Morocco -based agriculture solutions and chemicals company OCP Group has partnered with multinational technology company IBM to form a joint venture named TEAL Technology Services to help facilitate digital transformation in key sectors in Africa.
Through the new venture OCP will utilise IBM technology to digitise operations of agriculture clients across the continent.
Takreem El-Tohamy, IBM Middle East & Africa General Manager, said, "TEAL Technology Services will provide digital transformation services and data centre services to Moroccan and African companies, across industries. As part of the agreement, IBM will also manage and transform OCP's IT-related operations."
According to a statement from IBM, "The new joint venture will support OCP to accelerate its digital transformation initiatives implemented within various organisations."
Broad and inclusive economic growth in Africa, note the companies, will depend on the transformation of the continent's agriculture sector and the expansion and diversification of its manufacturing, industrial and service sectors. Harnessing the full power of digital technologies and solutions will be key to this growth.
The technologies to be implemented include analytics, cognitive and Internet of things (IoT) and customised services, "leveraging OCP and IBM expertise, while also aiming to generate employment," the statement notes.
The announcement comes in the wake of a significant push in the continent for industries to develop digitised operations.
Despite massive digital transformation drives, Stephan Gous, SWECA Territory Manager at Nintex believes that 68% of business processes remain highly manual. "This is because the IT department only has the capacity to automate the most complex yet least dynamic processes."
Sulemana Abubakar, CIO for GE Africa, says businesses that rush to adopt technologies that are driving digital revolution in Africa, including the Internet of Things, might not achieve the desired results because of failure to consider the relevance of data analytics. "The whole idea of this industrial digitalisation is to significantly ramp up productivity across multiple industries," he concludes.
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