COUNTRY FOCUS: NIGERIA
As the most populated country in
Africa, Nigeria must ensure that it is at
the cutting edge of technology. Rowen
Grierson, Regional Director West,
East and Central Africa at Nutanix,
tells Intelligent CIO how the country is
evolving and the work the company is
doing there.
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How the Nigerian tech
scene is evolving
C
Can you explain the work that you
do in Nigeria?
I’m the Regional Director for West, East
and Central Africa responsible for building
Nutanix’s strategy and go to market across
these regions. This includes identifying new
growth opportunities, understanding the
market dynamic, matching partners to end
users and creating a broader understanding
of Nutanix and our unique brand of
hyperconvergence and virtualisation among
customers in these areas.
Where do you see the technology
landscape in Nigeria and how has
it changed?
The Nigerian technology landscape is
evolving rapidly, it is not just an enterprise
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market demanding an enterprise solution
for a business need, we are also starting to
see small businesses looking to leverage
what can be deemed tradition or legacy
computing technologies for their business
functions. At the same time, large business is
looking to scale up and innovate.
That said, there is however a stall or lag
among customers in their ability to make
use of or leverage emerging technology for
true innovation. But that is by no fault of the
customer. It is a problem that the IT industry
itself is creating as it they aren’t connecting
technology priorities to business outcomes
as effectively as they should.
As a technology vendor, there is an
opportunity for us. The gaps that many
OEMs and software companies are creating
by failing to connect these priorities
opens up the market for companies who
are able to create the link between
technology and business.
As with much of Africa, companies too often
see them as the last part of the revenue link
– so instead of prioritising the region (like we
do at Nutanix), many customers are fumbling
along trying to find the answers themselves.
The market is hungry though and they want
innovation. They want the cloud, they want
to be secure and they want to mobilise their
data assets. Personally, I am working with
my customers and partners on the ground to
change the perception of IT from a negative
perception to a positive one – where
we evangelise our messaging and value
proposition into the market.
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