Several businesses around the African continent visited Globacom’s stand at the just-concluded Africa CEO Forum in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, to seek the telephone service provider’s superior network to facilitate their business growth.
The businesses, represented by their top executives, held talks with company officials at the Globacom stand on the possibilities of harnessing Glo solutions like internet connectivity, mobile money solutions, wide area connectivity (WAN), credit check for postpaid subscribers, and bundled mobile solutions to run their various organisations.
The business leaders who were at the Glo stand during the conference included Kunle Elebute, chairman, KPMG Africa; Ade Adeyemi, group CEO of Togo-based Ecobank; Colin Mukete, chairman of MTN Cameroon; Ugo Ikpeazu, CEO, Ark Hudson, and James Kasugi, head of business, Mara Phone.
Others who held talks with the company’s officials were Jameelah Sharrieff, group CEO, Credit Registry; Djo Falanga, CEO of Sodeico of Congo Democratic Republic, and Jean Obambi, director-general of Azur of Gabon.
At the digital economy session, Bella Disu, Globacom’s executive vice chairman, called on governments across the continent to create the enabling environment for telecommunication companies to connect cities and rural communities to the internet. She said this would help operators adopt digital solutions that would make Africa catch up with global trends.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame had initiated the enquiries into Globacom’s hi-tech solutions at an exclusive meeting with Disu.
Disu said businesses must innovate because the world was experiencing rapid digital transformation.
“We live in an exponential world, it’s no longer a question of ‘do I have to innovate’; we must innovate. So telecom operators will spearhead this innovation,” Disu said.
“First, we provide the infrastructure, the network, the platforms and connectivity for digital transformation to occur, and the resulting effect is big data, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and internet of things which connects everything to everybody. So businesses must run on new business models to stay in business,” she said.
She buttressed her call for more internet access with the World Bank report, which showed that 10 percent increase in internet access led directly to 1.8 percent growth in the gross domestic product (GDP).
