Month: November 2021

Vodacom Business expands Cloud Connect offering to support business needs across Africa

The expansion of Africa’s digital economy is gaining momentum, with the potential to reach US$180 billion by 2025, about 5% of the continent’s gross domestic product, according to a recent report released by the International Finance Corporation and Google. To meet the increasing demand for digital services in Africa, Vodacom Business Africa has expanded its Cloud Connect offering across the continent.

Cloud Connect provides businesses with a secure, private, high performance, high availability connection to leading public cloud service providers, including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.

“Africa is experiencing a boom in digitalisation. Combined with the disruptions of COVID-19, this is driving many organisations on the continent to seek out the benefits of cloud services. Our Cloud Connect services keep businesses securely connected while providing them with operational agility and access to essential data and software applications to enhance their performance now and into the future,” says Wale Odeyemi, Executive Head of Strategic Marketing at Vodacom Business Africa.

Meeting the needs of businesses today
As the pandemic has shown, businesses need to be able to adapt to market changes, and with speed, to avoid disruptions to continuity. To help with business agility, Cloud Connect clients are able to experience the same fast switch-on flexibility of public cloud with their own WAN/network. Bandwidth choice ranges from 50Mb to 1G depending on the cloud service provider, so clients can scale network capacity to maintain performance as business needs change.

The high-performance connectivity of Cloud Connect enables periodic data migration and replication for continuity, disaster recovery and retention. The low latency connectivity is also able to support key business applications, including storage, big data, development and interactive applications, fast and in a scalable manner. For example, large data sets are quickly transferable for big data computing applications, and huge media files are streamed in real-time to and from the cloud.

In addition, the consistent performance and reliability of Cloud Connect improves application response times, so businesses can use the cloud as an extension of their data centres. High availability with dual diverse connections to cloud data centres ensures redundancy and protection in the event of a network failure.

Cloud Connect is a managed service, giving businesses more time to focus on important activities, and IT resources can be utilised more effectively, in an organisation.

How does Cloud Connect work?
Vodacom Business Africa’s Cloud Connect offers a secure, private connection without the need to redesign existing large corporate networks or experience the traditional delay of dedicated connections to cloud provider data centres. Cloud Connect works seamlessly alongside the IP-VPN and other fixed connectivity products to give organisations a total ‘Ready Network’ solution.

The service directly integrates into the branch sites of a business and is not reliant on the internet. The cloud locations are integrated into the private WAN, effectively seen as another site on the IP-VPN. Different locations in the IP-VPN then share the connectivity to access resources in the cloud.

“We are experiencing an exciting transformational period in the enterprise landscape in Africa. As a leading connectivity provider on the continent, Vodacom Business Africa remains committed in supporting businesses to take advantage of our continent’s growing digital economy and recognise real return on investment on cloud technology. To this end, we continue to leverage our strategic partner networks to provide innovative products and services, affordably, seamlessly and securely to our clients,” concludes Odeyemi.

www.vodacombusiness.co.za

[Column] Simon Ngunjiri: The public cloud market is getting bigger in Africa

Despite the growth of cloud over the past decade, for most organizations, only 20 per cent of workloads have made their way to the public cloud according to an IBM report. 

Public cloud is the most popular model of cloud computing where computing services and infrastructure are managed by a third-party provider and shared with multiple organizations using the public Internet. It makes computing resources available to anyone for purchase. 

Globally public cloud services market is forecast to grow 6.3 per cent in 2020 to a total $257.9 billion, up from $242.7 billion in 2019, according to Gartner, Inc., Public cloud services serve as the one bright spot in the outlook for IT spending in 2020.

Africa currently accounts for less than 1% of the global public cloud services revenue according to a Xalam report despite accounting for 5% of the world’s GDP and 17% of its population. However, the report notes that its capacity has doubled in the past three years. Despite this, Winston Ritson, the Group Head for Cloud Services at  Liquid Intelligent Technologies says there’s always a but.

‘Africa does lag as one would expect as we are still talking about a Cloud penetration rate of around 15%, but a forecasted public growth rate of between 17 and 20 CAGR’’ he says. 

Public Cloud has its advantages, including almost infinite scalability and an unbeatable breadth of independent service vendor (ISV) offerings. Another key benefit is an extremely flexible pricing structure that helps businesses, especially the small and medium-size, to tightly control their costs by paying for the infrastructure only based on their needs.

The establishment of cloud data centres has positioned a number of companies as public cloud providers offering cloud services on the continent. On Monday, Africa Data Centres officially opened its new 10MW data centre facility in Lagos, Nigeria. The new facility, the company says, will pave the way for Africa Data Centres hyperscale customers to deploy digitisation solutions to West Africa. 

This latest announcement follows hard on the heels of Africa Data Centres recently announced, major data centre expansion plans that will see the company building hyperscale data centres throughout Africa. 

Oracle also announced that its launching a series of new cloud regions using Orange’s infrastructure in Senegal and Ivory Coast. In October,  the company announced that it has chosen Johannesburg as the site of its first African data centre.

The shift to public cloud computing is the dominant trend in the industry and it’s only going to get bigger going forward. Mainstream enterprise and government use – represented as pragmatists and conservatives in the above chart – now accept public cloud computing as a viable choice: capable, secure, and cost-effective. 

Simon Ngunjiri Muraya is Google Cloud Architect at  Incentro Africa.

Cloudmania targets 13 African countries with new offerings

Cloudmania, an exclusive provider of Cloud Partner Programmes in Africa, has opened its doors in 13 countries across the continent. The indirect provider focuses on partner building and enablement by giving resellers the ability to resell superior solutions by leveraging Cloudmania.

According to Winston Ritson, Chief Business Officer, Cloudmania, “We understand the growing need for cloud services and its vital role to ensure seamless collaboration between employees. Our extensive expertise will ensure that you are provided with the appropriate tools to assist your customers on their cloud migration journeys. Just as customers have transformed their business, partners have to transform and rely on a partner invested in their business “

Cloudmania aims to help businesses keep track of their data, performance and customers, and creates a single-pane view of the entire network. In addition, the programme is designed to increase workflow efficiency, lower operational costs, and most importantly, develop partnerships with resellers. 

Cloudmania will assist partners’ profitability by supporting them with marketing, training and specialist advice. Using the programme’s communication channels, the team will source qualified and unqualified leads to help partners build their businesses. The offering is backed by superior world-class technology, equipping a reseller’s business with innovative cloud technology, enabling them to offer exceptional customer solutions.

All resellers will have access to a suite of solutions tailored to suit customers’ needs. The products include Microsoft 365, One Voice – a unified voice solution, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Azure in a box, Cyber Security, cloud connectivity, cloud infrastructure, Google workspace, Windows virtual desktop and Basekit site builder.

Cloudmania will assist in boosting the performance of a reseller offering while ensuring affordability, scalability, improving uptime, availability and provide seamless integration.

 The offerings are supported by partner development managers in each country, a panel of experts and focused training programmes. Resellers engaging with the Cloudmania will also benefit from in-country billing in specific territories and reseller discounts.

Cloudmania and its suite of offerings is currently available in South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Cameroon, Botswana and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

www.liquid.tech

[Kenya] Microsoft supports financial services providers with tailored Cloud solutions

Microsoft has reaffirmed its commitment to assisting Kenyan financial services providers in their digital transformation by providing specialized Cloud solutions.

The commitment is made considering the current operating environment, which has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as a recent study by the African Financial Industry Barometer. The study found that nearly 72 percent of banks have already launched digitalisation programs as a priority for the coming year. 

However, the majority of those polled believe their digital maturity is still in its early stages; these FSPs should prioritize change as a business priority.

Speaking during a virtual digital transformation roundtable for the financial services industry (FSI) today, Hoda Younan, Marketing and Operations Director for Microsoft Middle East and Africa, unpacked Microsoft’s Digital Transformation journey to accelerate meaningful transformation for Kenya’s financial services providers (FSPs).

“Microsoft is uniquely placed to empower Africa’s FSPs by bringing together existing and new industry capabilities to deliver a more seamless, customised cloud-based experience,” said Younan. “With deep security and compliance built in to meet the needs of the FSI, the proposed digital transformation roadmap future-proofs FSPs as they continue to manage unprecedented risks and grow rapidly with innovative business models.” 

With this targeted solution, Microsoft has already helped many FSPs successfully embrace change and unlock new value creation on their digital transformation journey.

Speaking at the event, Kendi Ntwiga, Country Manager for Microsoft Kenya said there are several factors driving this urgency to digitise. “First, we’ve seen changes in employee work patterns that have shaped a hybrid workforce, as well as the increasingly sophisticated customer expectations for a 24-hour-a-day service at their fingertips with the same level of security as a physical vault,” she explained. 

A huge focus is to help FSPs combat financial crime. Financial institutions must be able to innovate at the rate of financial crime to reduce operational costs while protecting the organisation and its customers against losses and criminal activity. As such, users can employ the cloud’s enhanced data analytics to identify outliers faster to respond to the newest criminal topologies, and to conduct ongoing risk scoring. Microsoft’s solution also helps FSPs enhance fraud-detection systems to add contextual information that will reduce false-positive alerts.  

The other capability enabled benefit speaks to the need to modernise core banking systems and operations, such as payments, to boost customer experiences in an increasingly digitised data-driven economy. In streamlining operations and infrastructure, this benefit also helps FSPs save on costs and increase real-time business agility.

Understanding the driving factors to digitise gives context to the way that a trusted, tailored solution for Financial Services can deliver unique benefits to enhance competitiveness. “It’s clear that any FSP looking to modernise, automate, streamline, and secure processes and operations need look no further than a robust cloud-based ecosystem to achieve it,” concludes Younan.

www.microsoft.com

Google Cloud announced Google Distributed Cloud during Google Next ‘21 virtual event

What does this mean?

In simple layman’s terms a customer can now have some Google Cloud services running some certified hardware and software either in their data centers with full autonomy or colocation data centers.

Google Cloud’s simplified preferred definition of Google Distributed Cloud, is a portfolio of solutions consisting of hardware and software that extend Google Cloud infrastructure to the edge and into your data centers.

Where can Google Distributed Cloud be deployed to?

1. Google’s network edge – Allowing customers to leverage over 140+ Google network edge locations around the world.

2. Operator edge – Enabling customers to take advantage of an operator’s edge network and benefit from 5G/LTE services offered by our leading communication service provider (CSP) partners. The operator edge is optimized to support low-latency use cases, running edge applications with stringent latency and bandwidth requirements. 

3. Customer edge – Supporting customer-owned edge or remote locations such as retail stores, factory floors, or branch offices, which require localized compute and processing directly in the edge locations.

4. Customer data centers – Supporting customer-owned data centers and colocation facilities to address strict data security and privacy requirements, and to modernize on-premises deployments while meeting regulatory compliance.

What Google Cloud services are running on Google Distributed Cloud?

Google Distributed Cloud is enabled by Anthos. It helps you to build and run applications on GKE clusters and virtual machines anywhere with a Cloud-backed control plane for consistent management at scale.

Compute Services:

●  Compute Instances

●  Serverless Containers

●  Kubernetes Engine

●  Serverless Functions

Storage Services:

● Object Storage

● Istio Service Mesh

Continuous Integration Services:

●  Build (from Cloud Build)

●   Deploy (from Cloud Deploy)

●  Artifact Registry

Developer Tools:

●  IDE plugins

●  Cloud SDK

APIs Services:

● API Gateway

● Apache Kafka (Partner-provided services)

● Kubernetes Engine

●  Serverless Functions

Security Services:

●   Key Management Service

●   HashiCorp Vault (Partner-provided services)

●  Identity Aware Proxy

Data and Analytics Services:

●   PostgreSQL Database

●   Elasticsearch Service (Partner-provided services)

●   MongoDB Database (Partner-provided services)

●    Redis Data Store (Partner-provided services)

●   Event Streaming

●   Data Lake Storage

AI/ML Services:

● Speech-to-Text

●  Language Translation

●  Machine Learning Platform

●   Video Content Analysis

●   Text-to-Speech

●   Image Insights

Observability Services:

●  Loggin

●   Prometheus (Partner-provided services)

●  Grafana (Partner-provided services)

●   Splunk (Partner-provided services)

Will Google Distributed Cloud make management of the hardware and software harder for me and my organization?

No. Google Distributed Cloud is a fully-managed integrated hardware and software solution, meaning you don’t have to worry about the underlying infrastructure and can focus on your application and business initiatives. Google Cloud aims to simplify operations leveraging Google’s expertise and track record in areas like skill deployment fleet management and site reliability engineering. This allows you to focus on your business priorities and leave the complexities to Google Cloud.

Wil this meet our data sovereignty needs?

Yes. Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) enables customers to have a full spectrum of control.

Data Sovereignty (Keep data within the sovereign cloud): Data is allocated on your premise and under the control; No data transferred outside of your isolated environment.

Operational Sovereignty (Fully control your own platform): Operated independently of Google Cloud and global networks.Can be operated by customer directly or a trusted partner, on dedicated networks and with local control plane.

Software Sovereignty (Cloud as a trusted local service): Google Cloud’s open core and open API helps reduce vendor risk and enable operational and software continuity even in black swan events. The benefits of cloud are delivered locally.

Will I need to have my Google Distributed Cloud on premise connected to Google Cloud?

No. Google Distributed Cloud includes a hosted mode to run sensitive workloads. Hosted mode helps you meet sovereignty needs by addressing data residency with strict security and privacy requirements all while providing you with a way to modernize on-premise deployments. Customers can manage this directly or host through a designated and trusted partner. This will not require connectivity to Google Cloud at any time to manage infrastructure and uses a local control plane for operations. Upgrades and patches are offered by Google and verified by the trusted partner.

References

How to extend Google Cloud services with Google Distributed Cloud – Hosted Mode

Driving transformation with Google’s Distributed Cloud

With over 10 years of proven expertise in technical consultation and related services, Incentro, the only Google Premier Partner in East, West and Central Africa has become the go-to partner for successful business transformation in the continent.

From Enterprise Collaboration, Cloud Migration and Smart Application Development, we proudly serve over 26 countries in Africa and are growing. Whatever your ambition is, we’ll aim for maximum impact. We dive deep into your organization, challenge your plans, build solutions swiftly and make sure they work.

Matthew Munyiri is the Online Marketeer at Incentro Africa. He is an ambassador for cloud and consumer technology and how it pertains to increased efficiency and productivity in the workplace. Want to know more? Get in contact with Matthew – matthew.munyiri@incentro.com.

www.incentro.com

cloud.google.com

[Africa Cloud Review] Simon Ngunjiri: Cloud is the centrepiece of new digital experiences for African businesses

Cloud technology has helped businesses in sub-Saharan Africa manage the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, something we have extensively spoken about in a previous column. When the pandemic hit, most businesses turned to the cloud to improve operational efficiency.

The pandemic changed the way we work, with businesses having to migrate to the cloud to enable collaborative remote- or hybrid-work environments. 

Analysts predicted more and more businesses will be moving to the cloud as businesses and their employees worldwide continue to face tremendous challenges in maintaining business continuity.

Incentro Africa CEO Dennis De Weerd even confirmed this in a previous interview with Africa Business Communities which was also published here on TechTrendsKE. ‘’ Especially now the pandemic we’ve seen a major uptake in the use of cloud-based solutions, by even the most traditional companies,’’ he said.

The cloud migration market is projected to grow further to reach $1,285 million by 2027 from $799 million in 2020, at a CAGR of 11.1% according to a new report by Market Insights.  The report notes that the growing demand for Cloud Migration Services for industrial applications will accelerate huge market growth. 

Revenue from organizations’ pursuit of a cloud strategy will also surge by $66 billion in 2022 — from $408 billion in 2021 to $474 billion according to Gartner. And within a few years, cloud revenue will eclipse its non-cloud counterparts, the research firm predicts.

Gartner says cloud will be the centrepiece of new digital experiences.

“There is no business strategy without a cloud strategy,” says Milind Govekar, distinguished vice president at Gartner.

“The adoption and interest in public cloud continues unabated as organizations pursue a “cloud first” policy for onboarding new workloads. Cloud has enabled new digital experiences such as mobile payment systems where banks have invested in startups, energy companies using cloud to improve their customers’ retail experiences or car companies launching new personalization services for customer’s safety and infotainment.”

In the news

Last week, Liquid Intelligent Technologies launched OneVoice for Cloud PBX offering in six key African markets. Cloud infrastructure provider and VMware Principal Partner, Routed, also appointed Axiz Cloud Technologies as a VMware cloud distribution partner.

Africa Data Centres (ADC) announced plans for two more data centers in Nairobi, Kenya.

The company said it had begun the development of a second data center of up to 20MW of IT load and is securing land for a third facility. ADC said the two projects amount to an investment of $200 million.

Simon Ngunjiri Muraya is Google Cloud Architect at  Incentro Africa.

Routed appoints Axiz Cloud Technologies to boost South Africa’s cloud market

Cloud infrastructure provider and VMware Principal Partner, Routed, has appointed Axiz Cloud Technologies as a VMware cloud distribution partner.

Andrew Cruise, MD, Routed, says that as a vendor neutral infrastructure provider, Routed has always planned to build a resilient and robust channel. He says the Axiz appointment is not only strategic, but necessary to further enhance a local channel focused on the development of cloud in South Africa.

“We are delighted to be working more closely with Axiz Cloud Technologies. This partnership is key to the success of VMware Cloud uptake and we are excited to work with the local team to build out even more VMware-inspired cloud platforms. Their legacy in distribution is a key advantage in terms of technical ability and reach within the local channel. Our distribution agreement with them will also help ensure that Managed Service Providers (MSP) are given the necessary support and technical assistance when implementing cloud strategies,” says Cruise.

He says that the cloud opportunity is massive across the African continent due to digital transformation and the related cloud/IT spend.  Hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic, Cruise says that Routed anticipates further interest and growth in cloud adoption.

 Research by African Cloud Market 2021, states that cloud-based office applications are increasingly vital components of the African modern workplace. The rise of the cloud in the African market ostensibly goes beyond basic office applications. From banks looking to accelerate the rollout of new applications to startups disrupting entire industries with innovative, cloud-powered models, cloud services are transforming Africa’s productive capacity and emerging as one of the most essential pillars of Africa’s digital transformation.

According to Cruise this paints a picture of why having a robust and agile channel is so important. “This agreement is one way in which to address the growing cloud requirement. In simple terms, we need MSPs who can manage the implementation and rollout of cloud and Axiz Cloud Technologies, as one of the leading distributors, has the depth and breadth to do this successfully.”

He says that Axiz Cloud Technologies will offer the full suite of VMware Cloud solutions offered by Routed, which is the most complete VMware-based cloud infrastructure deployment available locally. Routed’s cloud and infrastructure products address all Enterprise cloud platform, recovery solutions and modern application requirements of business.

The role Routed plays within the VMware cloud ecosystem is key says Cruise. They are not only the first VMware Cloud Verified partner in Africa, but also boast Principal Partner Status, which is the highest tiered recognition within the VMware Partner Connect programme. In addition, Routed is  the first VMware DRaaS Certified Partner in Africa: “This enables us to provide Axiz Cloud Technologies with immense support as well as access to our technical experts, and guidance in terms of better understanding the VMware solutions and services.”

Willie Jansen van Rensburg, executive, Axiz Cloud Technologies, says that this appointment is key to the business’ future as a cloud distributor and solution provider: “We are excited to further develop our role in the local cloud ecosystem. Routed is undoubtedly a market-leading VMware specialist and we are confident that together we can increase VMware’s cloud market share, while developing local skills too.”

www.routed.co.za

www.axizcloud.com

[Africa Cloud Review] Simon Ngunjiri: Cloud is essential to modern-day manufacturing

The manufacturing sector in Africa plays a significant role in driving economic growth, job creation, and lifting people out of poverty. When the pandemic hit, the sector, just like all the other sectors recorded a massive decline in output. Manufacturers decided to prioritise cost reduction while at the same time increasing revenue.

With the Fourth Industrial Revolution underway, manufacturers as Francis Wainaina, Senior Product Manager at SEACOM East Africa said in a recent column are being pushed to embrace technological development – or risk losing business to more technologically advanced competitors.

One of these technologies is the cloud. Cloud technologies as Francis noted ‘’offer manufacturers a solution to this, providing speed, agility, cost savings, and innovation advantages that could accelerate the recovery of the manufacturing sector’’

Cloud has an increasing use in manufacturing business operations and production processes. In fact, as far as 2017, 25% of finished product inputs were made using some type of digital technology, such as cloud computing.

Efficient manufacturing Francis notes is about accomplishing more with fewer resources without compromising on quality.

‘’It is also about effectively managing communication between suppliers and distributors, streamlining production schedules through real-time and insight-driven monitoring, and minimising operational costs,’’ he says.

‘’Cloud technologies play directly into all of this, and while some of these capabilities are possible with on-premise systems, cloud-based systems are much faster and more cost-effective to roll out, enable easier customisation and flexibility, allow for scalability, and open the door for innovation’’ he adds.

Relying on the industrial cloud drastically reduces the cost of maintaining on-premise storage and computing resources by half.

According to an article published on Forbes,cloud-based systems are faster to roll out than traditional systems, making it easier for manufacturers to keep up with new developments. They are also easier to customize and scale, and they offer the potential to increase adoption rates across resellers.

The cloud indeed offers manufacturers scalability, operational efficiency, application and partner integration, data storage, management, analytics and enhanced security. At the most foundational level, P van Loggerenberg, Chief Technology Officer, SYSPRO notes that cloud computing influences how manufacturers manage their operations, from ERP and financial management to data analytics and workforce training.

Cloud has become a pillar of the modern business world, and the manufacturing sector is certainly no exception. To accelerate the growth of the continent’s economy through improved manufacturing capabilities, we need to follow international trends and take advantage of all the opportunities that cloud has to offer.

Simon Ngunjiri Muraya is Google Cloud Architect at  Incentro Africa.

afriQloud and whitesky.cloud have put the foundation in place for a federated EMEA cloud infrastructure

In partnership with the European company whitesky.cloud, afriQloud has designed a completely new architecture for affordable and local cloud services.

In the ever-expanding international cloud market, the partners from both the African and European continent introduce a completely new and compelling value proposition to the cloud industry. Thanks to their white-labelled platform, any organisation can become a Virtual Cloud Operator (VCO) offering cloud infrastructure through their own brand.

Extensive research identified the most important pain points channel partners and end users experience with the large and dominant hyperscalers. One of the most important pain points is the issue of data sovereignty. The partners decided to use principles well-known in the world of telecom (wholesale and roaming) to design a scalable and federated global cloud grid in order to resolve this and other pain points 

“Distributed cloud capacity provides excellent opportunities for African organisations as well as international companies seeking to bring their digital services to the African continent,” explains Eric Mugerwa, Founding Partner and CTO of afriQloud.

Any interested party (telecom operators, system integrators, managed service providers, software developers, etc.) can now easily become a Virtual Cloud Operator (VCO). Both afriQloud and whitesky.cloud provide a fully managed solution, including a certified training programme which enables channel partners to sell and deliver cloud capacity on both continents.

“It’s exciting for us to be part of this solution, which provides an interesting opportunity for channel partners in both Europe and Africa. We enable them to provide cloud services on both continents from the day they decide to become a VCO,” says Jeroen van Langenhove, Managing Director of whitesky.cloud.

www.afriqloud.com

www.whitesky.cloud

Connectivity and Cloud will lay the foundation for government digital transformation, Huawei

The digital economy necessitates a digital government. It’s not really a question of whether or not government should become digital, it’s only a matter of time. This was the core theme explored at Huawei’s e-Government Summit, which forms part of Huawei Connect 2021.

South Africa’s government has attached great importance to digitalisation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), with a particular focus on driving transformation in the public sector. Public sector stakeholders joined Huawei to discuss how public and private sectors could work together to accelerate government’s journey to digital transformation.

“Innovative technologies are increasingly being used in more industries and diversified ecosystems are driving more dynamic markets across the world. As a result, South Africa needs sustainable infrastructure development to further drive the value of digital technologies in stimulating the development of the local digital economy,” said Mr QiMeng, Huawei Director of Public Sector during his opening address at the event.

Huawei Executive Industry Solutions Manager, Christo Abrahams, observed that high adoption rates of innovative technologies and the rollout of digital platforms in the private sector accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic had resulted in the personalisation of services now expected by citizens who want the same level of services from government as they receive from their banks or retailers.

But, Department of Public Service and Administration CIO, Mandla Ngcobo, noted it’s not a simple task to transform the public sector as it faces unique challenges in its transformation journey. If technologies are adopted into the public sector in a way that does not integrate different departments and ministries, it could result in the proliferation of technologies that are costly and inefficient.

“More often than not, when we talk about digital transformation, we tend to emphasise technology, but as the public service sector we need to put citizens needs at the centre,” said Ngcobo.

“Additionally, when we talk about digital government, we must ensure the administration of service provision to citizens is done in an impartial, fair and equitable manner. Accountability, ethics and transparency is also key,” he said.

Huawei ICT senior specialist, Rose Moyo, noted that connectivity would lie at the center of any efforts to achieve this transformation of government towards intelligent services.

“Connectivity is the key enabler of technologies such as Cloud but the digital economy is driving up the demand for bandwidth significantly which could be costly if network infrastructure is not improved and connectivity is not increased,” said Moyo.

Meanwhile, cloud is set to become one of the biggest enablers of digital transformation in the public sector. A shift to cloud computing will open up avenues to other emerging technologies which have the potential to bring meaningful change to the availability, accessibility and quality of government services.

“Cloud will enable government to modernise services that are entrenched in legacy systems and quickly create citizen-facing services,” said Vice President of Huawei Cloud Southern Africa, Michael Langeveld. “However, government can’t do this on their own and Huawei is committed to helping government on this journey with our partner ecosystem and through significant investment.”

Langeveld concluded that meaningful collaboration between the private and public sector would be key to leveraging the full potential of the South African economy and driving the transformation of government with digital technologies. Through the transformation of governance, South Africa would be able to seize the opportunities of a digital economy.

www.huawei.com/za/