The mobile internet is rapidly transforming the way Nigeria does business, says Sage, a multinational enterprise software company and the market leader for integrated accounting, payroll and payment systems.
The impact of mobile internet on the Nigerian business landscape is supported by the rapid improvement in the telecoms industry and the availability of affordable smartphones and cloud applications. The Ministry of Science and Technology forecasts that the Nigerian mobile market will be worth $166 billion dollars in 2020 and directly employ about 2.7 million people.
According to Magnus Nmonwu, Regional Director for Sage West Africa, Nigeria is adopting mobile internet as quickly and enthusiastically as it did mobile voice services some years ago. Nmonwu said this is empowering enterprises to be more flexible, responsive and efficient than ever before.
“Mobility is the growth engine of the Nigerian economy,” he adds. “It is helping people to enhance their lives and to improve their standard of living, while enabling enterprises to transform how they operate.”
According to statistics from the Ericsson Mobility Report, total mobile subscription penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa is about 80% but will grow to 100% and 1 billion mobile subscriptions by 2021. Nigeria, as one of the largest mobile markets in Africa, is leading the trend.
“Many of our customers and employees today walk around with smart devices that give them access to apps and information wherever they are,” says Nmonwu. “For example, Facebook’s statistics show that 7.1 million Nigerians access its platform every day. And 100% of its monthly users access Facebook on a mobile smartphone.”
The Sage Regional Director said organisations who tap into this behaviour would find new ways to interact with employees, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders. This ranges from mobile marketing, advertising and e-commerce for consumers to mobilising business applications such as the enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.
With the advantage of mobile internet, employees and managers are increasingly able to access information on the road to serve customers, speeding up decision-making, and saving time. A salesperson can now easily check from a tablet or smartphone whether a product is in stock while on-site with a customer, and place the order without going to the office. And managers can now use their time between meetings and at airports more productively.
Mobile technology is also helping HR departments to become more efficient and to build better relationships with employees. Nmonwu stated that the future is mobile and we are giving our customers the power to control their businesses from the palm of their hand.
Nmonwu said, “In addition to the productivity boom, organisations need to adopt mobile business processes and apps to meet the expectations of employees and customers. Today’s consumer and employee wants to interact with companies using accessible, easy to use mobile services and apps.”
“Enterprises thus need to start mobile security and device management, so that they can support mobile employees. Today’s consumer wants service on demand from a handset and today’s employee wants to be productive wherever he or she is, at anytime or in any location. With this, we expect to see a great deal of investment into mobile technology in West Africa over the next year or two,” he concluded.
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