Organisations Urged to Adopt Digital Transformation for Economic Growth 

Emma Okonji

Organisations and government agencies across Africa have been urged to consider digital transformation as key component of their business and adopt it in order to innovate, compete and enhance economic growth.

Technology experts gave the advice at the opening session at the ongoing five-day training workshop for government agencies, HR managers and businesses executivesin Lagos.

The training was organised by Tetconsult for some selected government agencies and business executives in Nigeria and Ghana, with the theme: “Digital Transformation-Strategies for the New Digital Age.”

In his keynote address, Osun State Commissioner for Innovation, Science, Technology and Digital Economy, Ayofe Olatunji, stressed the need for government agencies and organisations to adopt digital transformation.  

“Adoption of digital transformation is not only a choice, but a necessity for unlocking the fundamentals, improving productivity and enhancing opportunities.
By leveraging digital transformation, we can streamline processes, foster innovation, and create new opportunities for economic development. In Osun State, we are committed to harnessing the power of digital transformation to drive economic development. Our vision is to create a digital-enabled economy that is innovative and quite competitive. In the next three months, the state will complete its e-governance plan to digitise all government activities in the state,” Olatunji said.

The General Manager, Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency, LASIMRA, OyekanmiElegushi, in his presentation as a guest speaker, stressed the importance of digital transformation in the area of data analytics for decision making.

Elegushi, who was represented by the Head of Business Development at LASIMRA, Ms. Yemisi Akinnuoye, talked about the landmark achievement of Lagos State, through digital transformation to include the laying of additional 2,700km of fibre to complement the existing 3,300km fibre deployment in the state.

Senior Consultant at Tetconsult South Africa, Dr. Edmond Katiti, in his presentation, described digital transformation as the redesigning and reimagining of how an organisation does business, engages with its customers, clients, stakeholders, by taking advantage of the benefits that digital technology offers us.

“As the world evolves and gets more sophisticated, organisations and government agencies need to ensure that they empower customers, and not just the other way of making money out of them. We used to be concerned about privacy, now it’s more about transparency. We used to be concerned about controlling, now we want to be enabling and empowering not just our members of staff in the organisation, but our clients as well. We use it to delegate tasks, now we have more of autonomous functions. We use it to hire managers, now we create leaders,” Katiti said.
CEO of Tetconsult, Shola Taylor, said the training programme was convened to encourage various institutions to embark on a realistic digital transformation agenda.

“With the way the world is going and the challenges that we have, the digital transformation is being driven by many factors. Industries are now changing and every organisation must have a strategic rethink of their businesses, of their processes, of how they deal with their people, managing them and managing the mission and vision that they set out to do,” Taylor said.

According to him, the training will help organisations and government agencies to assess the state of their digital readiness.