Take Advantage of IoT, Vodacom Advises Entrepreneurs

• Take Advantage of IoT, Vodacom Advises Entrepreneurs

The Managing Director, Vodacom Business Nigeria, Lanre Kolade, has advised business owners to take advantage of the era of Internet of Things (IoT) to grow their businesses, minimise cost, maximise profit and reap other benefits.

Kolade, old techpreneurs and captains of tech firms at NigeriaCom 2017 forum organised by Informa Telecoms Group, that IoT has become one of the world’s fastest growing technologies, said across all industries, IoT solutions have been adopted to provide a host of different benefits from increased return on investment (RoI) to developing stronger relationships with customers with far reaching benefits.

According to him, telcos are facing a period of flat growth for core services and significant decline in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

This drastic change, he said, threatens the survival of the telecoms industry as substantial declines in user spending on voice and text services have caused a significant dip in revenue.

He said IoT has delivered a big growth opportunity for the industry due to the volume of connections expected and experts have projected that the market will have a global reach. Kolade advised telcos to adapt to the changing times and source other revenue streams to replace what is being lost in the continuing revolution of communications.

“IoT offers significant growth potential and the opportunity to take a role in new vertical markets, such as automotive, healthcare and smart cities. As these sectors seek to adopt more IoT services, the opportunities that exist are vast. Whether you are a hardware manufacturer or connectivity reseller.

“Adding IoT solutions to your portfolio will open up new revenue streams from selling hardware, software and connectivity services, to a broad range of value-added services, such as consulting, integration and support. Telcos will have to look at the IoT as a potential revenue generator to offset the declining revenues from core services,” he said.

According to him, by 2020, more than seven billion people and businesses, and over 30 billion devices, will be connected to the internet. “The question is no longer about the adoption of IoT, but rather its application to drive business success,” he argued, adding that Vodacom’s IoT solutions support wireless payment devices and e-readers, energy usage and smart metering, chilling cabinets, remote asset monitoring systems and community health management solutions.

Vodacom recently partnered Kaduna State government to launch a mobile technology-based healthcare programme tagged: “SMS for Life 2.0”, which aims to increase the availability of essential medication by monitoring drug stock levels and improving the delivery of healthcare for citizens via access public health services.

Vodacom is the technology partner for the initiative, which is a public-private partnership (PPP) with Novartis and the Kaduna State Ministry of Health. Vodacom has concluded the training and deployment of SMS for Life 2.0 in Kaduna, with over 250 facilities, using the platform to date. The initiative is planned to be implemented in all the 36 states of the federation.