CWG shines at WEF annual meeting of the new champions

CWG Plc, Africa’s foremost Technology Platform Service Provider shared her success story of managing hyper growth in an emerging economy at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC) at Dalian, China, in early September with theme Charting a New Course for Growth.

The WEF AMNC provides a forum for charting global technology and innovation direction, and is attended by over 1500 leaders of business, government and academia. It also provides a platform for interaction by a new generation of entrepreneurs pioneering new courses for growth through science, technology and innovation.

The WEF AMNC also known as ‘Summer Davos’, alternates between the cities of Dalian and Tianjin, both in China. China has 1.3 billion people, a 900-million workforce, and over 70 million enterprises and self-employed businesses. Over 13 million new jobs were created last year alone. The economy is now the second largest in the world.

Recently there has been deep concern about the growth slowdown in China, with its adverse effects on the global economy, and especially frontier and emerging economies dependent mainly on commodities for their national income bearing the full brunt. However, with a larger base figure, the current growth rate of 7 percent will produce an annual increase of more than 800 billion US dollars at current price; larger than a 10 percent growth five years ago.

Austin Okere, Founder of CWG and a member of the World Economic Forum Business Council on Global Growth Companies, at a private session of business leaders with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang engaged Founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, sharing ideas on collaboration in the On-Demand economy. Sharing his insights Jack Ma held that “If we are not creative enough it will be very difficult to survive in this century. If we grow in a green economy, with less pollution and blue skies, we’ll have a lot of excellent entrepreneurs.” He also agreed that China should and will take great responsibility for the world economy.

Against the slowdown in growth, and quoting a renowned philosopher, Premier Li Keqiang remarked that we cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Continuing, he said “fortunately, in time of hardship and trial, mankind have always been able to find the courage to get out of the predicament and move ahead through change and innovation. It must be noted that the moderation of growth speed in China reflects both profound adjustments in the world economy as well as the law of economics”. In conclusion, the premier added “With the economy performing within the reasonable range and the speed of growth no longer taken as the sole yardstick, the strained supply-demand relationship will be eased, the pressure on resources and the environment will be lowered, and more time and energy will be devoted to push forward structural reform.”

CWG also shared her experiences on ubiquitous challenges to scaling and what makes them so prevalent, with insights on how successful companies identify and mitigate against them.

CWG Plc has since 2010 repositioned her business to a more sustainable Cloud-based subscription model termed CWG2.0, offering technology platforms for the new sharing economy. Among her flagship products are Openshpen.ng, an e-commerce solution for market access, and SMERP, an Enterprise Resource Planning solution for SMEs.

CWG was recently referred to as the Alibaba of Nigeria by none other than the CEO of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Oscar Onyema, during a visit.

It will recalled CWG plc was named a Global Growth Company (GGC) by the World Economic Forum at the Africa Forum in 2014 in recognition of her phenomenal growth, global corporate citizenship, executive leadership and impact on the competitive landscape of the ICT industry in Africa. CWG is one of only 28 Global Growth Companies in Africa and 395 globally. Acknowledging the company, David Aikman, Managing Director and Head of the New Champions at the World Economic Forum, remarked that “CWG Plc is a dynamic group with clear potential to shape the future in its relevant business sector and so is a perfect fit to our GGC community”.

Computer Warehouse Group Plc (NSE: CWG PLC) is a Pan-African Systems Integrator with operations in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Cameroon, with annual turnover of over $100m and about 650 employees across the Group. The company provides technology solutions that enable growth, and is largest security in the Technology Sector of the NSE.