Amid growing levels of demand for computing power and services in Nigeria, widely acknowledged to be the most populous country in Africa, South African systems integrator Business Connexion (BCX) recently launched a cloud services offering in the West African country.
It is an offering that will be further complimented by the penetration of BCX’s latest acquisition, Integr8 IT, a South African ICT management specialist firm and part of the Integr8 Group.
Earlier this month Business Connexion, through its UCS Solutions (Pty) Ltd division, finalised its 100% acquisition of Integr8 IT for an estimated R126 million. The initial acquisition was pending an approval from the Competition Commission, which confirmed that all conditions of the transaction had been met.
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According to management at Integr8 IT, the cloud services offering from BCX, including SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and MaaS (Metal as a Service), amongst others, is positioned to assist local businesses in Nigeria to gain improved control over their infrastructure and bolster operations.
They say that the Nigeria’s commercial landscape is made up of mostly small-to-medium sized businesses together with large enterprises within key sectors, including banking, oil & gas service verticals. Acquiring sufficient skills to manage and maintain these environments remains a challenge.
From a broader point of view, the development of the country’s ICT sector is considered pivotal to the successful transformation of Nigeria’s agricultural and mechanical economy into a knowledge-based economy.
Foreign investment and credible ICT solutions are considered critical resources to help with this transformation.
Robert Sussman, joint CEO of Integr8, says the company is perfectly positioned to support BCX and its cloud-service strategy within Nigeria, and has developed a strategic plan that is currently underway to cover this region.
He underlines that Integr8’s Nerve Centre® is perfectly positioned to allow African countries to leverage off highly scalable cost effective and leading technology, skills and process, without incurring the usual investment that is required.
This will further be complimented by skills development and transfer, to ensure local upliftment and knowledge transfer to the community. The success of Integr8’s Nerve Centre® in South Africa is rapidly expanding into Africa, with deployments of this digital managed services cloud platform into multiple countries.
“The entire platform and service is totally managed by Integr8 on BCX’s behalf. There are no expensive set up fees and BCX does not need to go into a lengthy software modification cycle and commensurate trouble shooting which adds an incredible amount of value. We are perfectly aligned in our positioning to cover the continent and truly bridge the digital divide” Sussman explains.
