IBM, Bharti in Africa outsourcing deal

IBM has won a multi-million-dollar outsourcing deal to manage the technology services of Bharti Airtel's operations in 16 African countries, reports AllAfrica.com.

Under the 10-year contract, which will be finalised in the next three months, IBM will consolidate the IT operations of Bharti's mobile network operators into an integrated IT system. It will also oversee the management of all of technology applications, data centre operations, data storage and desktop services, IBM says.

"We don't see this as an outsourcing deal but as transformation of IT in Africa. This transaction has far-reaching impact on other industries," says Mark Harris, IBM's vice-president of Business Development Middle East and Africa.

Local studies reveal that lack of skills and education is the key barrier to economic development across Africa, much ahead of any other issues such as funding, sales, innovations, etc, states Star Africa.com.

Local enterprises recognise the massive need for education and training among staff. In the telecoms and audio visual sectors alone, executives reported to Balancing Act Research that they lack highly skilled technical and business experts. African companies sometimes need to recruit outside of the continent to find the right fit, but this will change.

Kushark Jaiswal from Karrox Technologies thinks e-education in Africa has a huge untapped potential. “With close to one billion in population; 14.8% of the world's human population, and with close to 50% below the age of 25, Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent. It needs mass scale skill enhancement, he says.

Director of Sales MEA and CIS at Western Digital, providers of data storage and multimedia solutions, Mohammed Owais, reinforces the popular opinion that Nigeria is still a potential market for all ICT components and parts, according to the Vanguard.

Mohammed whose company joined forces with Redington, another IT distributor in the Middle East and Africa, to host the Redington Information Technology Africa award in Lagos, also stressed that Nigeria was more specifically a hard drive market potential.

He says: “To further unlock the immense potential that the Nigerian ICT market possesses, there is a need to explore the hard drive market.”