Corporate South Africa has arrived at a high-tech watershed in how it uses technology to gain a competitive edge.
A new study reveals that many large South African enterprises are poised to embrace emerging technologies like robotics, the Internet of Things, Big Data and machine learning. The Mobile Corporation in South Africa 2018, a research study conducted by World Wide Worx in partnership with enterprise software company Syspro, shows slow uptake of these technologies until now, but a rapidly growing readiness to adopt them in the near future.
‘The reason is simple,’ says Mark Wilson, managing director SYSPRO Africa. ‘They are all seeing their counterparts globally being disrupted by small, nimble newcomers or large companies that are willing to disrupt themselves.
‘If they don’t respond as part of their own strategic direction, someone will force them to respond. The result will be that these companies will find themselves performing crisis management instead of strategy management.’
The study, based on telephonic interviews with information technology (IT) decision makers at 400 large companies in South Africa, found low current usage, but massive intended usage, of cutting edge technologies. For example, while only 13 per cent of enterprise IT decision-makers said that they currently use big data and machine learning, a further 55 per cent said they would adopt these technologies in the near future.
Robotics has been deployed in only six per cent of companies, but a further 45 per cent said they planned to do so. Almost all those who have no plans in this direction cited cost as the main reason to stay away.
That is also the reason given by half of those who have no intention of exposing their companies to blockchain, the technology underpinning Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It is the only one of the major emerging technologies that is still being avoided by most corporates: only three per cent are trying it out, while only another 39 per cent of companies plan to use it.
In dramatic contrast, almost two thirds of the respondents, 66 per cent, say they currently use technologies related to the Internet of Things (IoT). The majority of those not using it, plan to do so (a further 28 per cent), while all those currently using it plan to increase their usage.
‘For several years now we’ve been watching a new information technology revolution sweeping the corporate world – but mostly in developed countries,’ says Arthur Goldstuck, managing director of World Wide Worx. ‘Finally, we are about to see it beginning in South Africa.’
