#WEFAfrica17: BT Group banks on Africa's future

The logo for the British Telecom group is seen outside of offices in the City of London, Britain

The logo for the British Telecom group is seen outside of offices in the City of London, Britain

Published May 5, 2017

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Durban - Kevin Taylor, the president for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa at BT Group, on Thursday, on the sidelines of WEF Africa 2017 spoke about Africa’s bright future and what would enable Africa to leapfrog into the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Two important factors that he highlighted included time and people.

Taylor said one needed to invest the right amount of time to consider the right policies, driven by the right people.

He said this approach had enabled the sustained growth of the South East Asian economies, with policies that also eradicated barriers, which had made it difficult for entrepreneurs to thrive.

Following this approach, Taylor believes that the growth of digital businesses would be possible as well as the creation of digital customers that drive deeper and richer interactions for businesses inside and outside Africa.

He said that BT had invested the right amount of time in Africa to allow the provision of sustained digital innovation in the long term.

Time

Taylor emphasised the fact

that enough time should be spent investing the right amount of time to consider

the right policies driven by the right people. He highlighted that this has

enabled the sustained growth of the South East Asian economies. These policies

include the eradication of barriers that make it difficult for entrepreneurs to

thrive.

By doing this he believes

that the (1) growth of genuine digital businesses which increase business

agility and innovation through will be possible and also the (2) creation of

digital customers that drive deeper and richer interactions for businesses

inside and outside the region.

BT has invested the right

amount of time in Africa to allow the provision of sustained digital innovation

for the long term. BT’s global experience and market leader position,

contributes to the growth of the markets where they operate in, as it does in

Africa.

This is seen in what BT

has done on the ground particularly in the research and development (R&D)

space. Here are just a few examples:

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BT has invested

more than £470 million in R&D last year.

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Currently BT

holds more than 4,700 patents

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It has more than 1300

scientists in 8 development centres

People

According to Taylor,

people are another critical part in enabling Africa into the 4th Industrial

Age. He therefore suggested that investing in people for the long term is

integral to sustained economic growth and regional partnerships.

He suggested that

considering policy reforms and enabling people in the region to obtain access

to technology, markets, and resources it will accelerate the digitalisation of

the work force so there will be world class Digital Employees to take on the

needs of other regions digital transformation needs.

In this regard, BT has led

by example through investing in its own 250 employees in the region and also by

ensuring that they are part of the digital revolution. BT views digital

transformation as empowering people, customers, businesses and employees.

Example: Parking in Amsterdam

Until recently,

parking attendants had a tough time patrolling the streets of Amsterdam. They’d

meet aggressive – sometimes violent – reactions from ticketed drivers. That put

a serious strain on their health, resulting in high absenteeism.

Now, thanks to

digital technology, traffic wardens in Amsterdam don’t have to stalk the

sidewalks anymore. Instead, they ride vehicles with SCANaCAR systems from

ScanAuto, which monitor parked cars, taking up to 800 digital images a second.

The digital images are encrypted and sent to Egis for analysis.

All of that data

handling uses BT’s infrastructure.

Jan Lukkien, IT

manager at Egis Parking Services, explains; “Using the BT infrastructure, our

software looks up the licence plate on Egis and government databases to check

if the owner has the correct parking permit for the zone the vehicle is in.”

Originally managed

through a city-owned entity, Amsterdam was keen to get greater efficiency by

outsourcing the operation. The bid winner was French engineering group, Egis.

An IT service provider reselection process run by Egis, resulted in the

reappointment of BT.

BT was already

engaged, but that didn’t make it an automatic choice. Against other suppliers,

it was able to demonstrate that the BT Compute hosting platform in Amsterdam

was easily up to the task.

“We needed a stable

IT platform because we run a virtually 24/7 operation, scanning about 40

million licence plates a year”, Jan Lukkien adds.

Leonard Knijff,

business development manager with BT in the Netherlands, says; “The tailored

solution we’ve build for Egis is extremely reliable and will help Egis market

its end-to-end parking solution to other cities in The Netherlands, and

elsewhere around the globe.”

African cities can

also benefit from such a technology as they are also experiencing the same

challenges.

BUSINESS REPORT

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