Editor’s Note: This was written by Akin Banuso, Country Manager, Dell Nigeria

Anyone who’s been paying close attention to the cloud industry is likely to be both intrigued and excited by the various opportunities it opens up. Since early last year, many have stated that a hybrid cloud approach is the industry end-state and despite some resisting this viewpoint initially, it’s at the centre of all cloud conversations today.

This will be the year when the hybrid cloud truly becomes the prevailing approach for most organisations. It is going to have a substantial positive effect on businesses, regardless of the vertical, the cloud providers, and the overall approach to how cloud is addressed in enterprises of all sizes across the board.

Over the course of the year ahead, there are a few key cloud trends that will be front and centre of cloud development. Firstly, enlightened cloud advocates have believed that the world is moving toward hybrid cloud for quite some time and it’s great to see others starting to sing the same tune. The debate between public or private cloud has diminished and now, the question is not if it will happen, but rather when and how fast companies will reach the hybrid cloud end-state. This is being confirmed by customers as a recent survey of midsized organisations worldwide found more than half of them used more than one type of cloud in 2015.

Also, businesses will become cloud-comfortable as Hybrid cloud adoption is being driven by greater understanding of workload management and the principle of becoming “cloud-comfortable”. This shouldn’t come as a shock – especially as previous barriers or impediments to cloud adoption, such as costs, control, complexity, and security, are coming down. As a result, businesses’ comfort levels with the cloud are continuing to increase and more IT organisations are confidently deploying cloud environments in-house. After initially over-indexing on public cloud and realising it was neither as cheap nor always as simple or secure as promised, many IT leaders are finally beginning to strike the right balance. As they become cloud-comfortable, they will have even higher expectations in terms of integrated manageability and cloud management, across clouds of all types, will continue to be a hot topic among CIOs.

No doubts, cost remains one of the largest barriers to adopting and implementing cloud – a fact attested to by many organisations. As they explore hybrid cloud options, businesses become increasingly aware of the total cost of ownership and lifecycle management costs. They want the right cloud infrastructure at the right cost with the right characteristics.

While on the journey to find the model that fits perfectly with their business, many realise the limitations and costs of their existing public-cloud-only models. This has generated demand for new cloud financing options – ones that address how to use the cloud now and how to use it in the future. As a result the conversation will likely change from wanting the cloud to seamlessly run specific applications to how a cloud infrastructure can enable an organisation to achieve its business goals.

There are a few ways to make cloud easier for customers, particularly for those that are already becoming more cloud comfortable. For example, IT leaders can offer line-of-business owners a simple catalogue of their most popular offerings (e.g., the creation of a certain number of mail and messaging inboxes). If a test-and-development team wants to rapidly create and test a cloud-based application, a pre-catalogued compute and storage resource pool could be offered, preventing the engineers from having to go to a public cloud and do this in a shadow IT form. With a catalogue of offerings IT leaders or DevOps managers can assess how much a solution will cost and the assets available for usage when either deploying a cloud infrastructure on their own or with the help of deployment services.

One thing that is certain: These developments should be less about the IT components and more about the application or business outcome and from there the necessary infrastructure can be chosen. In essence, businesses should not begin with the infrastructure, drop the app on top and trying attempt to realise the desired outcome. To be successful, it is necessary to start with the end in mind – what the business is trying to achieve and what outcome is being driven. Private cloud becomes much easier when customers know what they want to achieve and then match their needs with the infrastructure and services best-suited to realise their goals.

In summary, tremendous changes are on the horizon for cloud computing – ones that will ultimately benefit businesses and organisations that rely on it as their core IT delivery mechanism. Not all businesses walk the same path, whether it be with cloud financing, types of deployment, or differences in overall objectives. However, a few things are pretty clear; one choice does not fit all, it’s no longer a conversation of public vs. private cloud rather it’s about positive disruption and innovation.

Amid the release of new data* on American small businesses revealing that that the economic outlook among U.S. small business owners—down nearly 2 points year-over-year—had finally stabilized after a 6-month decline, there’s cause for entrepreneurs to be optimistic for this New Year ahead.

“Whether or not that outlook begins to uptick not only depends upon how agile, adaptable, creative and resourceful entrepreneurs can be in planning for, or reacting to, market conditions, revenue and brand-building opportunities and other key concerns, but also how well they maintain a forward-thinking mindset,” says serial entrepreneur Brian Greenberg (bio below).

Towards this end, Greenberg asserts that tomorrow’s smart and successful entrepreneur will have their bases well-covered on these fronts in particular. Let me know if you would like the byline formatted article of this and/or an interview with Greenberg, as I would be happy to facilitate.

1. Transparency. Operating with transparency used to be a luxury versus a necessity but, now, it’s quite mandatory. Millennials in particular, who wield a tremendous amount of influence and purchasing power, make buying decisions based largely on the provenance, manufacturing processes and overall business practices of a particular company. Because millennials are now the largest population in the U.S., to say that transparency will drive how businesses are perceived is an understatement at best. However, the good news is that establishing and maintaining transparency doesn’t have to be difficult. Simply communicating regularly with honesty and unequivocally holding yourself, your staff and your company accountable will go a long way toward fostering good will with not only consumers and prospects, but also with vendors, strategic partners and your industry at large.

2. Loyalty. It used to be that only airlines had “loyalty” programs. Now, everybody from giant corporations like Pepsi Co. to mom and pop corner coffee shops have some sort of loyalty program. And, rightfully so. Every industry faces new competition on a daily basis and customers are understandably price sensitive, often buying from whoever has the best sale or perks. However, what loyalty programs really come down to is creating that coveted repeat customer. For instance, airlines offering free first class upgrades or hotels upgrading size of the room for elite travelers often creates an allegiance that trumps price point.  This principle can be applied in every business.  If you’re a service company and a client is at the end of their agreement, offer a specific service at a discount or another deliverable with a high perceived value. Those who do business online can easily build an awards program that fosters a faithful following.

3. Crowdfunding. The ugly truth is if you need a loan, chances are extremely high you won’t be able to get one. In fact, the recent small business study also revealed that the majority—a full 61%–of those who tried to get a favorable loan were unable to do so. Venture capital and private equity funding is equally difficult to come by, if not more. While some types of capital are actually easier to procure, the interest rates are usually more aggressive, often prohibitively so. Instead, focus on crowdfunding and non-traditional lenders such as Bond Street, Kabbage and Deal Struck. According to Massolution’s 2015CF–Crowdfunding Industry Report, global crowdfunding was anticipated to be over $34 billion. A revenue source of that size is simply too big to ignore and not tap into.

4. Pay-for-Play Social Media. Facebook was among the first to implement the “pay-for-play” model by removing organic reach and focusing on paid advertisement.  Since being acquired by Facebook, Instagram is destined to follow.  Pinterest and Twitter are also both currently growing into their pay-for-play systems and will likely make it difficult for pure organic reach as well.  Unfortunately, this means entrepreneurs will need to increase their social media budget. However, Facebook’s paid ads have been shown to reach a significantly greater percentage of users than organic posts, making paid ads well worth the investment. However, social media shouldn’t only be leveraged as a form of advertising. Rather, social media is an ideal way to handle customer service in such a way that not only improves marketplace loyalty but also your company’s transparency endeavor.

5. Instant Gratification. Simply put, if you don’t offer some form of instant gratification your prospective customer will likely go somewhere that does. This truth is particularly problematic for businesses that require information from customers, such as insurance or financial services. Having prospects fill out contact request forms to be contacted later on for products or services is becoming less and less effective in the “Age of Impatience.” To be competitive, you need to deliver to the customer instantaneously in some way, whether that be with the provision of information they are seeking or other deliverable that will satiate them in the moment and keep them interested for a longer term.  Even just offering quicker and more efficient processes in dealing or transacting with your company is certainly a form of instant gratification. At every available touchpoint, strive to impress the customer—an incredibly effective way of evoking that gratified feeling.

No matter what industry you’re in or the type of business you run, you can still make a profit no matter what the current economic outlook happens to be. That begins with giving customers what they want, how they want it and in a way that’s more sensitive to marketplace vs. company needs. The above tools will put your business well on its way to doing exactly that, possibly making 2016 your most successful year yet.

San Diego-based expert Brian Greenberg is a multi-faceted entrepreneur who has founded and now spearheads multiple online businesses. He currently co-owns and operates three entrepreneurial companies with his father, Elliott Greenberg, which have each flourished for over 10 years: www.WholesaleJanitorialSupply.com, www.TouchFreeConcepts.com andwww.TrueBlueLifeInsurance.com.

The federal government has said the estimated annual cost of cybercrime to Nigeria is 0.08 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP), which represents about N127 billion (about $635 million).

The National Security Adviser (NSA), Maj-Gen. Babagana Munguno (rtd), stated this monday during the inauguration of the Cybercrime Advisory Council, at the Office of NSA (ONSA), Abuja.

Munguno who is the Chairman of the 31-member Council, lamented that the cost of to the nation is quite significant, saying that the “activities of hackers and cyber criminals in recent times have threatened government presence, economic activities and security of Nigerians and vital infrastructure connected to the internet. “

He said: “The 2014 Annual report of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), shows that, between year 2013 and 2014, fraud on e-payment platform of the Nigerian banking sector increased by 183 per cent. Also, a report published in 2014 by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, UK, estimated the annual cost of cybercrime to Nigeria at about 0.08 per cent of our GDP, representing about N127 billion.

“Global tracking of cyber-attacks indicate that Nigeria is among countries with high cases of software piracy, intellectual property theft and malware attacks. The situation is a serious challenge to our resolve to take advantage of the enormous opportunities that Internet brings, while balancing and managing its associated risks.”

According to him, the situation was made possible due to lack of awareness of cyber-security and poor enforcement of guidelines and minimum standards for security of government websites, particularly those hosting sensitive databases of Nigerians.

The NSA, emphasised the need to take serious action to protect our national cyberspace as a national security requirement.

Munguno added that the importance of serious action to protect the nation’s cyberspace, increased tremendously with growth in number of Nigerians connected to the internet, from less than a million in 2003 to over 80 million in November 2015.

He warned that “any serious attack or interference to the operation of Nigerian cyberspace will have negative impact on national economy as well as on public health and safety”, adding that “our national cyberspace has become a critical information infrastructure and protecting it, is a matter of importance”.

Munguno listed some of the common cyber-crimes in Nigeria to include: computer virus and malware infections, identity theft and privacy invasion, fraudulent electronic transaction, and theft of intellectual property.
Other are: radicalisation and violent extremism, terrorism perpetrated through the cyberspace, website hacking and defacement; and distributed denial of service attack, amongst others.

Because of these challenges, U.S. based First Atlantic Cybersecurity Institute has launched to assist Nigerian professionals, governments and companies to develop the necessary skills they need to combat cybercrime. ENROLL here today.

This piece by the Economist explains why the Western world will rule the 21st century. Even the promise of China is muted when you know the West is creating another world entirely. For us in Africa, we can be happy to connect as usual buyers until technical education is  made a priority in the continent.

Sometimes it is perceived as a figment of the far future. But artificial intelligence (AI) is today’s great obsession in Silicon Valley. Last year technology companies spent $8.5 billion on deals and investments in artificial intelligence, four times more than in 2010. Nearly all of the world’s technology giants, including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Baidu, are competing fiercely to hire the best AI experts, snap up start-ups and pour money into research. What accounts for the tech elite’s sudden AI-phoria?

The technology has not always been so popular. The field was largely ignored and underfunded during the “AI winter” of the 1980s and 1990s. At that time AI research conducted at universities proved to be disappointingly slow and irrelevant to companies’ bottom lines. Now, however, the chill is gone. Progress in AI is accelerating. Recently Google generated lots of headlines when DeepMind, a start-up it acquired in 2014, helped train a computer to repeatedly beat the world champion at Go, a board game. This has sparked both fear and hope for the future of AI: hope for fat profits and improving people’s lives through technology; fear about how society will cope with the dislocation AI could bring.

AI is already starting to generate big financial gains for companies, which helps explain firms’ growing investment in developing AI capabilities. Machine-learning, in which computers become smarter by processing large data-sets, currently has many profitable consumer-facing applications, including image recognition in photographs, spam filtering and those that help to better target advertisements to web surfers. Many of tech firms’ most ambitious projects, including building self-driving cars and designing virtual personal assistants that can understand and execute complex tasks, also rely on artificial intelligence, especially machine-learning and robotics. This has prompted tech firms to try to hire up as much of the top talent as they can from universities, where the best AI experts research and teach. Some worry about the potential of a brain drain from academia into the private sector.

The biggest concern, however, is that one firm corners the majority of the talent in artificial intelligence, creating an intellectual monopoly of sorts. Google looks best positioned to do this: between its Google Brain project and its acquisition of DeepMind, it has some of the brightest human brains working on AI. Because superior AI systems are able to learn and improve more quickly, the firms that develop an early edge in artificial intelligence may reap the greatest rewards and erect barriers to entry that smaller firms will find hard to overcome. In December Elon Musk and several other tech leaders pledged $1 billion to help fund OpenAI, a research lab that will make public all of its findings, to ensure there is an entity that is working on developing AI on behalf of the public good and not just its own profits. Today AI is the domain of tech geeks, but its future matters to everyone.

From our end here in Tekedia, Africa must work to deepen its own research so that it can compete in this A.I. evolving age. Anything less, we will simply facilitate consumerism for the Western World.

This is bold and really bold. You better ask your friends and families to plan accordingly on their careers.

By 2025, jobs which were common place in 2015 will no longer exist. Students graduating in 2016, will have obsolete qualifications for which there will no longer be a profession by 2025.

• Front-line military personnel will be replaced with robots
• Private bankers and wealth managers will be replaced with algorithms
• Telemarketers, data entry capturers, tax preparers, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, statisticians and consulting engineers will be replaced with Artificial Intelligence (AI).

New business models, like those of Uber and Alibaba, are already industry-shaping disruptors, and each day, new Digital innovators are emerging to cause disintermediation and disruption across every industry imaginable.

Traditional enterprises, whilst presently successful by today’s standards, are scrambling to make sense of Business Digitisation in order to stay relevant in the Digital future. Many are attempting to create new Digital business models which will eventually cannibalise their traditional business, rather than capitulating to new disruptive Digital start-ups. Companies are also digitising their products and services, along with operational processes and customer channels. Over 70% of top fortune 500 companies have plans to offer their products as a Digital service by 2020.  Presently, the 10 most valuable start-ups globally are estimated to have a value of $172.7 billion – all embracing Digital platform based business models. Around 90% of the business models in 2020 will be driven by the cloud.

Globally, the number of connected devices will nearly quadruple by 2025, significantly altering the skills employers hold most valuable. Increasing connectivity will change how employees choose to work (for example: remotely, part-time, independently, or dispersed), and provide employers with a spectrum of hiring options.

Millennials, most of whom are Digital Natives, will comprise an estimated 48.3% of the global labour force in 2025, while those aged 60 and older will comprise 9.9% (compared with 7.9% in 2015).

The line between what has traditionally been business and IT is becoming more and more blurred. Largely due to the early adoption and impact of Digital marketing, The Chief Marketing Officer or CMO, now controls a bigger “IT” budget and influence than the CIO. This is only set to increase and expand across the organisation, as Digital Natives become future business leaders.

What new skills and expertise will be required to lead and manage the Digital enterprise of the future?

As robots, AI and Digital algorithms continue to replace many jobs and professions; new and emerging professions by 2025 will focus more on human interaction, augmented through Digital mechanisms. Jobs requiring uniquely human characteristics, such as cultural deftness, caretaking, or empathy, and creative thinking, are those least threatened by automation.

The ability to work anywhere, anytime is fuelling the Digital nomad trend, which is highly appealing to millennials, but will also blur political and economic boundaries, and test national labour codes.

Artificial Intelligence, its subfields, and automation will create some specific reflecting trends associated with new and emerging technology advances. Career gains from AI and automation include:

• Artificial Intelligence technology and automation salesperson
• Specialist programmers
• Cybersecurity experts
• Engineering psychologists
• Robot and automation technology manufacturer, distributor, servicer, and refurbisher
• Technology-specific trainer
• Neuro-implant technicians
• Virtual health care specialist
• Virtual reality experience designer

Conclusion:

Digital transformation cannot be ignored without becoming irrelevant, and an adaptive Digital strategy is imperative. 

The Digital workforce will be largely millennial, and significantly different from today in terms of culture, leadership style and skills. Artificial Intelligence, robots and Digital algorithms will automate many professions, but jobs requiring uniquely human characteristics – or are critical to the development of Digital solutions – will be in great demand by 2025.

A holistic Digital transformation strategy, which considers the Digital workforce along with the business model, process and customer channel dimensions, will be imperative for organisations wishing to remain relevant in the next 10 years.

Africa needs to plan and invent for the digital workforce era. Nigeria has to plan also.