Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 12 | Page 47

COUNTRY FOCUS: NIGERIA Adebayo Sanni, Managing Director, Oracle Nigeria, outlines the trends and challenges affecting the ICT landscape and the future of digital transformation within the region. ////////////////// Nigeria 2018: The state of cloud adoption O ver the past few years Nigeria has undergone rapid and significant growth and much of this has been in the technology arena, built on the foundations of innovation and change and pushed by the challenges of economic volatility and market instability. The challenge that every country faces right now, not just Nigeria, is in creating a cloud-based infrastructure that’s capable of capturing the potential of technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), automation and robotics. In a recent report released by PwC on IoT, the benefits include: real time analytics for improved decisions and cost reductions, enhanced www.intelligentcio.com “ NIGERIA IS DEFINITELY CLOUD READY, BUT THERE ARE STILL SOME CHALLENGES THAT NEED TO BE OVERCOME. productivity, better customer service, effective communications, and new revenue streams. Without access to the backbone of IoT – cloud – and its central nervous system – connectivity – the enterprise and country loses ground to those that do. Business and government have to remain relevant and competitive if they wish to participate on the global stage, and the adoption of cloud and the technologies that surround it are instrumental. As an example, the Nigerian government has prioritised the need for transparency in both public and private sectors, and one of the technologies set to address these issues is very likely to be blockchain. Blockchain-based solutions can INTELLIGENTCIO 47