Take opportunities in IoT, Vodacom boss urges entrepreneurs

IN the constantly evolving world that we live in today, the Internet of Things (IoT) has become one of the fastest growing technologies the world over.

It is therefore essential to seize the vast opportunities that this growth presents in transforming businesses.

This was the submission of Mr Lanre Kolade, the Managing Director of Vodacom Business Nigeria, who gave a keynote speech at the NigeriaCom 2017 organised by Informa Telecoms Group in Lagos recently.

He stated that across all industries, IoT solutions have been adopted to provide a host of different benefits, from increased Return on Investment (ROI) to developing stronger relationships with customers’, with far reaching benefits projected for the future.

“Today, telecommunications operators are facing a period of flat growth for core services and significant decline in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). This drastic change threatens the survival of the telecoms industry, as substantial declines in user spending on voice and text services have caused a decline in telco revenue. IoT has delivered a big growth opportunity for the industry due to the volume of connections expected and experts have projected the market will reach $14.6 trillion global market size by 2020,” he said.

Kolade, in his presentation, calls on telecom operators to adapt to the changing times and source other revenue streams to replace what is being lost in the continuing revolution of communications.

“The Internet of Things (IoT) offers significant growth potential and the opportunity to take a role in new vertical markets, such as automotive, healthcare and smart cities.

“As these sectors seek to adopt more IoT services, the opportunities that exist are vast. Whether you are a hardware manufacturer or connectivity reseller, adding IoT solutions to your portfolio will open up new revenue streams from selling hardware, software and connectivity services, to a broad range of value-added services, such as consulting, integration and support.  Telcos will have to look at the Internet of Things as a potential revenue generator to offset the declining revenues from core services,” he said.

He disclosed that by 2020, more than seven billion people and businesses and over 30 billion devices, will be connected to the internet.