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Mark Walker is Associate Vice President , Sub-Saharan Africa at IDC .
Jon Tullett is Research Manager for IT services at IDC South Africa .
George Kalebaila is Senior Research Manager for Telecom at IDC South Africa . critical workloads , as well as integration and management . They should also reevaluate contracts and relationships with software providers to ensure that they meet their business requirements .
IDC pointed out that 2016 was also a tough year for information security , with the prevalence of massive data leaks , ransomware , and IoT malware compounded by a shortage of IT security skills .
“ We believe 2017 will be worse in every aspect of information security ,” says Tullett . “ We expect continued exposure for South African businesses to major cybercrime syndicates , both directly and indirectly .”
IDC also believes 2017 will see at least one high-profile public breach in South Africa , which is likely to be a data leak within the public sector , although it cannot rule out malware or ransomware attack in retail or healthcare .
However , IDC expects that South Africa will contribute several new technologies aimed thwarting attacks , particularly in relation to IoT applications .
George Kalebaila , Senior Research Manager for Telecommunications at IDC South Africa , says until now most of the IoT applications have been cellular based and mainly under the domain of traditional mobile operators . “ In 2017 , we will start seeing several smaller nonmobile operators deploy low-power WAN IoT networks to provide low-cost IoT applications .”
IDC expects that most of these implementations will be LoRA based rather than SigFox . IoT will remain a preserve of mobile operators . Post 2017 , IDC expects to see an acceleration of IoT deployments in other African countries using similar business models .
LPWAN IoT network implementations will slowly start pushing IoT into the limelight away from traditional M2M applications and lower the barrier to entry in the market , reduce the cost of connectivity , and contribute to the rapid growth of connected devices .
IDC also forecasts the developer community taking more interest in developing localised IoT solutions . Once these solutions find their way into the market , this will also drive IoT adoption .
Kalebaila says mobility is becoming one of the key drivers of digital transformation as customer engagements and transactions move to digital platforms .
Financial services will continue to lead the adoption of mobility solutions mainly due to the inherent benefits and cost savings from the reduction in branch footprint and improving customer experience . However , securing data and data recovery have become more important than securing devices as data becomes the new capital in the digital economy .
“ In 2017 , near field communication will start pushing mobile payments to the fore , but will still remain on the peripheral and will be niche ,” says Kalebaila . “ 5G curiosity and hype from mobile operators and vendors will lead to 5G becoming part of enterprise executive discussions .”
Organisations should plan for mobile applications as a natural part of all workflows in the organisation . The focus should move to mobile application development platforms as a critical tool and security must be integrated across the mobile application development lifecycle . Organisations should also develop an intermediate understanding of 5G elements and what they mean in a commercial setting .
Tullett believes that South African companies will increase their investment in analytics and big data in 2017 . While the primary investment will remain limited to large enterprises , he says South African companies are building foundation technologies for cognitive computing , whether it is part of the long-term strategy or not .
Behavioral analysis and prediction will become mainstream in 2017 , directly driving product development in banking , financial services , and insurance in particular . In 2017 , analytics will be the primary resource responsible for thwarting major criminal incidents .
When machine learning does arrive in the country , it will do so rapidly , with mature , proven technologies ready to deploy by then and ready to take advantage of aligning projects towards that future . Tullett ’ s advice to organisations in South Africa is to continue to invest in analytics and data processing capabilities . www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO
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