents say scarcity of hybrid experts
AS A COUNTRY of hybrid cloud, interoperability between
cloud types (23%) and the ability to move
is a challenge, with 54% claiming talent
retention is part of the problem, locally
OUR CLOUD applications back and forth between clouds this was higher at 64%.
24 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INFOGRAPHIC
“As a country our cloud behaviour patterns with more emphasis being placed on the use down into what the findings mean to South
and concerns emulate that of our global of the public cloud than in other regions. Africa in particular, we can surmise that there
counterparts,” said Paul Ruinaard, Country is a need amongst local organisations to get
Manager at Nutanix Sub-Saharan Africa. It seems cost is still a primary inhibitor and a better handle on their cloud spend, there
concern locally and South African business is a clear gap for better cloud management
“However, where we differ is in the current, appears to be facing significant challenges and cloud resources and talent still pose a
planned and future distribution of workloads in keeping cloud spending in check. If we drill threat to local business.” n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 25
PROJECT UPDATE
LATEST REGIONAL
PROJECT UPDATE
ZIMBABWE
SOUTH AFRICA
26 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
PROJECT UPDATE
TUNISIA
EGYPT
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 27
EDITOR’S QUESTION
WHAT STEPS
SHOULD YOU TAKE
TO PREVENT YOUR
DIGITAL IDENTITY
BEING STOLEN?
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
A
new study from Kaspersky Lab has details, remote access to servers or desktops stolen data funds many social evils,” said
revealed that while our identity and even data from popular services like David Jacoby, Senior Security Researcher at
may not be worth a lot in terms of Uber, Netflix and Spotify. Kaspersky Lab.
dollars, it is a significant asset to criminals in
other ways. Meanwhile, researchers found that the “Fortunately, there are steps we can take to
price paid for a single hacked account is prevent it, including by using cybersecurity
The research uncovered an appetite lower, with most selling for about US$1 software, and being aware of how
among cybercriminals for data stolen from per account, and with criminals offering up much data we are giving away for free –
popular services – including via social media discounts for bulk-buying. particularly on publicly available social media
accounts and remote access to gaming profiles, or to organisations.”
websites. User confusion about what their The most common way criminals steal
data is worth could result in a haphazard this sort of data in the first place is via People can avoid such risks by taking several
approach to security, making it all too easy spear phishing campaigns or by exploiting security steps:
for thieves to steal data and commit crime. a web related security vulnerability in an
application’s software. • To stay safe from phishing, always check
Data stolen due to people’s lax security may that the link address and the sender’s
have limited resale value but can be put to After a successful attack, the criminal gets email are genuine before clicking
many uses. This can cause huge problems password dumps which contain a combination anything. A robust security solution will
for an individual victim, who may lose money of emails and passwords for the hacked also warn you if you attempt to visit a
and their reputation, find themselves being services. And, with many people using the phishing web page
chased for debt that somebody else has same password for several accounts, attackers • To avoid one data leak harming all
incurred in their name, or even suspected of might be able to use this information to access your digital identities, never use the
a crime that somebody else has committed accounts on other platforms too. same password for several websites or
using their identity as a cover. Kaspersky Lab services. To create strong, hack-proof
investigated Dark Web markets to find out Interestingly, some criminals selling data passwords and remove the struggle
how much personal data is worth and how it even provide their buyers with a lifetime of remembering them, use a specific
is used by criminals. warranty, so if one account stops working, password manager application, such as
the buyer will receive a new account for free. Kaspersky Password Manager
The company’s researchers found that • To find out who has your personal data,
criminals can sell someone’s complete digital “It is clear that data hacking is a major use services such as PrivacyAudit.me that
life for less than US$50; including data threat to us all and this applies at both automatically search for a user’s data
from stolen social media accounts, banking an individual and societal level because across a large number of sources
28 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A
EDITOR’S QUESTION
MARIUS COETZEE,
CEO OF IDECO
///////////////////
B
anking as we knew it is on its way out,
with a bold new world of seamless,
cardless, cashless financial systems set
to change the way people live and transact
forever. But this next level banking depends
entirely on the ability to create a trusted link
between the physical and the digital world.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 29
Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A
EDITOR’S QUESTION
JOHN MCLOUGHLIN,
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
J2 SOFTWARE
//////////////////
A
s we live in a globally connected 4. Think before you post: Before you put this world that is free. Obviously, never
world, almost all our personal anything online, think about whether tell strangers your identity number or
information – a virtual expose of our you are comfortable having that bank pin codes.
lives – exists online and we need to ensure information in the hands of a stranger.
that our digital identities are protected in the Share personal, company and family 9. It is not just about the company: We
same way that we care for ourselves and our information only with those who need see too many compromised businesses
physical property. to know about it. Telling the whole because they do not monitor behaviour
world that you are on holiday and out of all connected equipment. Your email
Here are a few practical tips to help you keep of the office can give a cybercriminal security platform may be great for
your digital identify safe. the opportunity to trick your colleagues corporate email. This does not help if
into falling for a cyberattack. Consider your user is compromised through their
1. Passwords: The world still relies on everything that you post is public, do free email service, accessed from their
passwords for security. Please make they really need to know? work PC.
sure that your password is not easy
to guess, it must not be your name 5. Get rid of your friends: Ok, not the real 10. Talk about it: The biggest contributor
and do not include your birthdate. You ones. Make sure you do regular reviews to rising cybercrime statistics is
do need to ensure that you do not use of your connections and friends. If you ignorance. People are generally not
the same password for every online do not know them, cull them. taught what to look out for. Users are
portal and wherever possible, use two- not engaged in awareness campaigns
factor authentication 6. Stranger danger: If you do not know and do not understand technical
the person you are speaking with, jargon. Conversation and awareness
2. Antivirus and applications: While approach with caution. Do not click training is required for the technology
Antivirus struggles to identify many on their links and do not open their users and in a manner they can relate
modern threats, it is still important to attachments. It takes a few seconds to to and understand. Above all never
ensure it is running, up-to-date and has do some verification. A few seconds can stop monitoring, responding, adapting
the latest updates at all times. The same save you a lot of money. and improving.
30 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A+Q+A
EDITOR’S QUESTION
MAYLEEN BYWATER,
SENIOR PRODUCT
MANAGER AT VOX
///////////////////
O
ur cyber footprint is increasing daily as technology improves
and evolves. This statement seems to strike fear in to our
minds. So, how do we protect our identity and the data that
is created? Digital identity theft is on the increase and for this reason
we stress the importance of and implore with our clients, both as
individuals and as a business, to take the correct measures in order to
ensure that sensitive information is secured.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 31
EDITOR’S NOTE
32 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
A
AFRICA
PUBLICATION
Providing Unparalleled Technology Intelligence
ISSUE 23 // www.intelligentcio.com
Global Intelligent Intelligent
Cooling Partner Education Partner Phishing Partner
Intelligent
Manufacturing Partner
PRIORITY
FOR 2019
Two industry experts
look at what the CIO’s
priority is for 2019
GOING
GREEN
Morocco is competing to
be the renewable energy
leader in Africa
DRIVING
INNOVATION
Looking how technology is
being used in the banking
and finance industry
NOTE
Financial services company PPS chose Knotion to deliver an
Enterprise Architecture solution to help support its IT strategy.
The firm used developed infrastructure to deliver on conceptual,
logical and physical levels.
H
ello and welcome to the latest industry leaders in the region spending more The magazine is again packed with plenty of
edition of Intelligent CIO Africa. This time focused on business leadership and other features and news stories from across
month’s cover story focuses on how becoming more open minded, showing a the continent.
financial services company PPS has utilised greater capacity for change.
an Enterprise Architecture (EA) solution from I hope you’ve had a great year and look
Knotion to boost its IT strategy. In our feature on what the CIO’s priority forward to your contributions in 2019. You
is for 2019, we hear from Niral Patel, the can email me at paul@lynchpinmedia.co.uk
Established in 1941, the PPS Group is the Managing Director and Technology Leader
only mutual financial services company for Oracle and South Africa, who says it is
in South Africa focusing exclusively on imperative for business leaders to ensure
graduate professionals. The firm provides their organisations are future-ready and
tailor-made insurance, investment and that they reskill their workers for the tidal
healthcare solutions to its members and wave of change.
is an exclusive organisation of graduate
professionals. Craig Freer, Executive Head: Cloud at Vox,
also provides detailed analysis, stating that Paul Rogers
Despite its IT team participating in a training some companies are not fully aware of the Editor
programme, they lacked practical experience challenges faced with moving to the cloud.
to develop the EA on their own.
Morocco is this month’s Country Focus,
The Knotion approach aligned with its where we learn how Masen is leading the
strategic requirements given the changes way in its renewable energy sector. The aim
that were taking place inside the company is for the kingdom to achieve 52% of its
and has had a massive impact. energy mix from renewable sources by 2030.
Meanwhile in Industry Watch, we look at
According to Gartner’s 2018 CIO Agenda how technology is being used in the banking
Survey, the role of the CIO is changing, with and finance sector.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 33
‘‘
TALKING //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
business
Powerful data
is shared data –
conquering the silo sprawl
James Petter, VP, EMEA at Pure Storage argues that, if organisations are to innovate
and survive in a business environment that is increasingly data-driven, they must
design their IT infrastructure with data in mind and have complete, real-time access
to that data.
34 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
‘‘
////////////////////////// TALKING
business
A
ccording to IDC, spending on data-
intensive AI systems in the Middle
East and Africa (MEA) region will
grow at a CAGR of 32% between 2016 and
2021, reaching US$114.22 million in 2021.
Projects range from automated customer
service agents, shopping and product
recommendations to health and safety
use cases such as automated cyberthreat
detection and AI-powered medical research,
diagnosis and treatment.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 35
‘‘
TALKING
business ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
warehouse appliances require massive technologies, built to mimic the human For organisations that want to keep data
throughput for mainstream, file-based brain, and storage must keep pace stored, a data hub does not replace data
workloads and cloud-native, object-based warehouses or data lakes.
applications A true data hub must have all four qualities
• True scale-out design. The power as all are essential to unifying data. A For those looking to unify and share their
of data lake is its native, scale-out data hub may have other features, like data across teams and applications, a data
architecture, which allows batch jobs to snapshots and replication, but if any hub identifies the key strengths of each silo,
scale limitlessly as software – not the user of the four features are missing from a integrates their unique features and provides
– manages resiliency and performance storage platform, it isn’t built for today’s a single unified platform for business.
• Multi-dimensional performance. Data challenges and tomorrow’s possibilities.
is unpredictable and can arrive at any For example, if a storage system delivers Think of storage like a bank, or an
speed—therefore, organisations need a high throughput file and is natively scale- investment. We put our money in banks, or
platform that can process any data type out but needs another system with S3 in the stock market because we want our
with any access pattern object support for cloud-native workloads, money to work for us. Modern organisations
• Massively parallel. Within the then the unification of data is broken and need to do the same with data and they
computing industry, there has been the velocity of data is crippled. It is not a should speak to their preferred vendors to
a drastic shift from serial to parallel data hub. see how they can help. n
J
ust consider how much data is have at hand. This is not only a South African
available to decision-makers. In 2015, challenge. Local companies are on par with Looking at the rest of Africa, there are
12 zetabytes (1ZB is the equivalent their international counterparts when it significant opportunities for businesses to
of about one trillion gigabytes) of data comes to adoption rates. Some statistics extract additional value from insights across
was created worldwide. And by 2025, it show that insurance and technology lead all the continent. Data structures differ in each
is forecast to increase to a staggering other sectors in terms of BI adoption with country and these are not always in the
163 zetabytes. Clearly, companies need 40% of organisations having 41% or greater most accessible formats. By getting the data
a carefully constructed adoption strategy penetration of BI. It all boils down to making into a usable format, businesses can gain a
to capture, manage and understand the solutions accessible and customisable to the greater understanding of the needs of their
information they have at their disposal. specific needs of the business. target markets.
Adding to the complexity of this challenge Change management Data needs to be accessible in its simplest
is the fact that many existing business form for decision-makers to gain actionable
intelligence (BI) tools are not being used Moving beyond the willingness to change and insights. Currently, it is about transforming
to their full capacity. There is a willingness having the capabilities to analyse data more innovative technologies like Machine
to adopt them, but there is a lack of effectively, another component that needs Learning and Artificial Intelligence into
understanding how to integrate BI across to be considered is change management. relevant solutions that can deliver BI value
the organisation for all employees to benefit It has become too easy to migrate BI and for the organisation.
from it. data analytics solutions without taking into
account the people who need to use it. The opportunities are there as is the
Even though the financial sector has received willingness. Now it is a matter of combining
a lot of attention when it comes to data Granted, costing is always a consideration data with tools and ensuring employees can
analysis and information strategy adoption, as organisations want to run as optimally unlock the insights inside it. n
36 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 37
FEATURE: CIO’S PRIORITY FOR 2019 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
T
and more on software will become a
o mitigate potential risks, CIOs necessity, or CIOs can consider shifting to
need to break their current IT vendors that offer not only a cloud solution,
infrastructure down to a granular but also a managed services layer.
level to gain an understanding of
the business requirements and to look at the CIOs will increasingly need to think about
value that IT delivers to the business. They whether their organisations will own the
must obtain a view of what technologies skills the organisation requires to operate in
are in place, including a full view of the IT the cloud, or if there is a vendor relationship
ecosystem and all its dependencies. management model required. In each
instance, it will require a skills change across
This information can then be used the IT department. The CIO will need to find
to produce a total cost of ownership a partner that not only understands how
comparison to demonstrate the gains that to translate a cloud strategy into business
can be made by making the shift to cloud reality, but also the requirements and skills
computing, as a cloud architecture blueprint for cloud transition.
and implementation roadmap that brings
together a public, private and/or hybrid The reality is that the market is moving to
cloud solution for the business. cloud – with a clear split between private
Understand cloud’s
new essence;
drive the business forward
38 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FEATURE: CIO’S PRIORITY FOR 2019
and public. A more hybrid approach is on available, so many organisations may move
the cards, as the needs of the organisation away from extensive IT resources and will
change, and depending on what cloud is look for ways to get better value.
utilised for. Less critical applications and tools
will likely remain in the public cloud, while Evolving role
solutions and services that differentiate the
organisation’s value proposition or means of Ten years ago, all we needed from our
doing business, will move to private cloud. CIO was email and basic database and
CRM management tools. Today, our entire
A conservative estimate is that 30% of business is heavily reliant on our internal IT
businesses will retain onsite infrastructure, systems. The CIO of 2019 knows exactly
Craig Freer, Executive Head: Cloud
which will drive other hybrid computing what the company’s plans are and can at Vox
models. As more managed services become highlight potential risks and inform the
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 39
FEATURE: CIO’S PRIORITY FOR 2019 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Autonomous IT brings
a tidal wave of change
Niral Patel, MD and this region are spending more time focused develop and secure its core IT systems.
organisations are future- will need to capitalise on autonomous services. Keeping our region’s youthful population
in mind and the need to create jobs,
ready and that they reskill What are autonomous services? businesses should do their part to skill the
their workers for the tidal workforce for the world of tomorrow. At
T
he time is now for local businesses beyond predictive insights to suggested that equips them with specialised IT and
to turn to autonomous technology action and steer innovation into the fast leadership skills. To date, 84 students have
to lower cost, improve efficiency, lane. Offering unprecedented levels of successfully completed the programme since
and be more competitive – all key simplicity, self-service and security, through its inception in 2014.
business fundamentals. being self-driving, self-securing and self-
repairing, autonomous cloud services are Looking at it from a people perspective,
According to Gartner’s 2018 CIO Agenda setting a new industry standard for IT. The companies must ensure their employees
Survey, the role of the CIO in Europe, the resulting ‘autonomous enterprise’ won’t are ready for an autonomous cloud
Middle East and Africa is changing. CIOs in need people to run, maintain, integrate, technology-driven environment and
40 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FEATURE: CIO’S PRIORITY FOR 2019
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 41
FEATURE: CIO’S PRIORITY FOR 2019 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
are able to capitalise on its benefits. the company can get quicker and more predicted that 95% of cloud security failures
Re-training existing members of staff is personalised analytics to make smarter, will be the customer’s fault.
critical. There are a range of options to faster workforce decisions.
help organisations upskill their IT teams With AI and automation, businesses can
through training; from government Similarly, Hertz has used an autonomous automate the detection, prevention and
programmes through to vendor academies, cloud solution to remove the pain of response to security breaches, performance
such as the Oracle Academy. The latter administration and focus on delivering anomalies and vulnerabilities. Only by using
is useful for providing both the technical faster projects. machines to fight machines can companies
skillset required and the necessary security reprioritise and rethink about how they
and compliance training. Instead of setting up and tuning a server defend their information.
and database, the team can invest its man
Work smarter hours in innovation – delivering the right Autonomous services are precisely the kind of
products to market, and customers, with technology that forward-looking CIOs in South
CIOs don’t just want to save costs – they more speed. Africa should strive to adopt. The power of
want to move faster and smarter to take autonomous services, capable of self-patching,
the business in more exciting directions Build security resilience self-tuning and automatically optimising
than ever before. Autonomous will be performance while running, is just the start.
key to fulfilling those aims. Accenture, for By 2022, Gartner predicts that a company’s
example, needed a better way to manage its cybersecurity rating will become as It won’t be long before autonomous cloud
largescale professional services workforce. important as its credit rating to customers, services bring simplicity, self-service and
suppliers and partners. Yet, security attacks security into all areas of the business,
Trialling an autonomous cloud solution and breaches are increasing, and humans providing new fuel for innovation. Some
against its key, data-intensive HR application, can’t keep up. In fact, Gartner previously organisations are ready. What about you? n
42 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
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might be missing? LogRhythm can help.
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www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 43
CIO opinion
CIO OPINION CIO OPINION
“ PEOPLE MIGHT
BE GETTING EXCITED
ABOUT 5G, BUT IT’S NOT
REALLY A REALISTIC
PROSPECT.
//////////////////
Nick Watson, Vice-President EMEA at Ruckus Networks
Aiming to connect
the unconnected
According to a UN report,
T
here has been much talk about Intelligent CIO spoke to Ruckus Networks
Smart Cities, the requirements, EMEA Vice-President Nick Watson about
around 2.2 billion people the connectivity, the policies the connectivity issues in Africa.
could be added to the necessary and the parties that need
global population by 2050, to come together to make it a reality. “We’ve been working with a number of
Smart lighting and traffic system cities in Africa over the last few years to
with more than half of interlinked public transit and lightning- bring networking and Wi-Fi to them,”
that growth occurring in fast Internet connection for every said Watson.
Africa. Because there is citizen are just some of the benefits
of what you get in a Smart City, but “In Lagos, we’re working with Facebook
increasing pressure on all of it won’t be realised until more Express to provide subsidised payments
the continent to provide advanced and more reliable connectivity and we have a number of other projects.
sustainability, efficient is adopted, with a focus on bridging the It’s being driven mainly from investment
digital divide. where traditionally, the over the top
mobility and health and providers like Google and Facebook want
safety, technology has a What is evident however is that nations to get access to people who otherwise
big role to play. that complement local government won’t be able to connect.
initiatives with national government
support will likely lead in Smart City “Part of the reason is because the cost of
development and more quickly secure data using a mobile network here is still
the social and economic benefits it has very expensive for the vast majority of
to offer. the population, even though devices are
44 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
CIO OPINION
“
relatively economic to buy. So, what you have for those that are less well off, how do you
is that many people have got devices that can connect them?
connect to data but don’t have a realistic way
of connecting without building a Wi-Fi.” Well, by far the economic way of connecting
YOU ONLY HAVE them is by using their mobile devices as a
What is the current infrastructure Wi-Fi. So, you’ve got a ‘where are we today’,
like in Africa? TO LOOK AT which is much more primitive than I think
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 45
CIOopinion
Realistically, when will Africa are seeing change. There will be a significant of a fibre network; a radio backbone network,
experience the true benefits of rollout in the near future, certainly in the first which is Wi-Fi and the other networks are
Smart Cities? half of next year around Cape Town which connecting in. That’s proving very effective
will be quite transformational, and I think and I think that’s a trend we will continue
South Africa is a bit of a conundrum that will lead the way. to see.
because, in theory we should be miles ahead.
We should be using electronic payments With the population numbers set What role do national governments
and broadly able to connect. This is the only to increase in Africa, what role can need to play to accelerate and
place I go to where I turn off my mobile technology play? coordinate the development of
data as I switch on my phone as the plane Smart Cities?
lands because it’s so expensive. But if you You only have to look at countries like
go to Lagos where are only a few hundred Nigeria to see that it’s abundantly clear that The only thing that governments can really
access points around the city, it’s running you won’t be able to have things without do is to look carefully at spectrum allocation
very well. Facebook Express is putting the technology. People need to understand their because what we’ve done in recent years is
subsidy in where, even though it’s not own health with simple devices. They don’t giving big chunks of spectrums to the highest
free, it brings everybody into a connected need to be expensive but have to be pervasive bidder which of course has been extremely
world. It does require public and private and we need to make sure not wasting our helpful to the financial situation of the
partnerships and if it was made a priority by resources and are proactive with metering country. The challenge with that though is
government, it would happen. But if you look and loss prevention. These countries are vast, that it’s clear from studies done in the US, that
at somewhere like Kenya, micropayments so it’s not really practical to have cables and we will run out of spectrums if we continue
are abundant, whereas here we’re still in a connect to things. The technology of choice with that model. Therefore, if I continue to
situation where that hasn’t happened. is inevitably going to be a radio network of give huge chunks of spectrum to the highest
some kind. Each device uses different radios bidder and I’m limiting it to some very
The challenge is that it’s been developed to so it’s not as if you can use the same IP to wealthy operators, then we are constraining
a degree; they’ve got fibre and connectivity, every device because they all have different the growth of all these different devices. So
but they haven’t got wireless. There are characteristics and requirements. the government has a very important role to
also multiple operators here which in theory decide how to go about that. As you go from
should be a benefit but in practice means it’s You’re not going to build dozens of radio 3G to 4G, that needs to be talked about now
quite difficult to enforce something. But we networks, so what you have is the equivalent before they put forward the 4G licence. n
46 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
COUNTRY FOCUS: MOROCCO
//////////////////
Competing to be
the renewable energy
leader in Africa
I
“
n order to meet increasing energy is also aiming to mobilise a competitive
demand while fighting climate change, economic fabric that efficiently harnesses
Masen, the Moroccan Agency for Solar existing skills and helps create new ones.
Energy, is leading the way in the country’s Masen nurtures and encourages the
renewable energy sector. It is pursuing the development of applied and pre-operational
Kingdom’s goal of achieving 52% of its THIS IS A R&D backed by industrial projects and the
energy mix from renewable sources by 2030
and has developed a unique model based STRATEGIC promotion of technological innovation. At
the heart of Masen’s integrated approach,
on five components – producing electricity
from renewable sources, applied and
PARTNERSHIP this incentive to innovate is epitomised
by the development of a 200-hectare on
pre-operational R&D backed by industrial THAT COMBINES site platform at the Noor Ouarzazate solar
projects, training, industrial integration and
local development. LEADERSHIP complex. The common thread running
through this integrated approach is the local
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 47
COUNTRY FOCUS: MOROCCO
48 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
COUNTRY FOCUS: MOROCCO
“
Internationally, Masen is aiming to be the
preferred partner for any country wishing
to make renewable energy a priority
for its socioeconomic development and
has already signed several partnership
agreements with African countries for the
MOROCCO IS development of renewable energies.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 49
COUNTRY FOCUS: MOROCCO
1988. In June 2010, Morocco, Tunisia and network through increasing the transmission development in renewable energies and
Algeria adopted an action plan for 2010 capacity of the lines. The project will also resource mobilisation.
to 2015, underscoring their intention to facilitate overall completion of the Global
create an electricity market in North-West Rural Electrification Programme (PERG). "Morocco is a reference in terms of
Africa with the objective of integrating the renewable energy," said Adesina. "When
European market. The rapid growth in demand for electricity in I visited the Noor Ouarzazate complex, in
Morocco and the expansion of the networks which the Bank has invested considerably, I
A third link, which became operational in 2010 to serve the entire country led to the was fascinated to learn that it had been built
between Algeria and Morocco, has enabled saturation of the electricity transmission grid, using Moroccan know-how. It is proof that
the Kingdom to benefit from an additional causing voltage drops, but this is now a thing Africa can achieve great things and perform
interconnection of 400 kilovolts and underlined of the past, thanks to the installations. to international standards.
Morocco’s resolve to pursue a green energy
agenda with low fossil fuel emissions. The reduction in energy losses between "That is why we have asked Morocco to
production sites and the distribution network support us in the 'Desert to Power' initiative
Shortly before then, the Bank approved is an additional benefit that will also help that we are developing in the Sahel. This
a loan of €109.82 million to Morocco’s prevent 180,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions is a strategic partnership that combines
National Electricity Agency (ONE) for the per year. leadership and technical expertise. Together,
development of the electricity transmission we shall scale up efforts to power Africa."
and distribution network. The goal of the The Bank’s financing of this project forms
project, co-financed by the French Agency part of its continuing operations to support Bakkoury added: "Sharing the experience
for Development, the European Investment the Moroccan energy sector. that Masen has developed and launching
Bank and the World Bank, was to optimise a drive for the competitive development
the quality of services provided to all of Masen’s expertise in renewable energy of renewable energy across Africa is
ONE's domestic and industrial customers will be combined with the operational commensurate with the goal of making
and distribution authorities. experience of the African Development Bank renewable energy a real lever for inclusive
to strengthen regional integration, focusing growth. This partnership with the African
In addition, it was to improve and secure the on the transfer of technology, capacity Development Bank will contribute to the
electricity supply and the reliability of the building, technical assistance and project realisation of that ambition.” n
50 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
BREAK DOWN
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 51
FEATURE: SAAS //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
The Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS) market is certainly
on the rise and is expected
to reach US$185.8 billion
by 2024. Intelligent CIO
explores why many
industries are adopting
it and how it is being
implemented in Africa.
S
aaS is a model in which software
and other associated data is hosted
centrally and accessed with the
help of a web browser. The model allows
users to gain access to various components
and features of software with the help of a
subscription model and without the need for
worrying about product licenses.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 53
FEATURE: SAAS //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
“We are also in the process of building a integrate cogitative technologies to provide
Robotic Operation Centre (ROC), which will a fully integrated ‘out of the box’ solution.
be the vehicle for providing SaaS. We have It provides you the capabilities to provide a
our own platform of virtual workers and we virtual workforce and it really opens up use
use our vehicle for delivering virtual workers. cases right from the customer’s first touch all
We can run remote implementations, which the way to the fulfilment of RPA.
is useful when you’re working in somewhere
like Nigeria where it can be difficult to get to. We find that in some African countries, IT
departments are not the most sophisticated
“We’ll still send people into the country or the largest so don’t have the expertise
and they will do the consulting side, but or the number of people required to create
we will do the development stuff in the the enabled environment to run digital
ROC and when those automations are workforces. It requires a lot of infrastructure,
deployed, we will provide those out of the but we can circumvent the issues by
ROC as a service. We are also looking to providing the services over the cloud.
provide processes as a service which we
can provide internationally. The other big thing about Africa is that
we’re able to leapfrog legacy by providing
“We seem to be really on the cusp of being SaaS. We can work with whatever legacies
on the leading edge of the deployment are there but take that company into
of virtual workers to such an extent that the Fourth Industrial Revolution through
we’re almost ahead of the UK. It’s quite cognitive and robotic technology.
encouraging that we’re here at the bottom
of the world but are taking world-leading There’s no need for system replacements or
capabilities to the rest of the world.” expensive builds of new technologies; they
can access it immediately.
Burke went into more detail about the SaaS
market when speaking to Intelligent CIO. What industries predominately
use SaaS?
Can you give an overview of
the SaaS market, with specific Our biggest traction initially is in financial
focus on how it is being services and especially within insurers, which
implemented in Africa? is weird because they’re normally more providing virtual workers as a service, or
conservative and not renowned for their processes as a service.
We provide digital or virtual workers as technology innovation. The banks still have
a service and at scale. The technology is reservations around security though and How big do you think the SaaS
software, but the software we’re using as a have a desire to keep the software in-house. market could become?
service is actually software that is mimicking
workers and provides capacity to perform But in QI 2019, TymeBank launches in I see it being the equivalent to ERP.
functions, so you’re buying workers that are South Africa as the first digital cloud- Companies will be looking at investments
doing what would otherwise be human jobs. enabled bank and I think that will establish in digital workforces, just as much that
We use integrated application solutions, the precedent for the greater adoption of they were previously investing in SAP and
but the core of it is RPA. Thoughtonomy cloud by removing a barrier of entry for core systems.
54 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FEATURE: SAAS
What do you say to people who people doing work, but we haven’t yet seen in-house or as providers as a service, and
may criticise the SaaS solution? a client that hasn’t used that human labour cloud will follow through very quickly. I
elsewhere and no one is properly exploring think you may be uncompetitive if you
Even if we just go back a year, there was a what you can do with those savings. were not to adopt SaaS and especially
lot of fear about virtual workers, but from our virtual workers. Business leaders should
experience, the robots are ubiquitous, and we What would your message be really be looking at their business and
are scaling digital workforces fast. The virtual to industry leaders looking to operating models and asking themselves
workers have released significant hours of use SaaS within their company? how to get the maximum benefit of virtual
FTE in that some companies are reducing workers, provided by SaaS over the cloud.
overtime and the number of contractors. I see it inevitable that their will be an The real secret is how to get a competitive
There is obviously a consequence of replacing adoption of virtual workers, whether it’s advantage out of it. n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 55
Case study //////////////////
Av
sh
ar
nB
ch
a
oo
,C
hie
fT
ech
nolo
gy Officer at PPS
56 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
CASE STUDY
I
n the modern world, the journey to The Open Group Architecture Framework providing the data required to create the
Digital Transformation is both exciting (TOGAF) training, they lacked the practical initial building blocks to show the current,
and daunting. Astute businesses are experience to develop this EA on their own. physical state,” he said. “Reference models
forming smart Information Technology The goal was to build a plan to empower were then built to represent the target state
(IT) strategies to drive better operations the application of data within an intelligent both conceptually and logically, based on
and greater customer experience. For PPS, architecture, using developed infrastructure architectural building blocks.”
it became clear that a comprehensive to deliver on conceptual, logical and
IT strategy was required. Upon research physical levels. With the current environment and the
the company identified the architectural target state effectively represented,
approach as best suited to its industry and “We were acutely aware of the need to Knotion could now map the ‘as is’ to
sought assistance in building this plan using partner with a business that could help us the ‘target’. Using colour coded visual
best practice architectural principles. develop an accurate target state architecture representations, PPS could easily identify
to develop this strategy,” said Avsharn what should be re-used, where potential
PPS essentially wanted to create a 2020 Bachoo, Chief Technology Officer at PPS. “This problems were hiding, what needed to be
vision. Preparing the strategy was only need is fueled by the desire to improve.” retired or fixed, and what they didn’t have
part of the equation, as it would need in place but needed.
to be presented to PPS executives. To do Established in 1941, the PPS Group is the
so effectively, a well-defined Enterprise only mutual financial services company “A gap analysis was put together to close the
Architecture (EA) was required. At the time, in South Africa focusing exclusively on gaps between the current and the target –
while the PPS IT team had participated in graduate professionals. The company and this is the information that was fed into
provides tailor-made insurance, investment the strategy,” added Snel.
and healthcare solutions to its members
and is an exclusive organisation of To achieve this, Knotion used its ‘Smart
graduate professionals. Strategy’ solution; a customised method
based on TOGAF. While this international
Solution framework gives companies insight into
what to do, Knotion’s customised framework
For PPS, the Knotion approach aligned with tells users how to do it.
its strategic requirements given the changes
that were taking place inside the company. “Many companies choose a framework such
as TOGAF, as the foundation to develop their
“We successfully launched an EA function EA capability,” said Snel.
within the group and examined ways to
effectively grow it,” said Bachoo. “Following “This is followed by customising the
extensive research, we decided to outsource framework for the organisation based on the
to a specialist company as opposed to architects’ skills and experience. By the time
building the capacity in-house.” that the EA capability is up and running, a
company would have spent a significant
Marius Snel, Chief Executive Officer and amount of resources already, without
owner of Knotion, said the process began showing any clear business value.”
with modelling the current PPS environment.
With EAaaS, the value is derived by providing
“Information was drawn from existing services to develop the relevant architectures
configuration management systems, as and when required by the client.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 57
CASE STUDY
58 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
CASE STUDY
cloud strategy for the remainder of the year “One of the biggest benefits of using capabilities, our solution plugs in to their
remains in place. Knotion in this way has been to enable environment and can be fine-tuned as
us to explain complex IT infrastructure required,” said Snel.
“Our various applications need to seamlessly in business terms. With ‘as a service’, we
migrate to the cloud,” said Bachoo. take away much of the fuzziness generally “Even corporates that have seen enterprise
associated with technology jargon and architects leave the company or divisions
“Already, many of them have been translate it into deliverables that our being disbanded, can leverage the
architected for it, but we will continue to business users can understand.” offering to streamline and fast track its
expand our development to incorporate all implementation and management inside
essential services for the cloud. EA for all the business.
“Even though our migration path has Knotion is quite excited about this “With this, enterprise and solution
not changed, the Knotion Enterprise approach as the offering is not limited to architectures can be done in a more effective
Architecture as a service approach has large enterprises. way and we believe it will significantly
enabled us to be more effective and change how architecture is viewed. It will
embrace a multi-tenancy way of “Considering that many SMEs do not unlock significantly more value for businesses
doing things. have the resources to deliver internal EA on the road ahead.” n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 59
CASE STUDY
Visit Environ:
excel-networking.com/environ-racks
60 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
POWERED BY INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling
C
ommunities across South Africa “They are doing this because they recognise choice (of service providers and of services),
are increasingly insisting on open that open access fibre networks provide the reduce costs and increase innovation.”
access fibre optic cable installations best of high-quality, affordable connectivity
which provide a neutral platform for ISPs to for consumers while increasing the value of Not all networks want to provide a
compete with each other. property in the estate or community. platform for competition and do not want
competition at the services level.
That’s the word from South Africa’s Internet “It is imperative that communities choose
Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) which open access providers and that clauses to ISPA’s view is that this is not in the best
says elected representatives of gated this effect are always inserted in any written interests of consumers and needs to be
communities, estates and business parks agreements with planned fibre providers. addressed to reduce the cost to communicate,
are gradually adopting a hard line with fibre poor service levels and a lack of innovation.
providers; some of whom still refuse to do “Consumers should be free to choose who
business openly and transparently. they buy Internet access or data from and It adds that vigorous competition in the
this is firmly in line with stated Government services layer is imperative for increased
“There’s a clear trend towards homeowners’ policy. In October 2016, Government innovation and value for money.
associations, body corporates, residents’ outlined the right of consumers to choose
associations and property developers their service provider as a key requirement “Network deployment agreements that
rejecting any potential fibre installation of the National Integrated ICT Policy deny subscribers the choice of service
that does not allow for multiple Internet White Paper. provider represent a disservice to that
service providers to compete for owners’ community where the network is to be
and tenants’ business,” said ISPA chairman “It requires fair and sustainable service-based deployed and denies them their right of
Graham Beneke. competition which will increase consumer choice,” said Beneke. n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 61
62 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
POWERED BY INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cabling
Siemon has enhanced its improved return loss performance for high-
speed fibre links.
APC single-mode connectivity for connecting
carrier services and supporting higher-speed
extensive product line of protocols in data centre, long haul and FTTX
LightHouse advanced fibre Siemon’s new LC APC BladePatch Uni-boot environments,” said Kevin Stronkowsky,
cabling solutions with the duplex jumper features the company’s
patented revolutionary BladePatch low-
product manager for Siemon.
latest upgrades to offer profile push-pull boot design for easy access “The fibre end face of an APC connector
improved performance. and removal in tight-fitting areas such as features an eight-degree angle that provides
high-density fibre patching for switches, better reflection performance versus UPC
blade servers and storage equipment. (ultra-physical contact) connectors.
S
iemon, a leading global network
infrastructure specialist, has Utilising ITU-T G.657.A1 bend-insensitive We are extremely pleased to expand
enhanced its comprehensive line singlemode fibre and a smaller-diameter our APC singlemode offering with the
of LightHouse advanced fibre cabling uni-tube cable design, the LC APC BladePatch patented push-pull design of our already
solutions with a new APC BladePatch reduces cable pathway congestion, improving popular LC BladePatch.”
Uni-boot duplex single-mode fibre jumper. air flow and increasing energy efficiency while
The new jumper has been developed in simplifying overall cable management. Siemon’s LightHouse APC singlemode
response to increasing fibre densities and offering also includes fibre patch cords,
the growing demand for APC (angled “In recent years, we have seen a growing fibre pigtails, pre-terminated fibre trunks
physical contact) connectivity that offers need for better return loss performance and and connectivity. n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 63
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
/////////////////////////////
Decades of innovation have built a foundation for our culture—one that’s fundamentally focused
on how we can fast forward your data center to better meet the needs of tomorrow’s user.
From copper and fiber infrastructure to intelligent AIM solutions and beyond, CommScope
can see how now meets next in your data center.
A
rcserve Southern Africa has place. Whether migrating workloads to the • Simplifies protecting modern IT
announced the unveiling of Arcserve cloud, needing advanced VM protection or infrastructures: Safeguards modern
Business Continuity Cloud, the requiring support for sub-minute RTOs and infrastructures, including those with x86,
first fully-integrated cloud-born solution RPOs – it’s all under one bonnet.” non-x86, SaaS and IaaS. Multi-cloud
to prevent the impact of unplanned and cross-cloud data protection support
downtime. It immediately restores access Edwin Yuen, Senior Analyst at Enterprise organisations planning to or are currently
to critical data, systems and applications Strategy Group, added: “Arcserve has in the process of implementing a cloud
across complex, multi-generational IT accomplished something unique in this platform for backup or disaster recovery
infrastructures ranging from non-x86 and market by closing a substantial gap
x86, to software as a service (SaaS) and for businesses requiring more robust Additional findings from the survey found
infrastructure as a service (IaaS). With this data protection capabilities without the that as data protection concerns grow, most
solution, Arcserve solves the challenges of complexity of juggling multiple backup tools organisations are looking to the cloud for
protecting modern IT caused by the time, for new or disparate workloads. backup and disaster recovery. IT decision-
skill, expense and multiple tools needed to makers cite implementing a cloud platform
protect new workloads. “Many solutions today consist of products for backup and disaster recovery as their top
bolted together with a UI upgrade, yet priority this year, with more confidence in
According to new data being released by Arcserve Business Continuity Cloud stands protecting critical data in private clouds than
Arcserve, 64% of global IT decision-makers out with a level of integration beyond most local storage, hypervisors, public clouds and
agree that protecting business-critical data other vendors, creating a truly seamless Blockchain. Concerns over downtime and
has not become easier over the past five solution that’s extremely intuitive yet data loss are growing, primarily driven by:
years, despite efforts to adopt solutions to incredibly powerful.”
simplify and reduce costs. Further, as backup • Media coverage of data breaches and/or
infrastructures are increasingly becoming Arcserve Business Continuity Cloud ransomware attacks
costlier and more complex, the tolerance for eliminates the need for other data protection • Cambridge Analytica’s access to
data loss is diminishing. A total of 93% of IT tools and management consoles with fully- Facebook users’ personal information
decision-makers revealed their organisations integrated capabilities to protect and restore • The 2017 Equifax data breach n
could tolerate ‘minimal’ if any, data loss from applications and systems in any location,
critical business applications, yet just 26% feel on-premises and in public and private clouds.
extremely confident in their ability to recover
quickly enough to avoid business disruption. • Provides a consumer-grade user
experience: Capabilities spanning the
“Based on our observations and data protection lifecycle are accessible
underscored by this research, it’s evident through a customisable, cloud-based web
that organisations cannot effectively console. Most tasks are implemented in
protect modern IT infrastructures with three clicks or less
today’s incomplete tools that create more • Eliminates data loss and extended
complexity, drive up the total cost of downtime: Supports near-zero RTOs and
ownership, and ultimately increase the risk RPOs with high availability, minutes with
of data loss and downtime through gaps virtual standby and instant VM, hours with
in protection,” said Byron Horn-Botha, bare metal restore, and granular recovery
Arcserve Southern Africa, Lead: Channel and and quick discovery for compliance
Partnerships. “Arcserve Business Continuity • Shifts the economic profile: Fully-
Cloud is the only solution capable of integrated technologies reduce time and Byron Horn-Botha, Arcserve Southern Africa,
addressing these challenges by bringing all money spent on IT management by up Lead: Channel and Partnerships
data protection processes together in one to 50%
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 65
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
C
hristian Mahncke, Enterprise Business in devices with computer and storage
Development at Routed, Africa’s only capabilities at the edge.” Traditionally marred by a highly regulated
vendor neutral cloud infrastructure industry demanding strict IT security and
provider, says that disruption will continue Supporting the burgeoning Internet of privacy controls, the financial services sector
to dominate the technology landscape as Things (IoT) trend, edge computing will is becoming increasingly more open to
2019 approaches. Supporting Gartner’s improve IoT deployments as it brings the cloud strategies and running applications in
predictions, Mahncke says that computing devices closer to the edge. the cloud.
will extend well beyond centralised facilities
to the ‘edge’ of the network where data can “Network connectivity needs to be considered Internationally, several banks and insurance
be stored, processed and displayed. as much as the devices themselves; only then companies are leveraging the cloud and
will effective communications be achieved,” considering ways to utilise the platform for
“This will bring an ‘empowered edge’ trend added Mahncke. other processing requirements.
well into 2019 and will expand computing
power indefinitely,” said Mahncke. “Edge Meanwhile, Routed CEO Andrew Cruise says “It is logical for the next adoption curve to
computing has been on the cusp of breaking that, thanks to the cloud and a growing include the financial service sector,” added
technology and next year will see it gain base of market disruptors, innovation and Cruise. “They need to become more agile
wider traction and awareness.” technology are becoming more critical to the and responsive to the mark.”
survival of today’s financial institutions.
Mahnucke added that by utilising the With just over a year until 2020, cloud
growing cloud phenomenon, edge “Traditionally, this sector has been slow in adoption needs to increase and continue to
computing will leverage cloud architecture to its cloud adoption and the use of deployed evolve. According to Cruise that technology
enable better delivery and capabilities. infrastructure,” said Cruise. “We are seeing will, by that time, become more mission-
a move in the right direction as financial critical and will have started to drive not
“Working together with Artificial Intelligence institutions start moving beyond the initial only customer engagement but operational
(AI), edge computing will provide more concerns of risk and security in the cloud.” efficiency too. n
66 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
F
irst Brick Holdings, a Roha Group leading investment in, and development digitalisation in Uganda is reflective of a
company, has announced plans for of, data centres in the region, we are broader need for data centre installations
multiple investments to boost the unlocking this latent demand in the market across East Africa. First Brick Holdings plans
digitalisation of East and Southern Africa and removing a significant barrier to the to invest in several more facilities across
with the funding and development of several continued Digital Transformation of this the continent, expecting five Tier III data
data centres across the region. These data exciting and vibrant market.” centres to be live by 2022. With a total
centres will open up new opportunities for project investment of around US$50 million,
financial services, governments and small to First Brick Holdings’ initial investment is First Brick Holdings will address the latent
medium enterprises (SMEs) by addressing in Uganda, where the digital economy is demand for data centre infrastructure in
their mission-critical needs for data storage, accelerating at such a rate that there is an various local markets.
business continuity and disaster recovery immediate requirement for facilities to store
and create a network of data centres able and process data safely and securely. “Our commitment to invest in this much-
to accommodate international and regional needed infrastructure is a fantastic opportunity
customers in state-of-the-art facilities. Raxio Data Centre Ltd is delivering Uganda’s for all players in the digital economy, lowering
first state-of-the-art Tier III, carrier-neutral data the overall cost of storing data and of
“Economic growth in East Africa is averaging centre in the Namanve Industrial and Business operating increasingly complex and mission
between 5 to 10% across the region,” Park. Due to open in the middle of next year, critical IT equipment,” said Mullins.
said Robert Mullins, Executive Director at the data centre will have capacity for up to 400
First Brick Holdings. “When combined with racks, delivering 1.5MW of IT power. “These state-of-art facilities will also serve
parallel trends in digitalisation and content as enablers, bringing access to local cloud
consumption, we are seeing annual data The Raxio data centre will be a key pillar to computing closer to enterprises and content
usage and associated storage requirements Uganda’s digital economy, reducing the cost closer to consumers.
increasing by 20 – 30%. of connectivity in the country and attracting
global cloud service providers, content “Not only that, but it will also contribute
“From mission-critical enterprise services distribution networks and regional carriers. significantly to skilled job creation and tax
to e-government initiatives, the Digital revenue generation. East and Southern
Transformation of East Africa is being held “Data centre installations in East Africa are Africa is primed for these data centres and
back by the lack of secure, scalable, reliable, lagging behind other emerging economies, they will allow the region’s businesses to
low latency data storage solutions. By despite the region facing similar underlying better compete on a global level.” n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 67
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
ConvergeIT™
/////////////////////////////INTELLIGENT BUILDING
SOLUTIONS
T
eraco, Africa’s largest vendor neutral 60%, SACS reduces latency from Fortaleza opportunity for Teraco’s direct clients’ to
colocation data centre provider, has (Brazil) to Luanda (Angola) from 350ms to access fast and reliable cross connections
said that clients currently making 63ms; Luanda is connected with the same between Africa and the Americas,” said Nunes.
use of its data centres in Cape Town and latency to London and to Miami of around
Johannesburg are set to benefit from the 128 milliseconds; and the link from Miami Hnizdo added that SACS will be a great
cross connection to the South Atlantic Cable to Cape Town has been reduced to 163ms – contributor to increased economic growth
System (SACS) – Africa’s first transatlantic link from 338ms in the past prior to SACS. as this new system compliments the
connecting the continent to the Americas. European route.
Angola Cables CEO Antonio Nunes said that
Owned by Angola Cables, the new subsea latency is a global issue, especially in the era “Having a southern-based cabling system is
network provides the most direct routing of software driven services. also good as a contingency plan,” he said.
for internet traffic across the Atlantic and
according to Teraco, will bring immense “SACS has the capabilities to dramatically “SACS provides not only an alternative, but a
opportunity for clients within the data centre. improve this – and at the same time Angola cost effective option to access regions that
Cables is bringing new routes to Africa with a were previously difficult to reach.
“This is an exciting development and lot of available capacity,” he said.
includes much needed investment into “As Teraco grows its market presence across
local infrastructure,” said Teraco Managing The Angola Cables submarine network is carrier, content, cloud and enterprise sectors,
Director Jan Hnizdo. already providing Teraco’s data centres in our clients will benefit from the latency and
South Africa with direct connectivity to Brazil, diversity offered by the subsea cable systems
“Built with a direct purpose to boost business Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, but also to now available.
in South Africa, SACS will provide improved Miami giving Teraco’s DC clients a premium
connectivity and significantly lower latency opportunity to connect and share digital “Access to the Americas has never
routing between Africa and the Americas.” content with the America continent. been easier and we look forward to an
increase in transatlantic traffic fully utilising
Offering five times the speed of existing “The SACS southern hemisphere, ultra- the SACS cable system that is built on
cable routings and an improvement of up to low latency routings presents a massive 100Gig technology.” n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 69
BREACHES ARE INEVITABLE.
BEING A HEADLINE ISN’T.
Secure your systems and
manage your message with
world-renown incident
response services and cyber
threat intelligence.
FireEye.com
70 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
POWERED BY INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
T
he concept of zero trust is as profound Security Officers to moderate and adjust
in cybersecurity as the sweeping The first step is to verify the legitimacy of security policies to balance organisational
transformation generated by the arrival the user beyond the credentials of their concerns and employee productivity.
of cloud, mobility agility and availability. username and password. Multi-factor Organisations adopting a zero trust
authentication using personal information, approach will increasingly find that it is the
Gartner projects that worldwide security or another known device of the employee is right path forward to rebuild their user and
spending will reach US$96 billion this the usual add-on practice. resource access policies. n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 71
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security POWERED BY
C
ompanies must be cautious to safely “IT Asset Disposition best practices involve Regulation (GDPR),” said Arewa. n
dispose of data-rich electronics, both logical and physical destruction of
especially in this rapid pace of obsolete or unwanted data and equipment.”
technological and digital change. An even
bigger challenge is to decide whether it is IT Asset Disposal (ITAD) vendors often buy
more economical to destroy or redeploy equipment from organisations to refurbish
old equipment. Recycling old electronics and resell or to strip the device for spare
is the right choice when they are broken parts. For the company, this approach
and beyond repair, but equipment that still provides steady and predictable revenue that
works could be sold or donated to needy can be offset against the cost of compliant
organisations and charities. disposal of electronic equipment.
The only way to do this effectively is with a “Not everyone is thinking about a cohesive
proper IT Asset Management Program and, strategy when identifying areas of risk,”
while doing so, businesses must take proactive added Arewa.
measures to ensure there is no trace of
sensitive information left behind, particularly “Items carrying critical data will normally
considering the growing number of gadgets have this data erased, the item refurbished
now linked to network infrastructure. or resold back into the market. However,
According to Xperien CEO Wale Arewa, many businesses take the path of least
businesses that don’t implement device resistance, finding the lowest price vendor to
end-of-life protocols are putting crucial info just take away a device for free.”
in unnecessary danger.
Arewa believes the biggest misconception is
“One needs to create a strategy to protect that they can just delete the files and folders, Xperien CEO Wale Arewa
data from cradle to the grave,” he said. but don’t realise that the data is still there.
72 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology
S
chneider Electric, the global specialist ION9000 offers the industry’s most advanced insight with pre and post-incident data
in energy management and capabilities with five core innovations: • Patented ION programmability allows
automation, has launched the world’s users to adapt as their power networks
most advanced, most accurate power quality • High-quality performance, with third- become more dynamic, tailoring
meter, the PowerLogic ION9000 series. party certified Class 0.1S accuracy to programming to accommodate complex
With rapid advancements in IoT, event unlock significant new possibilities for electrical distribution monitoring or custom
analytics and accuracy, this newest addition energy savings, ensuring the meter substation automation – protecting their
to Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Power complies with the highest performance investment into the future
portfolio provides the most complete, most for revenue grade applications
innovative power quality meter for critical • Cybersecurity ready, designed to align with “The ION9000 is truly the power quality
power applications. comprehensive grid cybersecurity policies, meter of the future,” added Chetty. “It
helping to eliminate vulnerabilities to provides the future-proof adaptability that
“The ION9000 redefines the standard critical power assets and systems modern power networks need, and it is
for accuracy, resolving power quality • Onboard power quality analysis provides highly customisable, setting a new industry
issues faster with patented disturbance useful information, not just data, doing benchmark for accuracy. It also has a
tracking technology and it provides unique so via its onboard PQ tool, according to complete power quality analysis tool right out
modularity designed to adapt to your EN50160 and IEEE519 standards. The of the box, so it can immediately identify and
changing energy needs, now and far into the ION9000 also has extended waveform help solve power system events.”
future,” said Preshlen Chetty, Offer Manager: capture and patented disturbance
Power Solutions at Schneider Electric. direction detection (DDD) The ION9000’s power management
• Smart power event analysis automatically software provides quick views of energy
The latest generation of advanced power correlates related trends, events and consumption, power quality and power
quality meters to build on the legendary waveforms based on time and type of network status, and all in real time. It has
success of the ION7650, PowerLogic incident, saving time and providing vital proven itself a critical tool for preventive
maintenance and root cause analysis in
power outages, helping keep people and
equipment safe.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 73
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology
T
he South African Renewable Energy “We had to open our doors and start training system on a home rooftop generates about
Technology Centre (SARETEC) because of the demands for skills in the 150 Kilowatts of power, a solar farm generates
based Cape Peninsula University of renewable energy industry,” said Rassool. about 150 Megawatts of power.
Technology (CPUT) has officially launched.
The only centre of its kind in Africa, SARETEC To date, they have indirectly trained 80 wind The Western Cape Government, through the
trains wind turbine service technicians and turbine technicians and more than 200 solar Apprentice Skills Game Changer programme,
solar photovoltaic (PV) technicians and is PV related trainees. SARETEC-trained solar is helping to develop Modules 3 and 4 and
also mandated to train technicians in energy PV installers are certified, and their names the material for Module 3 should be ready to
efficiency and biomass and biogas. are on South African Photovoltaic Industry pilot in the second half of 2019.
Association’s database. They can issue a
The SARETEC team took occupation of the PV Green Card on an installation which is In terms of renewable energy, the projected
building in mid-2015 but #FeesMustFall recognised by municipalities as an installation plan is that government wants 11.4
protests scuppered then Minister of Higher done by an electrician having the proper gigawatts of national electricity to be
Education and Training, Blade Nzimande’s training. The centre currently trains solar PV generated by wind turbines and 8 gigawatts
plans to open the building, hence Minister mounters and solar PV Installers being Module from solar energy by 2030. Currently it
of Higher Education and Training Naledi 1 and Module 2 of the solar PV qualification, stands at 2 gigawatts from wind turbines
Pandor’s planned visit to Bellville campus to respectively. Module 3 is being developed and 1.7 gigawatts from solar PV power.
launch SARETEC. to train a solar PV service technician who
can maintain, service and repair the solar “All indications are that SARETEC is going
SARETEC Director Naim Rassool says they PV systems installed on suburban rooftops. to be a real strategic asset for the country in
had no option but to commence their Module 4 will be to train a solar PV farm order to ensure that we provide the right skills
training work at the beginning of 2016 technician who can work on a much higher for the massive wave of installed renewable
despite no official opening. voltage of solar generated power. A solar PV energy that is coming,” said Rassool. n
74 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
M
TN Nigeria has taken a bold “This, in turn, enables MTN Nigeria to quickly
approach to customer service, identify service issues, such as poor voice “Additionally, they will be able to accelerate
showing that its customers are at call and data session quality and they can their transformation process and adopt
the core of their organisation. Using Nokia’s prioritise improvements based on customer new advanced capabilities, such as data
Customer Experience Management (CEM) and business impact.” science and automation,” said Vale. “We
solution, it will drive its transformation from are currently in the adoption phase of
network to customer-centric operations to But why is perceived experience the project and our immediate priority is
improve the overall experience for its 52 even important? to ensure that MTN Nigeria sees a return
million customers. on their investment. Then we can further
With rife competition in the Nigerian telco guide them on their digitalisation process
The inherent automation and intelligence market, MTN Nigeria needs to ensure that its by helping them automate processes that
that is built into Nokia’s CEM solutions customer knows that the company has their will allow them to automatically detect
help service providers operate more best interests at heart. VIP customer issues so that these can be
efficiently and enable them to seize new resolved proactively. This way they can
business opportunities while ensuring “We, as humans, tend to buy services from improve on the customer experience and
subscribers receive the maximum benefit entities that provide us with a good quality manage customer expectations better.”
from their services. service and has our best interest at heart,”
added Vale. “We want our service providers Uche Osuji, General Manager of Network
“MTN Nigeria is the first service provider in the to know who we are and what challenges Performance at MTN Nigeria, said: “Through
region to deploy our Cognitive Analytics for we are experiencing. By implementing this the Nokia CEM solution, we will improve our
Customer Insight, formerly known as CEM on CEM solution, MTN Nigeria will be able to customers’ experience, providing faster and
Demand, with our Service Quality Manager identify challenges upfront and engage smoother connectivity on voice and data
(SQM) software,” said Henrique Vale, MEA with individual customers to acknowledge services, as we create a more personalised
leader for Applications and Analytics Global the issue, determine a solution and provide experience for them based on their usage
Centre at Nokia. “Using powerful Machine personalised service to solve the issue. and service requirements. The solution will
Learning algorithms, Nokia Cognitive also enable us to proactively identify and
Analytics for Customer Insight software gives “The telco industry is known for churn, resolve service impairments, respond to
the operator a complete view of customer therefore by providing proactive solutions to complaints from our teeming customers
satisfaction and revenue as well as device and customer challenges, MTN Nigeria can reduce much faster and create a premium service
network performance.” this. Customer churn or customers moving experience for them.” n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 75
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
D
eploying network facilities across trials and deployments in Nigeria, Uganda, Wireless’ unique low-cost, low-footprint
Africa can be a costly and lengthy Namibia, Kenya, Angola, Guinea, Senegal and virtualised multi-technology solution
exercise. However, with its world’s and Tanzania, including: is easy and affordable to install, maintain,
first ALL G software-enabled open network and upgrade to any future technology
solution, Parallel Wireless is helping global • As presented at TIP Summit, MTN is without any additional hardware
mobile network operators (MNOs) ‘connect planning to deploy equipment based on • In Uganda, Intelsat used Parallel
the unconnected’ by making ALL G network Facebook’s Open RAN TIP specifications, Wireless to bring 3G coverage. The
deployments as easy and as cost-effective including the Parallel Wireless solution, solution was fast and easy to install.
as Wi-Fi. As a result, it has been welcomed as it believes it to be more cost-effective Godfrey Mutabazi, Executive Director
across the African continent with several than traditional communications of the Uganda Communications
deployments and pending trials in 12 networking technology for bringing Commission, stressed that extending
countries, which are assisting in Africa’s coverage to rural and ultra-rural locations broadband connectivity and delivering
rapidly advancing connectivity. • Parallel Wireless is engaged with fast, affordable Internet services to
iEngineering Group, a leading end-to- everyone in Uganda remains one of the
“Africa is the most digitally divided continent end engineering infrastructure solutions Uganda government’s primary missions
with only 44% unique mobile users,” said Lux provider to the telecommunications and
Maharaj, Director of Sales for Parallel Wireless, power industries across Africa, the Middle Parallel Wireless was at AfricaCom 2018
Southern Africa. “To bridge the digital divide, East and Southeast Asia with operations in Cape Town to demonstrate its unique
people need access to technology, but it is a in 18 countries. The Parallel Wireless ALL solution for MNOs across Africa and other
commercial dilemma for the regional MNOs G Open RAN software-enabled solution developing and developed countries. n
given the deployment cost. Traditional 2G,
3G or 4G networks require expensive and
bulky equipment for their deployment and
operation. These hardware-based networks
are difficult and pricey to upgrade.”
76 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business
D
anie Marais, Director of Product can be a quick win. makes, is that it is positioned at the forefront
Management at global data of innovation. It listens to customer feedback
management SaaS specialist “We are talking about reducing IT and the business is just the right size to
Redstor, says businesses have an management overheads, storage costs and manoeuvre easily while delivering monthly
opportunity to tap into the evolution of improving reliability as well as compliance,” releases to its customers.” n
data management and take advantage of he said.
solutions that are being developed for AI,
Robotics, Machine Learning and the cloud. “Businesses benefit from centralised visibility
and improved data accessibility for users.”
As a forward-looking software developer,
Redstor has incorporated the future of Using AI to strengthen data value
data and AI-driven commerce into its
development cycle. Artificial Intelligence is now a pervasive trend
in the market. Analytics tools can provide
“Some companies have already started insight where data sits on a network and
moving toward customer grade user how it can be managed more efficiently.
experiences by using things like NetApp
where they have replication technologies Redstor believes AI will bring the ability for
built in, replicating their data in real technology to investigate data, in all the
time to another storage system, sending different silos it resides in:
snapshots that they can roll back to and
instantly fire up when needing a restore,” • Working out how important that data is
said Marais. to your business
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 77
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business
S
ilica, powered by IRESS, has launched
a solution that enables users
across the IRESS product suite to
electronically access and trade unitised
funds from major South African asset
and investment managers. This solution
removes the pain of investing and drives
administration costs down for all players in
the value chain-advisers, asset managers
and end-clients alike.
C
standard global FIX protocol. The IRESS “Now, we are bringing the same level of Financial advisers and brokers can directly
CMY
SmartHub integrates with Silica’s Graphite automation to the unitised sector, enabling interact with, interrogate and report on data
interface, a Microsoft cloud-deployed solution advisers to trade any instrument in any from investment managers’ systems. Cash K
that leverages Silica’s transactional order market and at any time. They will have movements can be facilitated through EFT or
management utility to automate transactions a single view of each client’s portfolio in direct debits.
and cash movements. real time, as well as the ability to execute
orders instantly without the delays of the Kruger International Asset and Wealth
The Silica IRESS Funds Trading Solution past. They will also be able to reduce errors Management, which provides advice and
creates an open market where investment through electronic processing and minimise wealth management solutions to private
managers can seamlessly make their administration through effortless electronic clients, as well as managing funds of its own,
funds available to advisers and investors. account opening.” is an early adopter of the solution.
It automates every transaction from FICA
document verification, new investments Daniel Micali, Director at Silica, added: “For “Fees are coming down in the asset
and additions, through to fund switching, investment and asset managers, the benefits management industry and it will become
payments, and fee, client data, and payment. of the solution include lower administration increasingly difficult to compete without
costs, improved margins and the ability to using technology to streamline processes,”
This makes the trading of funds as fast, access new distribution channels. End- said Chris Nel, analyst at Kruger International.
efficient and transparent as trading investors, meanwhile, benefit from lower
exchange-listed securities. It also enables fees and a more streamlined customer “This solution is already helping us to
advisers to offer their clients the broadest experience with less paperwork to be achieve significant efficiencies and reduce
range of funds from leading investment completed. We want to make it as easy for human errors in processing transactions.
managers at the lowest possible cost. people to invest, save and grow their wealth We now have real-time access to accurate
as it is to apply for a loan.” data about our clients’ portfolios, as well as
“Sixteen years ago, IRESS spearheaded the ability to scale up our business to serve
electronic order routing for exchange-traded The partnership enables advisers and more clients more efficiently. This translates
securities in the South African market,” said investors to transact electronically with into a better client experience and enables
Richard Bell, Executive Manager and Head of investment managers and their funds us to focus on adding value rather than
Funds Trading at IRESS. without the need for human intervention. processing paperwork.” n
78 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Software for Business
EMEA
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@SANSEMEA
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www.intelligentcio.com OBER-2018 79
INDUSTRY WATCH
Hyper-
availability:
The competitive edge
for digital banks
With downtime and unavailability significantly
impacting on the reputation of a bank, fintechs are
in a prime position to embrace hyper-availability and
gain the competitive advantage over the incumbents.
Kate Mollett, Regional Manager for Africa South at
Veeam, explores the impact it is making in the local
banking sector.
80 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
INDUSTRY WATCH
DOWNTIME IS NO LONGER
ACCEPTABLE, ESPECIALLY
IF YOUR BRAND IS BUILT
ON BEING DIGITAL FIRST.
A
nybody still questioning how new opportunities, enabling them to
downtime can influence a bank challenge incumbents and continually
should take a lesson from what is change the state of financial services in
happening at Capitec. Once the darling the country.
of the local banking sector, sporadic
downtime experienced on its digital And this is reflected in how consumers
banking platforms has seen the bank use banking services. Not being limited
lose the top spot as the best digital bank to visiting branches, they can bank from
in the country. Customer satisfaction their mobile devices wherever they are,
levels are directly linked to the availability irrespective of the time of day. However,
of services. Those financial institutions if services are disrupted (as was the case
unable to meet those demands will with Capitec), the reputational damage
become increasingly irrelevant in the is significant. And while Capitec has
world of always-on hyper-available access borne a lot of the brunt when it comes to
to digital banking. accessibility of digital services, the reality is
that most of the big banks in the country
Locally, the banking industry is a fast-paced have experienced system outages and
environment with new banks launching problems at one time or another.
soon. The message is clear; if your services
are not available to serve customers on the Becoming more intelligent
platforms and times they want, you will
see satisfaction levels drop and customers The newly arriving digital banks will
migrate to the newcomers. soon realise that trust is earned by
being always-on and available. They
Diversifying services have only one time to launch and
cannot afford downtime. Imagine the
The 2018 Budget Speech highlighted the financial implications, not to mention
support government is giving to expand the loss of customer confidence and
competitive, affordable banking services the damage to brand integrity they will
to those who previously did not have experience if their customers are unable
access to it. This is where digital banking to access services. Downtime is no longer
services delivered on mobile platforms acceptable, especially if your brand is
become vital. built on being digital first.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 81
INDUSTRY WATCH ///////////////////////////////////////////
the South African National Payment System mine the data they produce themselves,
(NPS), it invested in state-of-the-art data but also ensure there is an always-on
centres and disaster recovery strategies. digital experience for customers. The EY
Moreover, it modernised the way it protected annual FinTech Adoption Index Report
its data by taking an integrated approach to 2017 forecasts a 71% growth in fintech
its systems and services. For BankservAfrica, adoption for South Africa, with the
it is all about delivering continuous services country ranking third in future growth
and having round the clock availability. behind only China and India.
This should be a valuable lesson for other Globally, fintech adoption is predicted
financial institutions in the country. Hyper- to reach 52%. And according to the EY
availability requires the continuation of report, this adoption by digitally active
services in the event of a disaster as well consumers in emerging markets (that
as having the capabilities to intelligently include Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and
manage the data at one’s disposal. South Africa) average 46%, considerably
higher than the global average of 33%.
Improved insights
Looking ahead, fintechs and banks alike will
When it comes to intelligent data need to examine how they are prepared for
management, banks can use the information an always-on environment using a hyper-
at their disposal to better understand availability strategy that is reflective of the
customers and their preferences, optimise competitive environment in South Africa.
sales channel strategies to fit their current
Kate Mollett, Regional Manager for Africa
South at Veeam needs, provide improved service, and retain The new digital banks need to design
customers. Looking at business growth their systems from availability down
prospects, this data can be used to find ways instead of from the platform up.
for a more connected business environment to cross-sell to customers and deliver new Availability should no longer be seen
that fulfils all customer requirements. digital services and experiences. as part of the last mile, but rather the
starting point. Hyper-availability has
Take BankservAfrica as an example. To Of course, this is not without its challenges become the norm and everything else
maintain the reliability and robustness of as banks need to not only manage and is unacceptable. n
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
T A GREAT
he future of payments ecosystems She says there is a great demand in Africa
is taking shape in Africa as the for cross-border payments and a need
continent paves the way for
innovation that brings together retail,
to regulate the payment industry on the
continent while at the same time opening it
ENABLER FOR
banking, financial services and mobile up to include non-banks. PAYMENTS.
82 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// INDUSTRY WATCH
“Across the world, the payments industry is She adds that another big drive globally “We get to showcase all the things that
being compelled by regulation to become is for a single digital platform to provide happen here in Africa which can seem a
more inclusive,” said Marsh. “Retailers and multiple services using the same technology daunting place to others, but we are taking
fintech organisations, for example, are being and infrastructure. some of that to the global stage through
encouraged to provide services historically only partnerships and by exposing what we do
associated with banks. “The minute you can offer multiple services off locally. We are able to develop and improve
the same infrastructure you can reduce costs payment technologies in Africa and apply
“Traditional banking is expensive and dramatically. We have the ability to provide that expertise elsewhere in the world.” n
alternatives that keep costs down have to solutions to both individuals and businesses on
be found, particularly in developing and the same platform which means we can give a
emerging economies.” set of diverse services to both parties.”
BANKS
Marsh believes a combination of technology,
banking and retail on a single, consolidated
“It’s particularly relevant in African
economies. Take the example of an
ARE JUST
platform, would solve many challenges. informal trader; a single system that offers NOT AGILE
ENOUGH
them the ability to accept and make
“Already we are seeing a collaboration payments solves not only their payment
between some banks and innovative fintech
companies,” she said. “Banks are just not agile
challenges but also those of the supplier
and customers – everybody wins. The TO TACKLE
enough to tackle rapid tech development
and a large continent like Africa on their own.
single source – typically accessed by mobile
devices – helps build trust around payments
RAPID TECH
This is one of the reasons retailers have been
so successful in the remittances space – they
and innovation can be applied everywhere
those conditions exist.”
DEVELOP-
have outlets in places in remote regions that MENT AND
will never see a bank branch. All these parties
are fairly protective of their own space but
Marsh says there is lot to be learnt from
Africa around technology and innovation A LARGE
by contributing what they have – a wide
physical outlet network, technology and
and how to overcome difficult environments
and situations.
CONTINENT
payments systems, for example they can
collaborate. This way they reach more “Just as much as we consume the innovation
LIKE
people and reduce costs. The mobile
component is also a significant factor
and expertise we glean from global
colleagues, so we too we bring expertise to
AFRICA ON
because of its ubiquity on the continent.” the rest of the world,” she said. THEIR OWN.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 83
INDUSTRY WATCH
84 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// INTELLIGENT VERTICAL: TELECOMS
“
While 5G brings the promise of new revenue
opportunities for service providers, new infrastructure
and use cases will create new risks. According to Ali
Amer, Managing Director, Global Service Provider
Sales, Cisco Middle East and Africa, the security of the
SP network infrastructure, their business and their
customers will require a holistic approach. THE 5G NETWORK
WILL BRIDGE
WIRELESS
E
very new generation of carrier network access, digitisation has become a
technology has brought forward new
business and consumer user cases.
reality leading to emergence of Internet of
Things (IoT) and cloud is now mainstream.
AND WIRELINE
The release of 3G rolled in wireless mobile NETWORKS,
data communication, while the release of 4G
brought in IP wireless data communication.
The 5G network is an enabler for new set of
possibilities and capabilities. The growing FORCING A
Both have made eCommerce, video, gaming
and social media an every-day routine on
5G momentum promises new revenue
opportunities for service providers. To pursue
MAJOR NETWORK
smartphones and mobile phones. these new untapped opportunities, they will ARCHITECTURAL
In essence, 3G and 4G networks enabled
need to ramp up their network capabilities to
support future 5G services. CHANGE FROM
mobile broadband for business and
consumers. As part of this growth, the world As we move closer towards mainstream 5G
RADIO ACCESS
is now mobile and there is huge growth in adoption, mobile networks are increasingly TO CORE.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 85
INTELLIGENT VERTICAL: TELECOMS
86 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
/////////////////////////////////////////////////// t cht lk
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
SYSTEMS IN SUPPLY CHAIN
AND LOGISTICS
James Kopke, Implementation Manager, Trackmatic,
says that, while other industries have been enhancing
and streamlining their operations on functional and
“
profitable levels with the use of technology, the supply
chain has drifted behind.
T
he world of supply chain logistics has investing into ground-breaking technology
been living in the past. Even today, that can give them a competitive edge.
the biggest technology investment
from some South African supply chain One arena that has seen significant THE AIM OF GIS IS
companies has been the introduction of
Microsoft Excel.
investment and attention is in the field of
Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
TO ALLOW THIS
The volume of data at our fingertips from VAST AMOUNT
True, this software has been introduced into
operations to create a digital representation
modern day reporting and operations has
grown tremendously. The aim of GIS is OF DATA TO BE
of the department and its functionality, but
it’s hardly advanced nor is it cutting edge.
to allow this vast amount of data to be
visualised in an intuitive way so that it can
VISUALISED IN AN
However, as more organisations realise how be interpreted intelligently. It is essential INTUITIVE WAY
their processes in supply chain and logistics
are behind the curve, they are starting to
that there are tools that allow us to make
sense of this data. GIS allows for this visual SO THAT IT CAN
focus their energy and resources into new
and innovative technologies and solutions.
data to be shown at speed. It represents
what is really going on in operations in
BE INTERPRETED
They are recognising the importance of real time rather than delayed spreadsheet INTELLIGENTLY.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 87
t cht lk
reporting that doesn’t deliver either on to ensure that everyone understands the Customisation delivers results
immediacy or accuracy. GIS ties varies data technology and the value it provides. The
sources together into one usable view. warehouse staff, the delivery vehicle drivers, It is also important that implementation
the operations crew – these are the people skills must be customisable to fit certain
As this data is being shown in real time, it who are key to the success of any GIS business rules. This ensures the best fit and
allows for decision makers to make informed implementation. To make the process as the best possible results. To further ensure
and agile decisions on the spot. They can seamless as possible, the technology must be that any implementation fits the business,
solve problems, escalate issues, initiate as user friendly as possible. High barriers to ensure that your service provider can provide
changes, avoid risk and make proactive entry and complex systems won’t engender unique solutions that help you gain an
decisions designed to deliver better results. trust or engagement. The technology must accurate representation of data in both real
be targeted at the people on the ground and time and retrospectively.
“
The GIS challenge designed to empower them and their roles.
Another large, industry-wide problem in the
There is a huge opportunity for companies delivery process is the location accuracy of
targeting a GIS approach to optimise their customers and delivery points. Tools such
processes at every point along the supply as Google Maps have allowed for us to
chain. It has become increasingly evident minimise this problem to a certain degree,
that, as key personnel become more and but manually looking up addresses is a long
more competent in their understanding and cumbersome process that employees
of GIS, they can accurately coordinate WAREHOUSE don’t have time for. It is also a job done by
their company’s processes around this
technology. They are also able to target STAFF AND the Fleet Controller and Dispatch Manager
at the very last second before sending the
areas that are necessary for enhancement
or growth.
DELIVERY delivery vehicle out. This job needs to be
done further up the supply chain so that
VEHICLE DRIVERS the information provided to the person
The optimisation of processes and
operations is something that every company ARE THE ONES dispatching the vehicles is complete and
accurate. This is where having a reliable
strives towards. It is easy to say but it is
often difficult to define. Where should
WHO MAKE GIS team dedicated to data management and
control can play a pivotal role, ensuring that
the optimisations take place in order to SYSTEMS WORK. the data given is accurate, so the deliveries
achieve success? The answer lies in the are executed effectively.
organisation’s willingness to implement
a GIS strategy and their ability to see it If you can show these stakeholders that Many organisations don’t want the
through. Many companies are excited about their roles are essential to the business’s responsibility of ensuring the accurate
the idea of implementing this technology success in implementing new technology, geolocations of customers. Fortunately, there
to enhance operations but struggle with then you will break down the barriers and are service providers that can take on this
defining how they want to use it, what their drive engagement. They need to fully adopt role and this is of value. Outsourcing the skills
goals are and what they ultimately hope and utilise the systems so they become more and technology required means access to
to learn from the technology. Often there capable and add more value to their roles. the best and the latest of both. Any team
is quick buy-in from top management and
executives but significant resistance from the
people on the ground, the people who will be
using the systems.
88 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// t cht lk
dedicated exclusively to accurate location on where mistakes have been made and We have worked with companies such as
data is going to be ideally placed to handle what needs to be adjusted to show what Coricraft, Dial-a-Bed and Makro who rely
static delivery points and ad hoc locations. is accurate. This on-the-spot resolution heavily on high service level deliveries to
This will not only streamline and improve of problem locations helps drivers to do their customers. Our dedicated team allows
accuracy, but it will limit issues further down their jobs more effectively, immediately, us to use information captured at point
the line. and they look better when being judged of sale to effectively assign a geofence to
on their deliveries. The dispatch managers each customer while ensuring that we don’t
Primary and secondary distribution are or de-briefers also don’t need to question repeat the process for returning customers.
mostly concerned with static delivery points, driver actions.
for example, so a dedicated team can The biggest challenge is that almost all these
work with them to establish these points The last mile deliveries are to ad-hoc locations that haven’t
and represent them as geographically been captured before and so there is no
correct. Once there is a clear outline of Final or last mile deliveries have increasingly previous information to work with. Plotting
what is needed, then it is possible to plot become the target of logistics companies as the delivery point accurately is complex.
the delivery points by drawing geofences customers are more demanding. They want
around the locations. By using entering and to receive their ordered goods swiftly, within This is where a dedicated team and high-end
exiting geofences as a reference point for specific time limits and with accuracy of technology make a difference as the data
delivery vehicles arriving and customers location. Modern customers want to alleviate can be accurately captured and used to
departing, you now gain accurate data that the old challenges associated with shopping ensure accurate delivery.
reflects the delivery process and the timing by managing everything with just a few clicks
of its execution. of a button. Customers have also become This level of engagement with clients has
impatient when it comes to lead time – the helped us build very strong relationships
It is essential that the system is completely time spent waiting from the moment of based on mutual respect. By doing so, we
dynamic to allow for the change and order to receiving the products at their have built unique and specific Geographical
manipulation of geofences already created door. This demand for that level of service is Information Systems that fit customer
so that locations can be plotted accurately. daunting for the logistics industry. However, needs, while ensuring that the stakeholders
You can then take the feedback from the it is something that can be achieved and is required to perform the task of delivering
delivery vehicle drivers and the dispatch a real growth pillar for companies that are accurately and to a plan can do so to the
mangers to generate informative reports focusing on final mile deliveries. best of their abilities. n
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 89
TECH TALK
n t
i g e
e ll
int d from ats.
n m
ers
d bra tal for
i
use d dig
bord
ds
ce
n
fo c
ity- rint an
ans
t tr
et
ha
c u r
p
’ se le in
enc
llig
int
e
n t b
llige vaila
urity
ec
s
te a
‘in ia
n ew Med
e
Th chpin
Lyn
Re
g iste
rn
ow
at
w
FO
ww
L
LO
W
.in
US
tel
ON
lig
en
tci
so
.co
m
90 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
GET TO KNOW...
On the lighter side of things, we ask the
industry experts what makes them tick. . . .
Doros Hadjizenonos,
Regional Sales Director at Fortinet in
South Africa
What would you describe as your What style of management What do you think is the current hot
most memorable achievement? philosophy do you employ with technology talking point?
your current position?
Starting my own IT security distribution I think there is a lot of talk around Artificial
company from scratch. My company I believe in an open-door management Intelligence and Machine Learning. We are
represented many of the top security philosophy where I encourage team work, seeing these technologies built into our
vendors and I eventually sold it to one promote individual expression and focusing everyday lives.
of the largest security distributors of the team on the objectives of the company.
that time. It gave me a great sense of I believe that enabling employees to freely As a security vendor, we are incorporating
achievement to grow a business to the discuss concerns or suggestions with their these types of technologies into our
point where it was respected and valued by management fosters a cohesive team solutions to help protect our customers
the local security community. culture and results in better performance of against the advanced and complex attack
the individuals. methods used in today’s cyberwarfare.
“
What first made you think of a
career in technology?
“
like spending time with family and friends to We need to find new markets to sell our
product to and this requires out of the box
That’s a difficult question because I am thinking and getting the team to do tasks
happy where I am today. I do believe the that may be out of their comfort zone.
decisions I have made in my career has
brought me to my current role. I will however What advice would you offer
say that I did enjoy owning my own business somebody aspiring to obtain C-level
and I should have looked at doing that position in your industry?
I BELIEVE IN AN earlier on in my career to capitalise on the
Internet boom. In the security industry I would say that a
OPEN-DOOR Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
92 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
RESEARCH
ANALYSIS
EVENTS
WHITE
PAPERS
CASE
STUDIES
EUROPE
MIDDLE EAST
AFRICA
WWW.INTELLIGENTCIO.COM
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 93
FINAL WORD /
Leveraging
intelligent
technologies
to help Kenya
government
connect better
Robin Njiru, Director: General Business
at SAP East Africa, looks at how
leveraging intelligent technologies to
help the Kenyan government connect
better with citizens and build intelligent
public-sector enterprises.
P
ublic sector companies are not immune to the forces that
are reshaping organisations and industry sectors around the
world. These exponential forces put pressure on public sector
organisations to rethink the way they operate to meet the dynamic
needs of increasingly sophisticated connected citizens. UNESCO
states that 61% of the world's population will live in cities by 2030,
although World Bank figures indicate that this figure will be closer to
50% for Kenya.
94 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FINAL WORD
“
THE CHALLENGE
FOR KENYA’S
GOVERNMENT IS
CONNECTING ITS
VARIOUS URBAN
AND RURAL
AREAS IN A WAY
THAT ENABLES IT
TO ACHIEVE THE
AMBITIONS.
www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 95
FINAL WORD
96 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com
FINAL WORD
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Avaya presents solutions
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