The Indaba focused on the topic of digital adoption within the local agriculture sector. In his presentation, White highlighted that by moving away from the use of analogue voice communications and centralising network management for more than 140 sites nationwide with the implementation of a unified communications solution supporting both voice and data, Senwes should achieve a 40 percent reduction in call charges.
“We also completed a travel analysis of Senwes staff, finding that the 2,500 staff members using the network were travelling a cumulative total of approximately four million kilometres per annum. It was decided that a more collaborative solution would deliver greater productivity by allowing for video conferencing and document sharing features, as opposed to physical travel. The ROI for the project should be realised, in less than five years,” said White.
Backed by technology specialists including Cisco, ITR Technology, Lenovo, McAfee, Skybox Security and Veeam Software, the event took an introspective look at how industry can support farming communities in embracing technology, better equipping these agri-businesses with information on existing and emerging solutions that can help transform business processes, increase performance, and deliver a better customer experience.
Speaking at the 2018 Agri Indaba, Datacentrix chief digital officer, Rudie Raath, explained that, as a continent, Africa will feel the greatest amount of change when it comes to disruptive technologies, and that this type of innovation is transforming Africa’s economic potential. “With disruption comes great opportunity, where Africa will use technology to improve our competitive advantage on a global scale.
“Agriculture plays a critical role in meeting Africa’s developmental goals, with a huge focus on increasing agricultural production in a sustainable way, while also decreasing costs. Here, technology like the Internet of Things (IoT), analytics and blockchain can help to shift this industry beyond a ‘business-as-usual’ farming approach to one of transformation, without cost to the environment.”