By Emmanuel Elebeke

IBM West Africa last week organized a workshop tagged, ‘Smarter Government Forum’ to  intimate government institutions on trendy IT solutions for problem solving and efficient service delivery.

The event was designed to provide insight into the solutions IBM software has pioneered across the globe that leveraged current mega trends in IT.

It also provided a platform for the company to showcase how a selection of IBM’s leading partners are enabling forward looking organizations across Africa to succeed by implementing the solutions. Some of the solutions include: IBM ECM, IBM content Navigator, Smart counter fraud, IBM data cap and IBM Data manager.

The workshop also threw insight on intelligence investigation, Information Life cycle  Governance and emerging trends in capture and imaging of documents. Speaking at the forum, IBM Software Group Executive, Middle East and Africa, Cherif Morcos, said IBM the Smarter Business Africa was focused on the African organizations to deliver valuable on IBM Software’s capabilities to improve efficiency, profitability, agility and ultimately benefit business.

According to him, IBM has been active in a number of African markets for some time, and had proven to be a significant factor in the success of some organizations in the continent by making its solutions fit into their requirements.

Head of External Relations, IBM, Charles Moyela  said: “We have great technology solutions and are working hard to maintain a world-leading  identity and brand its partners can share and leverage from, when securing important  deals.

We are here to help Nigerian government manage their data and secure their valuable documents since Africa is becoming an increasing important piece of the IBM globally strategy. Our recent investment in bringing the power of cognitive system, Waston, to Africa demonstrates this .

This investment is symbolic of how IBM software is looking to bring solutions to the businesses and challenges faced across the continent.”

‘‘Our passion for success on the continent should not be underestimated either. We’re committed to empowering and energizing our business partners and helping them to think differently too. That is why this forum is aimed at highlighting successful case studies that show what is possible by IMB software’s solutions when our pool of talented business partners set their minds to solving a business challenge.

‘‘These trends are undoubtedly changing the technology landscape and the business environment, and that’s clear by the fact that we’re seeing increasing interest. We are focusing at government because they play ever-more important roles in the decision making of how they need technology to empower their businesses,’’ he stated.

Moleye said the company in the coming months and years will be focusing a significant amount of attention and resources on b

ringing complete solutions to market that offer a better response to the need of the individual African markets and their people.

Also speaking, Moyela said, ‘‘we found out over time that most of the sections we have establishments, they complain about is how IBM is going to help them become more efficient. They know that we have the technology to handle them in a way they will be more efficient in the way they handle documents, talking about documents moving from one place to another.

‘‘We look at both stages of removing the document and processing them, making them more efficient and how they store that information or data they can use in future to drive efficiency within their environment and business.