Digitalisation to drive govt’s operational excellence – Avaya MD

The Managing Director, Africa,  Avaya, Mr. Hatem Hariri, on Monday said that governments and enterprises around the globe were looking at digitisation strategies to drive operational excellence, greater competitive

differentiation, customer and citizen satisfaction, and providing them with a more connected experience.

He said that with the majority of Africa’s population under 24 years of age, and the World Bank Group predicting the continent’s population will reach 2.8 billion by 2060 – more than a quarter of all people on earth – digital transformation was key to Africa’s successful future.

He said, “Governments want to be more accessible to their citizens – that means communication, which is where we help deliver smart government, making life easier for citizens by working in partnership with the government organisations to transform everything to digital. Client-tailored and outcomes-focused digital and smart services elevate organisations of every scale and accelerate growth through their digital journeys.

“While Africa’s predominantly young, tech-savvy population means awareness of the so-called ‘third platform’ technologies – big data and analytics, cloud, social and mobile – is high, adoption is still uneven, given the diverse nature of the market. However, it very much depends on the country,” Hariri said.

According to him, some countries have good bandwidth, good infrastructure and good education, and are therefore very advanced in their adoption of new technology.

“If you look at countries like South Africa, Morocco and Algeria, our cloud value proposition is gaining tremendous traction, how we integrate video as a service, unified communications and so on.

“Many countries here have very advanced technology solutions that are ahead of other regions – for instance, we have seen the use of mobile phones to conduct banking transactions being pioneered in sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

The Avaya managing director said that other countries might appear left behind in technology adoption but were catching up fast as the infrastructure developed.

“On a positive note, African countries have all opened the market for service providers to come in, so each country has several service providers competing to provide better service, and a better customer experience.

“Africa is fertile a land, whatever you put into it will bear fruit. We are investing more and more in the region; we are increasingly looking at what other countries we can invest in because of the potential here. Africa is the hidden jewel of the world that is set to become the shining jewel. We are in Africa to stay and will participate in and contribute to the continent’s growth,” he said.

He added that Avaya had had a presence in Africa since its inception, saying that like other companies, it made the decision to step up its investment in the region after the global recession as part of a greater focus on global growth markets.