Tag: Internet of Things (IoT)

Analysts and major enterprises predicted 50 billion IoT devices would be connected by 2020, yet the true figure stands closer to 9 billion. We ask if this is the biggest failure in the history of IT, and we identify the six key challenges that IoT must overcome in 2020 to reach its potential.

With the cloud services market expected to grow at a rate of 28% over the next five years to top R23 billion by 2023, South African companies have finally woken up to its potential. Providing some of the impetus behind this is the local availability of Microsoft Azure data centres.

With data breaches hitting headlines daily, security professionals are constantly concerned about the next big threat. Whether it’s ransomware, phishing or endpoint attacks, there’s always something on the horizon waiting for its turn in the spotlight.

As we progress further into Industry 4.0, finance needs to further leverage new technologies to add real value to a business’s bottom-line, yet it remains in its infancy stages. Industry 4.0 has impacted a range of industries, and with the digitisation of industrial value chains, many forget about finance, which has only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to leveraging new technologies.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution rages on, there needs to be a greater shift towards adopting an interconnected way of thinking if humans are to truly engage and optimise 4IR and beyond.

Big data is seeing organisations becoming more mindful of aligning their data management practices with newer paradigms such as data lakes, elastic and cluster computing, and real-time data. As such, the cloud provides an environment capable of managing the volume and scale required to do so.

It is almost impossible to keep up with the pace and direction in which business and technology are moving today. Artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain, big data, Internet of Things, the fourth industrial revolution. Who actually knows what any of these concepts mean for their business, much less how to integrate them?

The local contact centre industry is thriving and has seen substantial growth over the last four years, as South Africa became an enticing destination for offshore business. Concurrently, telcos across the world are seeking to improve their customer experience and reduce operating costs, largely due to disruptive business models, ever-increasing competition and the rising digital wave.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the key pillars of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is transforming and digitizing everything from backend customer service centres to procurement and supply chain management. In fact, AI capabilities are increasingly being embedded throughout organisational structures, opening up a new digital frontier that most companies, both large and small, are still grappling with on a day-to-day basis.

Participants in 2019 Global Risk Management Survey ranked cyberattacks and data breaches as #6 in the top 10 risks currently facing organisations. The risk entered the Top 10 list for the first time (at #9) in 2015 and is projected to go from #6 to #3 in the next three years. As a result it is seen as no longer an if, but when a business will experience a cyber attack.