Connected Development?

Strong developmental flavour to Africa’s tentative adoption of IoT solutions.

- Natasha Odendaal

The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to penetrate Africa, where adoption, albeit patchy and hesitant, is underpinned primarily by a developmental agenda, as well as efforts by firms to bolster productivity and efficiency.

The continent’s unique socioeconomic and business challenges and widespread industry fragmentation are forcing local firms to be more creative than their global counterparts in developing relevant IoT solutions.

“This is one reason why information technology leaders see the adoption of IoT as being more critical for their future success,” says Vodacom IoT managing executive Deon Liebenberg.

However, the previous advantages gained from the lagging implementation of the latest technologies that enabled African countries to skip many costly learning curves, seen most prominently in the mobile telecommunications sector, can no longer be expected as the pace of global IoT development is just too fast.

While still in a “formative phase” in Africa, there is no doubt that a major digital transformation is under way, but South Africa, along with its fellow African countries, needs to review its current position in the industry, says Deloitte Africa industrial products and services sector leader Michael Vincent.

This will comprise an analysis of required skills, infrastructure and analytics to connect, implement and evaluate the data emerging from the connection of so many devices, he explains.

“As a country, we need to make IoT-related strategic choices based on where we currently are on the value chain and where we want to go,” he says, adding that large corporates, particularly multinational firms, seem to be driving Industry 4.0 and the adoption of IoT.

Industry 4.0 commonly describes the fourth industrial revolution and the increasing end-to-end digital ecosystem development by industrial and manufacturing companies, besides others.