The rise of electronic business activities in Nigeria, its substantial contribution to the growth of the economy as well as the significance of constant development of new age technology cannot be over emphasized.
A lot of information technology (IT) companies who have monitored the growth of businesses in Africa as a result of improved technology have predicted that the next phase of business of revolutionisation will be due to an increased adoption of artificial intelligence, blockchain, 5G, Chatbots and other new technologies.
Already, businesses and economies are experiencing radical transformation in ways of operation due to the introduction and adoption of technology systems. The role of ‘customer service representative’ has been somewhat overtaken by the adoption of Chatbots in different industries, while the use of drones’ is overtaking traditional delivery and viewing methods, and traditional media is left to compete with vloggers, bloggers and social media for the delivery of news.
“Companies from a range of industries will be impacted by intelligent chatbots in a similar way to the rise of mobile devices. Business to consumer use cases for chatbots are being seen in retail, financial services, travel and hospitality and even in utilities, for service-related and transactional conversations,” Craig Nel, mobile & cognitive experience (MCX) leader at Oracle Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said while speaking at the Chatbot week Africa, organised by Oracle.
“Technologies such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning come to the fore in African countries with their many cultures and languages,” Nel said.
“In South Africa we have eleven official languages, but take a country such as Ghana where more than 250 languages and dialects are spoken. One way to attract new customers in Africa is through intelligent chatbots that better understand and process customers’ needs, desires and requirements, in a language preferred by the user,” he said.
Jobs such as app developer, social media consultant, 3D printing engineer, cloud storage expert, and others which did not exist 10 years ago are new business roles changing the way organisations operate today.
The introduction of 5G and deepened mobile penetration has huge potential for Nigeria as a mobile first nation, especially with its large and young population and vast landmass. Analysts confirm that new opportunities will definitely emerge in the fourth industrial revolution for African businesses to collaborate, innovate and participate in ways that positively impact their economy and the world at large.
What exactly would new technologies like 5G enable for business? According to technology experts, there are eight attributes required for a network to be truly 5G, which will empower businesses to compete in this era. They are; greater throughput and faster speed, service deployment that update through software rather than hardware – so that network can stay secure and responsive to business needs, mobility, connected devices, energy efficiency, capacity to deliver high data volume, reduce latency, and reliability. These are all fundamental to business environment and the way we do business.
The impact of technology on businesses is huge. About 65 percent of children entering primary school today will be doing new jobs that don’t yet exist. Emerging technologies will solve problems that aren’t even problems yet.
Artificial intelligence already exists in our everyday lives, and are predicted to take some human jobs. Within the next 15 years, some things AI and robots are expected to do include; shopping, driving cars, cooking, delivering items etc.
With these new technologies, business owners would need to move from depending on traditional employment criteria to hiring people that can do the things that AI cannot easily do. Rather than focus on work experience, educational background and communication skills, employees of the future would be required to have critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence and creativity.
Healthcare, agriculture, transportation, financial services, commerce, telecommunications, media, manufacturing, marketing, aviation, education and virtually all industries are currently experiencing some form of shift in business operations as a result of new technologies. These changes are expected to be more transformational in the near future and it is important for Africa to innovate to solve its unique problems and speed up economic development.
“Innovation and technology are fundamental for Africa to be able to compete in a global framework. Localisation is also important – innovation needs to be tailored to the specifics of local needs. We need to develop home-grown solutions for Africa.” Fezoua, president and CEO, GE Africa, said.
Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson
