By Nnamdi Odumody

Data has been fondly described as the new oil. The organizations which will reap the new oil fields are those which are data-driven, utilizing the vast amounts of data from customers to offer them personalized experiences to suit their unique tastes. From banking to e-commerce and indeed across other sectors like healthcare and entertainment, different organizations across the globe are utilizing big data to create the customer experiences of the future. Below are few examples.

Stitch Fix, an online subscription shopping service, uses images from social media and other sources to track emerging fashion trends and evolving customer experiences. Its process begins with clients answering a detailed questionnaire about their tastes in clothing, and with client permission, the company’s team of data scientists augment that information by scanning images on customers Pinterest boards and other social media sites, analyzing them, and using the resulting insights to develop a deeper understanding of style. Company stylists and algorithms use these profiles to select appropriate items of clothing to be shipped to individual customers at regular intervals.

Pear Deck allows teachers to share interactive slide decks with their students in real time, while enabling students to indicate to teachers when they are having trouble so that the teachers can adjust, creating personalized learning outcomes. Kickboard makes it easy for schools to understand and benefit from the data they collect. The platform helps teachers look at their classes as a whole and track their students across classes to see the big picture.

Capital One Bank mines customers’ data on its platform to select the best financial products that will suit them. Amazon has patented an AI to anticipate what shoppers want and ship it to their location of choice before they even realize they need it. Shoppers will receive the goods they want or need without having to take time to schedule and order themselves. Through predictive modeling, the technology allows for the most cost efficient delivery of goods, capturing incremental sales and revenues.

Habit, a personalized nutrition startup provides consumers with personalized food recommendations tailored to their unique DNAs. Consumers collect bio samples and send them to a processing facility. Habit uses the data to provide biology reports and a personalized eating plan through a mobile app. It also provides one on one nutrition coaching.

For Nigerian and African businesses to play and win in this new area, utilizing the vast amounts of data they have of their customers to deliver personalized experiences for them, is the only way for success or else they will lose out.

By Nnamdi Odumody

Dubai Airport Free Zone is an ideal platform which offers individuals the opportunity to start businesses in the UAE and provides a business friendly environment with exceptional technological facilities.

The Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority in 2018 announced the development of Dubai Blink, the world’s first B2B Smart Commerce Platform which will leverage artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and virtual business licenses allowing companies from across the world to connect and trade via Dubai. Through new trade platforms for global free zone companies, it hopes to reshape the future of global supply chains. It will allow global companies and small businesses to virtually set up digital businesses in Dubai Free Zones.

The Smart Commerce project is an innovation which will redesign the future of global supply chains and E-Commerce encouraging trade growth for companies in the UAE.

The Emirate of Dubai is sparing no effort to make the city the business hub of the world ahead of Hong Kong, London, New York, Shanghai, and Singapore. While countries across the globe are putting reforms in place to open up to the global investment community, some African countries whose leaders are not forward thinking are enacting laws and other initiatives to scare away foreign investors from their shores. The integration of artificial intelligence and blockchain will enable intelligent, real time trading round the clock in a decentralized platform which is part of its Smart Dubai Initiative to eliminate paper based transactions by adopting technology driven processes in businesses, government ministries, departments and agencies by the year 2021, creating a smart happy city for its citizens and other residents alike as well as a digital economy driven by innovation and technology.

Through holistic solutions Dubai Blink will accelerate its trade in free zone, helping companies search for services and make online purchases via combined platforms using artificial intelligence and blockchain. It will solve two common problems, identification as AI algorithms will provide customized results lengthy supplier identification and validation processes quicker and accurate than human efforts.

The second problem which revolves around transactions as international trade barriers, regulations and transaction fees add unwanted complications to B2B Commerce, therefore the combination of free zone set ups, AI & Blockchain will help reduce cross border transactions and time.

Dubai Blink will also offer companies a Cloud Trading license which is a virtual business license, allowing them to explore commercial opportunities in Dubai without a physical copy of the license. The project will unlock connections, assets, goods and services for business in the UAE.

Dubai has once again pioneered the road ahead.

Ibom Deep Seaport

Nigeria’s planned Ibom Deep Seaport should emulate the Dubai Blink as it is being worked out. The nation needs to build a top-grade deep seaport since the one we have in Lagos is largely a 20^st century infrastructure.  By investing on Ibom Deep Seaport, Nigeria will unlock more economic opportunities in the south east and south-south regions of the nation.

The much anticipated $2 billion Ibom Deep Seaport project is closer to actualisation, following the opening of the bid process in Lagos recently.

Of the three firms shortlisted for the bid process, Bollore & China Power and China Harbour Engineering Company are still interested while the third firm, China Road Breach Corporation (CRBC) has reportedly withdrawn from the process, The Nation learnt.

The Akwa Ibom State governor, Emmanuel Udom, while thanking the Ministerial Project Development Steering Committee (MPDSC), the body midwifing the project, explained that the project is very “dear to us.”

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