Digital Transformation
How Technology Enables Better Healthcare in 2021
Sourced from Getty Images. The future of healthcare is shaping up in front of our very eyes with advances in digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, 3D-printing, robotics and inventory management. With the need for digital acceleration to support the healthcare landscape since the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, technology has played a critical role to improve the standards of patient healthcare and enable health-workers. Other industries, such as the entertainment and retail sectors, have met the challenge of evolving consumer expectations through digital transformation. This has allowed them to provide a more seamless experience, while fundamentally changing the way their businesses operate. The new reality for healthcare requires the redesign of health and care sys...
4 Predictions for Digital Finance in 2025
Sourced from Finance Monthly. The digital transformation of the finance sector has continued relentlessly throughout 2020. Industry is already starting to see the paybacks from making small, incremental changes to financial workflows by adopting emerging technologies. The pandemic is accelerating the speed of change and catalysing more investment in end-to-end automation and remote working. So, where will this trend take the industry in four years’ time? Here are four predictions about what the finance function will resemble in 2025: Many of today’s technologies will still be in play Not all challenges from 2020 are likely to disappear by 2025. As tech continues to evolve, so too will legislation and regulations. Requirements change all the time, especially as businesses begin to use bigge...
Stay Ahead of Trends with Unmatched Legal Intelligence
According to a host of industry pundits and legal technology experts globally, the year 2021 looks set to push the trends accelerated in 2020 even further, with Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics and intelligent legal research among the big issues to watch. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, associated lockdowns worldwide and the sudden transition to remote working, totally reshaped the legal landscape and propelled law into the digital age. Legal professionals – if they hadn’t done so already – had to quickly pivot towards digital technologies for online research, collaboration, document sharing and automation, video conferencing, virtual law services and more. “While many within the sector noted a slowdown in legal work in 2020, those who were successfully able to embrace technol...
Do We Trust Robots More Than Ourselves?
People now trust robots more than themselves to manage their finances, according to a new study by Oracle and personal finance expert Farnoosh Torabi. The study of more than 9,000 consumers and business leaders in 14 countries found that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased financial anxiety, sadness, and fear among people around the world and has changed who and what we trust to manage our finances. In addition, people are rethinking the role and focus of corporate finance teams and personal financial advisors, according to the research. The global pandemic has damaged people’s relationship with money at home and at work, here’s how: Among business leaders, financial anxiety and stress increased by 186 percent and sadness grew by 116 percent; consumer financial anxiety and stress doubled, ...
5 Trends Shaping the Technology Industry in 2021
2020 was a disruptive year for the tech industry – accelerating developments that may have taken 3 to 5 years to implement to common use almost overnight. Given these developments, here are five tech industry trends we’ll see within the next 11 months: WFH culture sets off a renewed focus on smart collaboration and office set-up of the future As companies examine the functionality of the workplace, we’ll start to see more traditional office workspaces become periodic collaboration hubs, while home offices become the day-to-day workplace. The office will likely transform from many desks, conference rooms and shared amenities to a cooperative business centre supporting specific project-based priorities on an ongoing basis. As a result, employers will need to equip their full workforce with t...
Electric Vehicles could Revitalise the Economy, says Nigerian Director General
Image sourced from CJ’s Electric Hyundai recently unveiled the first Electric Vehicle assembled in Nigeria. At the launch, Mallam Kasifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Nigeria’s Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says that the introduction of electric vehicles to the country is a sign of “advancing towards a vibrant economy”. He went on to say that a “digital ecosystem is a sure way in creating value, wealth and prosperity, especially now that Nigeria is on its course to become one of the leading digital economies in the world.” According to The Vanguard, this ecosystem is a way to create value that will enable growth, wealth and prosperity. Head of the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), Babatunde Raji Fashola says that “inno...
3 Tech Trends that will Transform 2021
2020 can be defined by dramatic change. On every front, from health to economic, political to social, the pandemic has forced individuals and businesses to adapt in a hurry. The long-term effects will not be truly understood for at least another year, but in the short term, some more agile businesses are making quick decisions and shifting priorities. How? With the ability to transform quickly thanks to two enablers – a culture where change is anticipated, and a stable platform of digital capabilities. Take DHL Express, for example: Suddenly faced with the unprecedented growth of online shopping deliveries, it quickly scaled its IT platform to fulfil this demand. Or Philips, which invested in best-in-class process excellence to ensure business continuity and well-documented enterprise arch...
Print Versus Digital: Is The Office Printer Dead?
There’s been talk of a paperless office for years – but the office printer isn’t going anywhere soon. It’s just changing to adapt to life in the digital age. At least, this is the prediction of Gareth Brenchley, MD of Itec Cape Town. He believes that even in an age of sustainability, smart mobile working and digital collaboration, most companies still have print-reliant workplaces, and spend tens of thousands a year on print. “Businesses are still extremely reliant on printing for their business processes, but the print environment has grown up. The printer isn’t just a ‘dumb device’ in the corner of the office: it’s become part of a connected, intelligent network, with modern multifunctional printers (MFPs) giving users new abilities to digitise their documents and manage their informatio...
How to Establish a Digitally Inclusive Economy Through Technology
Technology has a runaway effect. Through devices and broadband, people can find services, resources and opportunities—and those who have access to it get further ahead. However, there are still billions of people who are being left behind due to a lack of availability and cost of devices. This is the paradox of the digital divide, and it affects communities, societies and economies globally. The world’s leading international institutions are sounding the alarm. The World Trade Organisation believes levelling the playing field should be a strategic focus for everyone who participates in the digital economy because when such considerable amounts of human potential are left untapped, nobody wins. At the same time, the United Nations affirms that social inequality will be exacerbated unless pe...
Ukheshe Partners with KCB to Boost Payment Services in East Africa
Ukheshe has partnered with the Kenya-based lender KCB Bank Kenya to issue both physical and virtual banking cards across East Africa. According to Victor Ndlovu, VP of Ukheshe Africa, the deal will include other innovative digital products such as QR issuing and acquiring. “By joining forces with KCB we are well-placed to address several open-loop market opportunities while boosting wider consumer adoption. Payment options across various segments will benefit such as payroll, companion cards, multi-currency prepaid cards, travel cards and gift cards, together with social security and other government benefit programs such as insurance claims.” Ndlovu says financial inclusion remains a massive challenge in the region and across the continent where millions of people are either unbanked or s...
Vodacom Business Enables Businesses to Digitise their Supply Chain Network
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to create significant challenges for the manufacturing and retail industry globally, the need for a resilient and agile supply chain network has never been greater. Vodacom Business has developed various digital solutions to help businesses achieve a true connected supply chain network to help improve efficiencies and withstand disruption and unpredicted hurdles in the future. Today’s supply chain network is more complex than ever. It has become a digital ecosystem of suppliers, logistics companies, customers and other value chain partners that stretch across the globe. The supply chain network relies on the synchronised movement of thousands of interrelated parts to meet the ever growing customer demand for better, more innovative products and on-time, l...
Why Now is the Right Moment to Explore Innovations
In 2020, there was a meme on LinkedIn with a poll asking who leads digital transformation in your company. Surprisingly, the choice was not a CEO or top manager, but COVID-19. This picture perfectly illustrates how at the beginning of the pandemic many companies were forced to urgently implement new technologies or rebuild their business model to survive. But today, when many countries are experiencing a second wave of the virus and implementing social distancing restrictions again, new questions arise. Should companies invest in long-term innovations in such an uncertain and difficult period? Or wouldn’t it be better to focus on the core business and save capital on costly investments until more stable times return? In the European Summer of 2020 we, with the help of independent research ...
