Airtel Nigeria Effects Major Management Change

TELECOMMUNICATIONS services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has effected a major management has resulted both in promotion and redeployment.  The change resulted to the promotion of Muhammad Bashir Ibrahim and Oladapo Dosunmu as Regional Operations Directors for North Region and South Region, respectively.
 

In their new roles, Ibrahim and Dosunmu will ensure growth indices are sustained across all channels and will be responsible for implementing the right strategy to grow Airtel’s revenue market share within their regions. They will also leverage on their distribution expertise to drive deeper penetration in their assigned regions while ensuring sustainable growth through enhanced territory development.

The company also announced the reorganisation of its commercial operations to accelerate growth, drive efficiency and reclaim market leadership in the highly competitive telecoms sector. 

Under the new commercial structure announced by the telco, Veronica Onoja, former Regional Operations Director (South Region) will take on a new role as Vice President, Airtel Money Operations while Wole Abu, former Regional Operations Director (North Region) will assume the position of Vice President, Indirect Sales, and tasked with managing Airtel’s strategic partners and also take full ownership of Airtel’s KYC operations to ensure compliance with statutory regulations.

Olusina Adegoke, erstwhile Regional Operations Director (West Region) has been reassigned as Regional Operations Director (Lagos Region) while Femi Oshinlaja, former Vice President, Airtel Money Operations, has been appointed Regional Operations Director (West Region).

Oladokun Oye, former Regional Operations Director (Lagos Region) has been drafted to the Headquarters to head Airtel’s Direct Sales Directorate and tasked with not only driving and improving customer experience and profitability of this business segment but also grow and develop new direct sales channels.

Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, extended warm felicitations to all for the new opportunity, noting that the reorganization which is in line with Airtel’s organisational commitment to continually provide opportunities for its internal talents would also help the company consolidate on its gains in the market.

Prior to his appointment as Regional Operations Director (North Region) Muhammad Bashir Ibrahim was Zonal Business Manager (North Midland) where he was instrumental to managing Airtel’s presence in the war-torn regions of the North East. Ibrahim is a 1997 Mechanical/Production Engineering graduate of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University and has close to two decade experience across multiple sectors and geographies. 

Previously Head, Indirect Sales at Airtel Nigeria, Oladapo Dosumu, a 1999 Lagos State University MBA degree holder, managed the transition of Airtel’s Channel Partners based distribution model to a more robust model having multiple routes to market.  Before joining Airtel, Dosunmu was Head, Distribution, Glozone & Branding at Globacom Nigeria. He had also held different positions at Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottlers, heading different divisions including Commercial Process and Demand Planning, Commercial Projects and Regional Sales Manager.

Olusina Adegoke has over 21 years of Sales Management and Leadership experience across the Telecommunications, Finance, FMCG and Pharmaceutical industries. Prior to joining Airtel, he worked at Etisalat Nigeria Limited as the Head of Region (South West) between 2013 – 2015. He has also held different leadership roles in Coca-Cola and May & Baker Plc. He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Obafemi Awolowo University and MBA (Marketing) from the same university. 

Oladokun Oye is a graduate of Hertfordshire, UK, Adekunle Ajasin University, Lagos State University, and Lagos Business School, and started his career as Assistant Brand Manager, Trans-Global Market International, before joining Avdel Limited (formerly Act Global Technologies) UK as Senior Sales Manager. At Avdel Limited, he was responsible for managing customers in Northern UK and Scotland, managing key portfolios that included Ford, Jaguar, Electrolux, Rolls Royce, Caterpillar, Siemens and Scheider, coordinating concessionaires/distributors in Norway, Finland and Holland as well as managing ongoing product forecast, implementing product training programmes for the sales force, amongst others.

Wole Abu, a 1990 Chemical Engineering graduate of University of Benin, has held various positions at Airtel Nigeria including Project Manager (2004-2006), Head of Division, Business Support (2006-2008), Regional Sales Manager (2009-2010), Zonal Business Manager (2010-2012), General Manager, Acquisition – Marketing (2012-2014) and Regional Operations Director, North Region (June 2014 to February 2017). Abu has an MBA from the Lagos Business School and was President of the Airtel Staff Multipurpose Cooperative Society from 2011-2015.Nigeria Effects Major Management Change

Veronica Onoja is expected to bring her significant experience in the East Africa money market to bear in driving Airtel Money’s business segment to profitable growth. In her previous role as Regional Operations Director for the South region, she won various accolades including best performing region and was pivotal to Airtel’s success in the last financial year. 

Onoja, a 1997 Psychology graduate of University of Jos, joined Airtel in 2003 and has held various positions including Key Account Consultant, Distribution Specialist, Distribution Manager, Head of Division, Commercial; Regional Sales Manager, Zonal Business Manager, Sales Operations Director (Airtel Tanzania), and Regional Operations Director.

Industrial IoT Set to Shake up African oil & Gas Sector

THE global oil and gas industry is undergoing a period of unprecedented change and disruption. Falling crude oil prices have put immense strain on the entire oil value chain, while the increasing availability and affordability of renewable energy sources means oil & gas is no longer the de facto choice for energy generation.

 

An African perspective on oil & gas

In Africa, where the oil and gas industry drives the economic engine of several of its largest economies, the need for innovation in the oil and gas value chain is critical to its continued growth and success. By the end of 2013, Africa was estimated to have 228 billion barrels of oil-equivalent, with oil making up 56% of this and gas accounting for the remaining 44%, according to EY.

The US was until recently the largest buyer of African crude oil, but exports dropped from a high of 1.8m barrels a day in 2005 to only 274,000 in 2015. There is hope that the new administration's policy changes could herald an era of renewed oil exports to the North American market.

According to PwC, one of the key areas oil and gas companies should focus on if they are to weather the storm is in exploiting new technology to innovate, minimise costs and extract further value from existing infrastructure. And of all the emerging technologies, IoT presents the greatest benefit to the oil and gas sector.

The Internet of Oil & Gas

The oil and gas industry has long been at the forefront of automation and technological disruption. However, IoT is poised to completely revolutionise the industry, from extraction to operations to customer engagement. Connected devices open opportunities for oil and gas companies to improve safety, increase efficiency and ensure visibility across the value chain.

A Morgan Stanley report estimates that there's a global market of $100bn for autonomous vehicles in the trucking and logistics industry. With only a 50% penetration of IoT, the global manufacturing industry can see a potential cost saving of $500bn. In fact, IDC estimates that IoT revenue in Africa and the Middle East will reach $114bn by 2020.

Oil and gas companies have taken note of the potential of IoT and are investing vast sums into IoT to achieve improved uptime, ensure predictive maintenance, reduce the cost of compliance, and transform business practices. Asset uptime and maintenance has emerged as the key initial driver of interest in IoT: an ARC strategy report found that 60% of respondents named reduced asset downtime as the catalyst for their interest in IoT.

Fleet management stands to benefit greatly from IoT: construction contractor Essar Projects uses GPS and RFID systems to monitor equipment movement, fuel levels and consumption, achieving a 5% saving on maintenance and a 10% saving on fuel costs. The ability to use sensors to track equipment performance and proactively manage maintenance is helping oil and gas companies to ensure optimum equipment uptime.

Making IoT work for oil and gas companies

As sensors and connected devices continue to permeate every aspect of the oil and gas value chain, companies will start generating unprecedented volumes of data. SAP solutions powered by the SAP HANA platform enables companies to extract valuable insights from this data. Oil and gas companies can get real-time information from multiple locations, including information on location awareness, project status, environmental factors and safety. 

Environment, health and safety management professionals can mine employee data - including social media - to identify key risks to operations, while public information that forms part of the big data lake can be used to determine public sentiment on oil and gas operations.

Caution must be taken in terms of data security, as recent malware examples have shown control systems can be attractive targets for intruders wishing to harm or interrupt production. It is equally important that the correct technology partner is chosen: IoT brings together data from hardware, sensors, devices, apps, telematics and connectivity to the cloud. The software vendors that connect and process all this data need to have the depth of experience to reshape business processes to allow oil and gas companies to fully enjoy the benefits of IoT.

However, the real value of IoT for the oil and gas industry lies in connecting operational infrastructure to broader business software. In-memory computing combines IoT data with business transactional data in a single shared database, in real time. This allows oil and gas companies to gain real-time insight into key operations and asset performance indicators, equipping business leaders with better decision-making capability and opening the door to streamlined business processes and entirely new business models.

For oil and gas companies ready to transform their operations through IoT, the benefits are unquestionable. Choosing the correct technology partner that has the depth of industry experience and the robust cloud-based in-memory platform needed to bring the benefits of IoT to life is essential to their success.

by Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director: West Africa at SAP Africa

Internet Society Regional Development Dialogue Moves to Kigali

THE Internet Society said it will hold the first ever Africa Regional Internet and Development Dialogue from 8-9 May 2017 in Kigali, Rwanda, in partnership with UNESCO and Republic of Rwanda Ministry of Youth and ICT.

 

The event aims at gathering various organisations working on Internet and development across the region to identify synergies and create opportunities for coordination and collaboration.

The two-day meeting will bring together experts including government and inter-governmental organisation officials, business and educational leaders from throughout the continent to discuss how Africa can use the Internet to advance education, innovation and job creation.

According to the Regional Bureau Director for Africa at the Internet Society, Dawit Bekele, one of the key topics of discussion will be what needs to be done for Africa to benefit from the transformational opportunities of the Internet for the benefit of the African economy and education.

 “While there are many challenges, we know it can be done. Countries such as Kenya and Rwanda have created policy environments that enable innovation and they are now seeing the benefits of the Internet economy. Universities throughout the continent are also using e-learning opportunities to increase their reach as well as to give flexibility for their students”, said Bekele.

Rwanda’s Minister for Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana who is excited about the development said that Africa is on an unstoppable move toward digital transformation adding that the room for increasing speed and impact is limitless.

“This can only be achieved if we are able to harness effectively the power of partnerships. We therefore welcome and are pleased to co-host this dialogue which is a great platform for advanced partnerships ahead of the transform Africa Summit that Rwanda will host from May 10 to 12, 2017”, said Nsengimana.

 

The Africa Regional Internet Development Dialogue is an opportunity for key stakeholders to: discuss not only the challenges, but also the achievements in building the Internet economy and education in Africa; review the successes and setbacks of various initiatives throughout the region and share lessons-learned and identify the next steps different stakeholders need to take to build the Internet economy and improve education in Africa. 

The Director, Knowledge Societies Division, Communications and Information Sector, UNESCO, Indrajit Banerjee said: “I am honoured to participate in this very meaningful event. UNESCO is committed to working with all stakeholders to harness ICTs in a way that serves the interests of learners and the larger teaching/learning community”. 

This conference is part of a global series of Internet development conferences organized by the Internet Society with the aim of furthering the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that aim at tackling the world’s main development challenges by 2030. 

Regional Internet Development Dialogues were held last year in Asia Pacific, hosted by UNESCAP, and in Latin America & Caribbean in partnership with Inter-America Development Bank and hosted by the Government of Argentina.