'African businesses need to embrace app economy'

'African businesses need to embrace app economy'

As the population of Africa becomes younger and younger, businesses and organisations cannot hide from adopting a digital framework for their processes.

This is according to Andrea Lodolo, chief technology officer at CA Southern Africa, a franchise of CA Technologies that helps business with digital infrastructure.

CA Southern Africa describes the application economy as one in which businesses and organisations are looking to deploy apps to various platforms to help them scale their businesses as the introductions of new mobile devices become the order of the day.

"Sixty percent of Kenyans are under 25 years old," Lodolo observed. "This is very similar to the rest of Africa, give or take. That is why foreign companies want to invest in Africa."

He said that in developed world, the growth of the young people is stagnating or even decreasing in some instances in Europe. The app economy is driven by the young generation who are fuelling the increase in mobile penetration in Africa.

Lodolo explained that the upcoming generation are tech savvy and they would prefer quick and convenient service that a digital economy gives.

Companies and businesses cannot ignore this, Lodolo said. "A lot of businesses in Africa still grapple with the basics of IT and we still provide that to them." Most company CEOs are struggling to get on board with the ever-changing technologies.

The fear of the dangers that lurk on the internet has also hindered companies from embracing third party technologies such as cloud computing. However, some areas on the continent are experiencing great uptake of new technologies such as application deployment and cloud computing.

Lodolo was speaking at the Kenyan leg of the company's Africa technology-focused roadshow. There is a possibility of heading to Nigeria for the next stage of the PR initiative.

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