Network security is vital for African businesses


The technology industry is betting big on the cloud, mobile Internet and the automating of knowledge to be the key technologies transforming the way people live and work in Africa. In South Africa home to the most technologically advanced organizations, firms are expected to deliver powerful capabilities for consumers and employees to create and connect through a secure and reliable technology infrastructures. According to latest business outlook, many businesses are expected to move towards converged systems that provide powerful, mobile Internet-scale applications. The adoption is expected to help organizations in the continent meet the pressure to streamline operations, drive their profit margins upwards and continued growth, trim their costs and improve business efficiency. Latest statistics from International Data Corporation showed that globally vendors are forecast to ship close to 2 billion mobile phones this year, growing to more than 2.2 billion devices in the next three years. In order for African organizations to be successful, they will need to have the proper policies and processes in place to address data, device and network security, as well as the privacy issues associated with having personal and company owned data on device. Time has come for enterprise grade mobility that delivers manageability, security and serviceability with the experience customers and employees crave for.


Smart devices being sold in African just like any other places around the world have become an essential component of everyday lives with consumers and employees demanding anytime, anywhere access to sophisticated personal and business services. With the connection of billions of consumer devices, industrial machines and communities we are entering a new era where the technology lines of work, play and home. African organizations are focusing on mobile applications that drive innovation and growth, such as in financial services with Kenya’s famed mobile money platform M-Pesa being a successful example. However, banks like Kenya Commercial Bank, Uganda’s DFCU have developed advanced self-service mobile applications to ensure customer loyalty, lower the cost of customer acquisition and enhance brand visibility. In Nigeria, healthcare organizations have pushed the boundaries of mobile innovation by connecting medical devices to mobile phones for remote monitoring of patient health and the same technology is being tested by a Kenyan start up company. My prediction this year is that businesses across Africa will focus towards building the applications, business process and services that will realizes immense benefits to be gained from better customer and employee engagement.A growing adoption of mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets and increasing business on the go, customers in Africa are also looking for a more convenient, intuitive solution to print easily and securely from their mobile devices. Enterprises especially in East and Southern African regions where the security agents have joined forces and plans to collaborate to beat hackers at their own game through sharing of background intelligence on threats in real time, businesses in that part of African will now be able to create a unified industry defense and reduce the risk of financial, competitive and reputation losses that has characterized their businesses whenever they are hacked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To secure Africa’s future, there’s need to reduce deforestation’s emissions

African countries are home to some of the world’s top forests cover and in DR Congo, we all know the history of Belgian Congo as the country was known before independence from Belgium and how its vast forests and mineral wealth led to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Despite the decreasing forest cover in African countries there is need for continuous fight to better manage the continent environment. Africa is home to some of the most important forests in the world when it comes to ecosystem conservation and biodiversity and countless species found especially in Madagascar, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique. The continent and its population have every reason to be proud of their incredible natural forests and species. Therefore, one would expect that the current political and technocratic class would be serious in engineering comprehensive efforts needed to ensure that this centuries old forests can be sustained and enjoyed by future generations as envisaged by th
Read more

SMEs funding problem in Uganda

Ugandan  economy is driven by SMEs and among them are manufacturers who are a priority economic sector  for Uganda to promote inclusive growth. According to data available, there are more than 10,000 manufacturing units in Uganda that can be categorised as micro and small enterprises.These small businesses are an important  source of employment and contribute significantly to the national output .However, small enterprises often find it difficult to access finance from banks and other formal financial institutions.Many of them are unable to provide collateral to secure loans, procedures are too complex for them, or the administrative cost of serving them is too high for banks to consider them as a profitable market.Even Uganda’s most successful companies have their share of cash flow troubles, especially during growth phases.As we all know, profits and cash flow are not the same thing. You can have a profitable business on paper and not have a dollar in the bank.In some seasonal indus
Read more

Social media helping East Africans stay appraised

Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have emerged as the new meeting points for criminals in East Africa a trend that has baffled security agencies in the region. While some might think of crime activities as happening in secret locations, social media platforms are helping make such wars more public than ever before. Study conducted recently revealed that youthful criminal members have been making threats and violent statements on Twitter or Facebook and even worse threatening their victims without any fear although most of them use fake identities. I came across this piece that basically describes how even underage trolls do not like the crime occurring over anything meaningful. “A couple of young girls that need to be raped, plus a resistance, plus sex equals tomb material,” Kabena K****** says bluntly. “This is a f***ing 18-year-old a**hole statement.” More of these criminal acts are happening online and much so the authorities in the region have failed to
Read more