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.