While the demands and aspirations of most technology users in Africa are similar to users worldwide, experiences of connectivity, mobility and cloud services resonate in Africa, says auditing firm KPMG technology sector partner Frank Rizzo.

“However, while corporate information technology (IT) governance practices in South Africa benefited from King 3 policies, this is not the case in other African countries, such as Nigeria and Kenya, where the security and governance of IT remain informal, despite a prolife- ration of devices and increased connectivity and bandwidth,” he says.

The value that devices add to daily personal or work-related activities is crucial to users and this continual search for functionality and usefulness creates risks to the longevity of brands, says electronics giant Samsung Electronics South Africa IT solutions division head Mike van Lier.

“Samsung is aware of the problems pertaining to brand longevity. Innovation is important and we are channelling significant funds into research and development to understand consumer needs and corporate security needs,” says Van Lier.

In Africa, user aspirations and risks to brand dominance are linked through the pace of change in technology adoption and use, which companies must understand and contend with, says Rizzo.

“The many functions that mobile devices fulfil across Africa create security risks, which have prompted Samsung to create more secure IT equipment and environments for users of our devices and services and, subsequently, to market these to users who are exposed to these risks in Africa. This is part of our focus on creating value for our users,” says Van Lier.

Further, Samsung Africa has segmented the market of its end-users and aims to provide specific functionality for each group, with a signifi- cant focus on education, small businesses and students. This focus on functionality is critical for users to recognise the value of Samsung’s products and increase the uptake and use in different market segments, as well as increase its brands’ longevity, he adds.

“Samsung is focused on mobility, the success of smart devices, cloud adoption and application and the business opportunities presented by the need to connect all devices to the Internet. The company also provides corporate users with ways to manage data and storage, improving the usefulness of our devices and services in Africa,” notes Van Lier.

Captains of industries drive the increased use of mobile devices for business because the executives are more technology literate.

“Company executives are aware of the risks that cloud use poses for data and will generally deploy noncritical data and services in a cloud format. However, KPMG also reports an increase in the use of private cloud services, which companies use to provide distributed services in a cloud format, while simultaneously protecting corporate data,” Rizzo explains.

Further, IT departments in Africa are now also using personal mobile devices in businesses and IT managers have several ways of ensuring security and risk-mitigation compliance, including the deployment of business-specific partitions on devices that protect business data on the devices, while not interfering with the personal data and privacy of the user, Rizzo notes.

“The pace of change of IT devices, applications and understanding in Africa is a key trend with which equipment and software businesses must contend. They must understand that the demands from African IT device users, while different in certain respects because of less market maturity, are nevertheless significant and important,” he concludes.