​The continent of Africa has a total of 54 independent countries, but international trade to and from the region is dominated by just five countries. Growth is steady on the whole (around 1.5% in 2016 and 2.6% in 2017) standing just behind Asia as a continent, and expected to strengthen in the coming years. But some countries in the region stand out - Ethiopia has been growing at 10% by IATA estimates while Kenya shows a 6% growth rate according to World Bank estimates. This distribution of trade across the expanse of the continent calls for a good connectivity network as can be provided only ...

Technology must pervade, without the need to intrude. While technology itself may be getting more and more complex, the true objective of the IT vendor is to reduce the complexity of transactions for the customer business. A SaaS mode implementation strips the customer of practically all the responsibility of IT, giving the IT provider complete control over the 'how', to implement 'what' the customer has defined as their business goal. From the point of view of a technology partner, the control we gain comes with a great responsibility. Moving to a SaaS model isn't just a question of tech...

40% of businesses in this room, unfortunately, will not exist in a meaningful way in 10 years John Chambers, Chairman, Cisco This grim prediction was made two years ago before a 25,000 strong audience. Chambers blamed ineffective digitization efforts, but statistics surrounding corporate longevity isn't generally compelling. The United States, an icon of capitalism for the world, scores a net negative when it comes to business survival – around 400,000 new businesses start every year and 470,000 close down as per small business information resource Success Harbor .  This doesn't mean...

Forget the mistake, but remember the lesson.  Sometimes, a brilliant idea goes to waste, or becomes pure evil, when used for the wrong purposes. However, the magic of human resilience lies in the fact that we are able to pick up positive lessons from even the worst of situations and apply them for effecting a positive change. Blue whale – a shady mobile app game which gives you 50 adverse tasks to complete, eventually driving you to depression and possibly suicide – has been grabbing headlines recently and it is all predictably for the wrong reasons. Let's be clear: the game is illegal in...

​ What does a traveler need in his/her hotel room? That's a hopelessly vague question! The answer necessarily depends on the objective of the trip – personal, business or social – as well as how much of the trip is to be spent in the hotel room, and several other factors. And when a hospitality services provider doesn't know what a customer needs, what can be done to ensure customer delight? How can inventory be managed effectively? One, we try to figure it out from historic behavior. That brings us to predictive data analytics, which happens to be a pet favorite approach of mine to many real ...