| | JUNE 20208CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONDigital Transformation in By Mark Walker, Associate Vice President for sub-Saharan Africa, International Data Corporation (IDC)IDC defines Digital Transformation (DX) as applying new technologies to radically change processes, customer experience, and value. It allows organizations to support innovation and digital disruption rather than enhancing existing technologies and models. At the core of digital transformation is what IDC calls the third platform which comprises four pillars; cloud, big data/analytics, social media, and mobility, with all these allowing enterprises to digitally transform in various areas such as new customer contact channels, product innovation, market segmentation among other areas. Further, these four pillars support various innovation accelerators that include; NextGen security, IoT, AR/VR, Cognitive systems, robotics, and 3D printing.However, there are various challenges organizations currently face when thinking about digital transformation which include; skills, silos, defining roadmaps in an environment that is ever-changing while trying to keep up with daily business pressures and defining what KPIs best show how DX is delivering business objectives.SSA ICT marketThe total sub-Saharan ICT Market is expected to grow from US$ 95.4 Bn in 2020 to reach US$ 104.2 Bn by 2023, a CAGR of 4.5 percent for that period. Out of this, South African spending will grow from US$ 29.3 Bn in 2020 to reach US$ 33.0 Bn by 2023 while Nigeria will grow from US$ 10.0 Bn to US$ 11.3 Bn in the same period. Kenya's ICT market will grow from US$ 4.4 Bn to US$ 4.8 Bn for the same period.According to IDC's sub-Saharan Africa CIO Survey 2019, third platform technologies (cloud, big data, mobility, and social media ­ see chart below) are among key investment priority areas for 2020 and, in the periphery are other technology investment that support the third platform or innovation accelerators including disaster response/business continuity, advanced security, enterprise applications, analytics and hosting. Among the emerging areas of DX in SSA include the following:· Financial services - using mobile and social media as new customer contact channels, customer segmentation through analytics, anticipating future banking needs with AI and analytics, fraud detection using AI among other areas.· Manufacturing (automated sales processing, analytics/BI, IoT for supply chains,) · Government (use of AI for citizen service delivery, mobility (mobile applications hosted in the cloud, service innovation).· Telecommunications ­ use of big data and analytics to segment Mark Walker
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