Lessons to learn for new trans-sector projects

Australia has become one of the world’s leaders in developing a trans-sector grid through the implementation of the National Broadband Network (NBN), first supported by the Labor Party.

With entrance of The Hon. Julia Gillard MP, the first woman Prime Minister elected in Australia, concerns are arising over the coalition’s plans to implement FTTN (fibre to the node) instead of NBN, which was introduced by Shadow Communications Minister, Tony Smith.

The impact a shift in trans-sector development will have for Australia is being closely watched and will be discussed by top utility companies across Australia at the Next Generation Utilities Australia Summit 2010. Such industry leaders believe that by linking smart grids with other network services like e-health, educations and entertainment, long-term goals of the country’s power grid can be met.

Smart grid technologies are concepts that are vital to utility companies across the globe when creating functional infrastructures for the transmission of user data. Smart grid development is also fraught with challenges from aging equipment and workforce to inter-state jurisdictions and other legal hurdles.

One commonality that is transparent through IT or operational differences is the need for Energy Management Systems. Reducing energy consumption, improving the utilization of the system, increasing reliability, predicting electrical system performance and monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the performance of generation and transmission system are areas that have been the focal point for utilities providing quality service to their customers. These are areas where lessons can be learned when developing new and effective trans-sector environments.

The focus of how to take the success utilities bring with developing infrastructures and translating that success to new trans-sector areas will be closely followed by Andre Botha, General Manager of Networks at Aurora Energy, Simon Middap, CIO at Energex, Peter McIntyre, General Manager of Network Development & Regulatory Affairs at TransGrid, and Mike Torr, Business Manager Meter Assets at Trust Power.

New technologies have been instrumental in enabling energy to be provided cheaply and efficiently. Strong network management in the grid is important to providing quick response times to outages and notifications, decreasing complaints and continually assessing the power delivery of the distribution system. These are additional areas that require utilities to be a major player in developing functional trans-sector infrastructure.

Australia leads the Gas Frontier

US Company Chevron Corp have just announced drilling success in the Carnarvon Basin offshore of Western Australia; this has been closely followed by Woodside Petroleum Ltd. It seems that Australia is the gift that keeps on giving and investment into exploration and production is proving itself popular among Australia’s neighbors.

Limited oil reserves mean that Australia and its leading industry executives are looking to gas for the future. In the last few years alone gas has shown remarkable growth both in domestic and export markets. With over 190 TCF (trillion cubic feet) of gas resources still untapped industry execs have stated their claim that “more investment is a guarantee not a probability.”

Dr Beverly Ronalds, the Group Executive; Energy at CISRO, has a budget of $140 million and has agreed to meet at the Next Generation Gas Australia event. Companies have been looking at the development of unconventional gas such as CSG (coal seam gas) which have been proposed as the best bet for reducing emissions. This has been backed by Westside Corporation who have just completed drilling three new appraisal wells in Queensland's Bowen Basin and will join the NG Gas Australia committee. CSG is also the best bet for Australia in their quest to become the largest LNG exporter in the Asia Pacific region.

According to the Australian Parliament, gas exports are projected to increase to around 60 percent of production by 2020. We are about to enter the next stage of a ‘gas boom’ that will enrich the economy and see Australia emerge as a key supplier of raw materials fuelling Asia’s development. The recent discoveries in both the Pluto and Wheatstone projects are just a couple of those planned around Australia to target the rising demand for cleaner burning fuel, both globally and more specifically in Asia,

With so much change on the horizon the industry needs to invest in the future. This has lead to the congregation of executives from Adelaide Energy, Central Petroleum, Amadeus Energy, Icon Energy and Santos who will be meeting to discuss their investment plans, new drilling and production technologies and how to make gas extraction from these sources commercially viable and environmentally friendly.

Across industry sectors we are seeing the growth opportunities across Australia and reaping the rewards but we must be aware of the challenges involved in such rapid growth. Organizations must overcome the potential delays in development in order not to slow the process of delivery to those continents becoming more and more reliant on Australia’s resources.

Staying Afloat in the Riptide of Convergence

In recent years the Middle East has seen significant growth in many different markets but few as dramatic as in the information technology sector. This has been facilitated by the region encouraging private companies as well as a more hands off approach by local and federal governments, allowing for ease of foreign travel.

With business getting done easier and over wider markets, corporations in the Middle East are looking at their internal IT infrastructures to determine the best ways to streamline launching of products to market most efficiently, provide the best services to their customers and protect internal and external data. These are especially key areas of focus when concerns about broadband capabilities are replaced with a stronger mobile and IT convergence shift.

The chief concern for Marwan Al Siddiqi, Information Technology Director at Al Rajhi Investment Group, had been experiencing unacceptable internet speed which hampered the ability to grow. This has now transformed into the need to identify the technologies and trends that will drive greater efficiency in the delivery of IT. As a result he will be looking at the appropriate technologies to accomplish this at the CIO Summit MENA in November.

As telecoms and IT move closer towards convergence the ways in which businesses use the communications components to support business activities continues to change. The old days of telecoms players expecting users to fit their business needs into a rigid, expensive highly technology-focused set of services is being challenged. Instead of hiding behind technology, the Telcos and their partners need to hide the technology while exposing the services and how they relate to the business within which they are being used.

This has been accentuated most recently by the current news that Intel will be acquiring McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash. This will be beneficial to most CIOs and IT Directors when utilizing Intel servers due to the added level of security and management systems that will become inherent in the imbedded Intel hardware. Graham Titterinton, principal analyst at Ovum explains that; “McAfee’s products extend beyond IT Security into governance and aspects of systems management, and so this acquisition will increase Intel’s exposure to the CxO level executives in the world’s largest organizations.”

Implementing the most effective technologies for business continuity is only one of the issues that CIOs are concerned with, another being the creation of the appropriate customer relationship management solutions. This is also a major topic that is will be discussed at the CIO Summit MENA on November 29th through December 1st when leading executives like Kirit Shah, CIO at Landmark Group, John Loomis, CIO at Arab National Bank, Fady Sleiman the CIO for Global Banking MENA at GE Capital, and Mahmood Shaker, Head of IT at Qatar First Investment Bank will be attending.

These executives will discuss the need for appropriate CRM software needed in a region predicted to experience annual compound growth in CRM software purchases of 12 to 13 percent until 2012. This becomes a gain or loss of competitive advantage if competing companies are lacking in an effective way to communicate and provide services to their customers.

More and more companies in the Middle East are becoming interested in deploying high-end technology to gain competitive advantage while at the same trying to keep their IT infrastructure costs to a minimum. As a result, the IT services market in this region is predicted to grow rapidly over the next 2 years, reaching US$3.5 billion by 2011 with exceptional growth expected in outsourced services, particularly in managed network and desktop services. However, can the quality of IT services delivered to end-users in the Middle East keep up with and challenge the standards seen on a global basis?

The Rise and Fall of Telecoms

The telecoms industry is once under attack from falling stocks with Verizon Communications and AT&T Inc both seeing drops of 1.5 percent. Is this a true reflection of how the industry is progressing?

Despite low figures the latest Intel acquirement of McAfee adds a new dimension to the telecoms industry and smart phone security. It is also just the tip of what has been an investment iceberg for the month of August. The acquisition by Intel is a defining step in their quest to be the chip supplier for nearly every electronic device which connects with the internet. The deal finally went through with Intel agreeing to pay $7.68 billion in cash for McAffee, and is the largest acquisition for the company in their 42-year history.

But what does this mean for the telecoms industry and how will it affect both competition and telecom security and which companies will be affected? AT&T who have just announced their attendance to the NGT NA summit (hosted by GDS International) know that, while mobile security is not yet at the top of the list of consumer concerns, as more people turn to mobile banking and technology reliant smart phones increase in popularity they will need to protect from external threats and the data bills that customers will receive from outside ‘hack jobs’.

So the future of telecoms will continue to track the growth of technology innovation. The NGT NA summit understands that there is more to telecoms than phones and contracts. It is an industry comprised of components and it is those closed-door acquisitions, which in part include that of Intel and McAfee, that fund the advancements of technology within the sector. Companies such as CenturyLink - Matt Beal, CTO and FiberNet - Jack Belcher, VP of IT, both of whom are part of the NGT NA committee, have been dominating the M&A frontier; CenturyLink Inc. have just acquired Qwest Communications International for $22.2 billion while Fibernet have had interest from NTELOS.

This month alone has seen over $175 billion announced in takeover plans, the most so far this year according to Bloomberg, with telecoms companies being among the most cash rich. So despite the drop in shares registered by some companies the recent surge in mergers and acquisitions show an industry that is far from dead. Rather, it demonstrates and how cross industries such as IT security and Telecoms are now coming together to provide the ultimate consumer experience.

Convergence of Industries Proves Beneficial to Financial Institutions

It is well know that as a region, Latin America is seeing great growth in their markets and with it the broader use of technology is also. The concept of internet banking has boomed within the Latin American region, with over 70 percent of retail banks now offering internet banking to clients.

The financial institutions of Latin America are taking the opportunity to capitalize on the convergence of the Telco and IT industries by developing services for more mobile customers. Is the region capable of making the transition to a mobile focus?

With new forecasts from ABI Research indicating that in 2015 about 244 million people worldwide will carry out financial transactions using their mobile phones, the answer seems to be yes. This, coupled with the Gates foundation announcing a grant of 12.5 million dollars in support of mobile banking initiative in the region, allows for the popularization needed for financial institutions to make the most of this change.

The help of the Gates foundation allows people who previously couldn’t afford to sacrifice potential earnings to visit a branch and open an account the chance to develop savings through mobile accounts.

A hurdle for financial institutions is the need to adapt applications as there is more than one way to develop the right combination. An attendee of the FST LA Summit Rodolfo Gasparri, CIO of Banco Mercantil explains "It's a balance that one must do, what level of security and retrieval of information required, ie, measuring how long until the functionality is guaranteed, usually they are beginning to segment and define critical applications”.

The new information that Intel is acquiring McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash is good news for IT directors and managers at major financial institutions, because smart phones will automatically be installed with security software when coupled with Intel hardware. This leaves consumers feeling safer about sharing personal information and carrying out financial transactions over their mobile devices.

The topics of integrating technology service to ease the transition of mobile banking, as well as enterprise level services, are of major interest to industry leaders like Kelson Corte, CIO of Banco De Brasilia, Mario Gaete, CIO & COO of BCI, Stuart Pallant, CIO of Americas at Standard Bank and Laura Rodriguez, VP of Technology at Banco Meridian SA who are attending the FST Summit from the 1st through the 3rd of December in Mexico.

Mobile banking is not the only place seeing growth. Trading communications are also seeing increased benefits for the financial industry when prioritizing and speeding up market transactions.

The IQ/MAX is known for its ability to provide maximum resiliency and reliability, the turret supports redundant network connections to help increase productivity and provide unparalleled trading support. The system also allows traders to prioritize information in order of importance to enhance speed of transactions, and the benefits have been seen by the likes of Laura Rodriguez of Banco Meridian.

The increase in Latin America’s presence from an economic standpoint is developing niche markets for the implementation of technologies that financial institutions are embracing. The future of this area is bright and with potential still needing to be fulfilled it will be exciting to see the impact technology will have for those outside of Latin America.

IT’s not about the Size, but what you do with it

Complete mobile access to internet services available on most PCs and laptops has become a requirement for most of us and at the center of this movement are 4G networks.

Without the ability to have open bandwidth packages, we would not have been able to stream every game available during the World Cup nor would have Smartphone’s enjoyed their massive popularity... but what are the implications of a 10,000 percent increase in mobile data downloaded by Smartphone’s by 2015, as claimed by Rajeev Suri, Nokia Siemens Networks CEO?

Network providers need to deal with the challenge of keeping up with the mass usage of 4G capabilities once implemented on a wider scale. With mobile data and wire line bandwidth demand predicted to grow with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of respectively 130 percent and 34 percent, stronger infrastructure is needed across the industry.

Operators can address the growth in bandwidth demand with increasing capital expenditures (Capex), but, Eric Kuisch, GM Network Services at KPN and attendee of NG Telecom Summit 2010, believes the only sustainable way forward is proactively controlling bandwidth supply and demand. At peak time, a small percentage of customers utilize most of the bandwidth. Dynamic Bandwidth Control improves customer experience, while operators benefit from reduced Capex and additional revenue streams from new services.

It's going to be a 4G world - ubiquitous broadband everywhere (LTE/WiMax, FTTX, femtocells) plus ubiquitous cloud services providing service applications, computing horsepower and storage. This will make today's iPhone/ app stores look like clunky prototypes and further questions arise for the role and development of Telecom’s.

What kind of business models might exist; how will money flow round? What are the implications for today's communications service providers and how can they avoid being relegated to the sidelines as bit-pipe providers? These are just a few of the questions getting tackled at NG Telecom Summit 2010 by leaders in the industry like Robert Pataki, Chief Strategy Officer at Magyar Telekom, Phil Gaskell, Director Technical Strategy at Everything Everywhere, Cristobal Alonso, CTO at Bite Group, and Bulent Dortteppe, CTO at Eagle Mobile.


There are a number of areas where cooperation is going to be what provides Mobile Network Operators with the competitive edge over the newest entrant to the mobile world of companies like Google and Apple. When MNOs do not provide value to the customers and new common initiatives seem to instigate new chances to provide value to customers, a consequence could potentially be the inability to improve the revenue potential of Telecom operators.

Mining Security biggest Challenge

Mine Security in Africa his becoming a growing concern over the last 12 months and this despite its risks for the country itself is a key issue for the Mining industry. Neil de Beer, Secretary General, OABD will be speaking to the leading African mining companies on the Brand Africa concept and if we can possibly achieve sustainable development in the Mining Sector without Transformation of Africa’s thinking.
The Brand Africa concept speak of the countries ultimate objectives of a so-called "New Approach" to the development of effective strategies for the sustainable growth and meaningful transformation of the South African mining sector and how the continent has “taken on a mammoth task”.
Forecasts predict that South Africa’s mining sector will reach a value in excess of US$37bn by 2014. Africa is expected to be one of the first to bounce back from the depressed levels of 2009, and is likely to be among the first to benefit when the global economy returns to strength. Mining remains a key economic sector for South Africa, contributing some 8% to GDP. What the long-term future holds for the South African mining industry depends a lot on the result of exploration activities and any future changes made to mining regulations by the government.
Urgent discussions and negotiations aimed at producing the required strategies are set to take place between major, tripartite industry stakeholders announced the NGM Committee – Government, business and organised labor. These strategies will provide a comprehensive process that has been established to arrive at a new and productive economic policy for the country. Functioning in the correct environment the business of mining in South Africa retains considerable potential to assist Government in the achievement of critical public policy imperatives which include expanded economic growth, job creation and the alleviation of poverty.
The continent's is also embracing foreign investment agreed representatives from African Diamonds Plc - James Campbell, Managing Director , Banro Corporation - Michael Prinsloo, President & CEO , Ghana Chamber of Mines - Joyce Aryee, CEO and the Xstrata Group - Andile Sangqu, CEO Africa Executive Director, the mining industry is continually expanding and adapting to changing conditions with more international companies scrambling for a piece of the continent's resources.

Although underexplored, Africa hosts about 30% of the planet's mineral reserves, including 40% of gold, 60% of cobalt and 90% of the world's PGM reserves - making it a truly strategic producer of these precious metals. Most recently Russia is ready to invest US$1 billion (R7.5 billion) in uranium exploration in Namibia, as well as investment from Brazil, Australia and China.

South Africa has readied itself for a lucrative future and it seems that the rest of the world has taken heed.

Fixed line profits up 23 percent

Despite the growth of mobile technology, there is still a place for fixed lines, especially in the MENA region. As such, Telecom Egypt, the country’s fixed-line monopoly, has said second-quarter profits have risen 23 percent, beating all expectations as subscribers increased and margins widened.

In a statement, Chief Executive Officer Tarek Tantawy said, “We continue to capture growth in mobile and data markets.”

“Net profit margins continue to expand over the period, as a result of cost control and our long-standing investment in Vodafone Egypt.”

The net profit margin widened to 35.9 percent from 29.5 percent. Income from the state-owned company’s 44.95 percent stake in Vodafone Egypt was UK£730 million in the first half of 2010.

Telecom’s Egypt’s success in the year’s second quarter has also seen sales increase by 1.1 percent and a net 64,574 broadband subscribers, compared with 25,613 a year earlier. Meanwhile, fixed-line subscribers increased 110,000 in the quarter for a total of 9.4 million.

However while fixed line sales are up, Telecom Egypt’s retail voice revenue has been drained by intense competition in the mobile market. Mobile substitutions led voice revenue to drop 21 percent to 1.12 billion pounds in the first six month of 2010, although the second quarter improved 8 percent from the first.

The Director of Operation and Support IT for Vodafone Egypt, Mohamed Fahmy will be attending the CIO MENA summit from the 29 November - 1 December 2010.

As Vodafone Egypt’s success has grown in recent years, so has their online services and as such a workshop on Maximising Enteriprise IT Security Performance will be on of the highlights of the weekend as well as speculation on the role of IT in the next 10 years.

Other attendees will include Zuhair Lardhi, IT Director of Aldar Properties, Patrick Naef, CIO - Emireates Group, Gautam Sinha - CIO of Sharjah Islamic Bank and John Loomise, GM, CIO and Head of IT Group of Arab National Bank.

Using arid land to power the country

In order to power a country the size of the United States indefinately, everything is being done to invest in green and alternative energies and this includes, utilising land that has previously been deemed to be useless.

It was recently revealed that thousands of acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley, that are no longer used for agricultural purposes due to salt contamination from years of irrigations, are to be utilised for potential solar power complexes.

The plan to use 30,000 acres of previously unusable land is one of many plans being developed by American utility companies to make the country’s power supplies as diversible and renewable as possible. As such, the construction of the proposed Westlands Solar Park offers a greener alternative to potentially several nuclear power stations and will be able to generate as much energy as the controversial units.

Speaking about the task of using the area for solar power and then integrating that power into the existing system, Carl Zichella, former renewable programs director for the Sierra Club, said, “It’s about as perfect a place as you’re going to find in the state of California for a solar project like this.”

“There’s virtually zero wildlife impact here because the land has been farmed continuously for such a long time and you have proximity to transmission, infrastructure and markets.”

The subject of integrating renewables into a ‘smarter’ power grid will be on of the topics discussed at the Next Generation Utility Summit from the 9-11 November 2010. Executives will discuss the impact new emerging technologies have had on the customer experience in energy consumption. These issues are of interest to the entire industry but representatives from Edward White, Jr., VP Energy Policy - National Grid, Dale Landgren, Chief Strategy Officer - American Transmission Company, Richard Burchfield , CIO/VP IT - Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), Marc Ulrich, VP Renewable & Alternative Power - South California Edison and Cyrus Wadia, Senior Policy Analyst of Renewable Energy at The White House will be key to moving forward.

As well as that, future investments in the electricity utility industry will also be discussed, such as the news that the United States Department of Energy funding from 2009, the North American intelligent grid and communications technology spending through 2013 will reach $18 Billion.

Lessons to learn for new trans-sector projects

Australia has become one of the world’s leaders in developing a trans-sector grid through the implementation of the National Broadband Network (NBN), first supported by the Labor Party.

With entrance of The Hon. Julia Gillard MP, the first women prime minister elected in Australia, concerns are arising over the coalition’s plans to implement FTTN (fibre to the node) instead of NBN, which was introduced by Shadow Communications Minister, Tony Smith.

The impact from a shift in trans-sector development will have for Australia is being closely watched and will be discussed by top utility companies across Australia at the Next Generation Utilities Australia Summit 2010. Such industry leaders believe that by linking smart grids with other network services like e-health, educations and entertainment, long-term goals of the country’s power grid can be met.

Smart Grid technologies are concepts that are held dear to utility companies across the globe, when creating functional infrastructures for the transmission of user data. Smart grid development is also fraught with challenges from aging equipment and workforce to inter-state jurisdictions and other legal hurdles.

One commonality that is transparent through IT or operational differences is the need for Energy Management Systems. Reducing energy consumption, improving the utilization of the system, increasing reliability, and predicting electrical system performance and Monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the performance of generation and transmission system are areas that have been the focal point for Utilities provide quality service to their customers. These are areas that can be lessons learned when developing new and effective trans-sector environments.

The focus of how to take the success Utilites bring with developing infrastructures and translating that success to new trans-sector areas will be closely followed by Andre Botha, General Manager of Networks at Aurora Energy, Simon Middap, CIO at Energex, Peter McIntyre, General Manager of Network Development & Regulatory Affairs at TransGrid, and Mike Torr, Business Manager Meter Assets at Trust Power.

Technologies have been working very well with the ability to provide energy cheaply and efficiently. Strong network management in the grid is important to providing quick response times to outages and notifications, and decreasing complaints but also allows for continually assessing the power delivery of the distribution system. These are additional areas that require utilities corporations to be a major player in developing functional trans-sector infrastructure.

Juggling the Current Oil and Gas Issues

While the Gulf of Mexico well is capped and the relief wells are nearing completion to secure the BP disaster, the oil and gas industry is looking at how to move forward with deepwater drilling projects in the future and the importance of safer mining of Marcellus Shale.

But can safety and environmental protection be guaranteed when working in some of the most risky places on the plant? It is questions like this that are important to the continued success of the oil and gas industry and are being answered by leading industry executives, like those who are a part of the NG Oil & Gas committee.

Based on the U.S. Department of Interior, the Obama Administration’s OCS strategy recognizes that the Gulf of Mexico holds 70 percent of the nation’s economically recoverable oil and 82 percent of the economically recoverable gas reserves.

With the region being such a source of energy for the US, the economic impact and the effect of job loss are all major opposition sticking points for the continued ban on deepwater drilling that is expected to expire at the end of November. To support the earlier over turn of this ban, and rally behind the Louisiana-based judge Martin Feldman, four major oil companies are working together on a new joint venture that will develop a rapid response program that can contain almost double the amount of gallons lost in the BP spill at about double the depth.

It is the development of new technologies for exploration and deepwater drilling mining that will ultimately be a major focus of attention at the NG Oil and Gas Committee meeting in Texas during the 3-5 November. The group of senior level industry experts, including Don Wolf, Vice Chairman of Aspect Energy, Edgard Habib, Chief Economist of Chevron, Bill Drennen, SVP Global Exploration of Hess Corporation, and - Tom Halbouty, CTO & CIO of Pioneer Natural Resources is looking at how these technologies can dispel concerns that local and Federal legislators have when regulating the industry.

The environmental impact of this incident is only part of the picture and with the ban idling some 33 rigs off the coast, up to 20,000 jobs could be lost should the ban lives its full life.

With new technologies also being developed over the last five years for horizontal and vertical drilling of Marcellus Shale, can the new shale slabs continue to be mined without scrutiny after seeing a rise incidents being reported on both an environment and administration/safety level?

Maximized Profits For Mining

Mzolisi (Zoli) Diliza – Chief Executive, Chamber of Mines of South Africa, spoke out last week at the Next Generation Mining Summit on mining futures within the continent.

The Chamber exists as the Principal advocate of major policy positions endorsed by the mining employers and represents these to various organs of South African national and provincial governments, they spoke to the ultimate objectives of a so-called "New Approach" to the development of effective strategies for the sustainable growth and meaningful transformation of the South African mining sector.

Forecasts predict that South Africa’s mining sector will reach a value in excess of US$37bn by 2014. Africa is expected to be one of the first to bounce back from the depressed levels of 2009, and is likely to be among the first to benefit when the global economy returns to strength. Mining remains a key economic sector for South Africa, contributing some 8% to GDP. What the long-term future holds for the South African mining industry depends a lot on the result of exploration activities and any future changes made to mining regulations by the government.

Urgent discussions and negotiations aimed at producing the required strategies are currently taking place between major, tripartite industry stakeholders announced the NGM Committee – Government, business and organised labor. These strategies will provide a comprehensive process that has been established to arrive at a new and productive economic policy for the country. Functioning in the correct environment the business of mining in South Africa retains considerable potential to assist Government in the achievement of critical public policy imperatives which include expanded economic growth, job creation and the alleviation of poverty.
The continent's is also embracing foreign investment agreed representatives from African Diamonds Plc - James Campbell, Managing Director , Banro Corporation - Michael Prinsloo, President & CEO , Ghana Chamber of Mines - Joyce Aryee, CEO and the Xstrata Group - Andile Sangqu, CEO Africa Executive Director, the mining industry is continually expanding and adapting to changing conditions with more international companies scrambling for a piece of the continent's resources.

Although underexplored, Africa hosts about 30% of the planet's mineral reserves, including 40% of gold, 60% of cobalt and 90% of the world's PGM reserves - making it a truly strategic producer of these precious metals. Most recently Russia is ready to invest US$1 billion (R7.5 billion) in uranium exploration in Namibia, as well as investment from Brazil, Australia and China.
South Africa has readied itself for a lucrative future and it seems that the rest of the world has taken heed.

Pilot scheme to pave way for healthcare IT system

In May, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that 15 communities across the country would serve as pilot communities for eventual wide-scale use of health information technology through the Beacon Community program, also dubbed the meaningful use project.

The program would be the first step in making “meaningful and measurable” improvements to health care quality as well as paving the way for the growing healthcare IT industry.

“The most important health care innovations are those that are designed and tested by providers and community leaders all across the country. Beacon Communities will offer insight into how health IT can make a real difference in the delivery of health care,” said Secretary Sebelius. “The Beacon Community Program will tap the best ideas across America and demonstrate the enormous benefit health IT will have to improving health and care within our communities.“

It was hoped that the selected communities will utilize the IT services as a way of uniting the healthcare community and patients to improve industry quality and efficiency. The entire program is part of an overall $100 billion federal government investment in science, innovation and technology the Administration is making through the Recovery Act to spur domestic job creation in emerging industries and create a long-term foundation for economic growth.

The drive for a more efficient healthcare IT system has also seen massive progress last week, when a bipartisan bill was passed. The Electronic Health Record Incentives for Multi-Campus Hospitals Act of 2010 will, in the words of Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), “help our hospitals advance their technology, improve the quality of care, and better serve their patients."

Currently most hospital systems have incremental acquisition, training and implementation costs when adopting health IT systems. However, the new legislation means that the health IT incentives in the Recovery Act will address these costs and offer choices for how the centers receive the incentive payments, reflecting differences between large and small multi-campus hospital systems.

The change and growth of a healthcare IT system through the meaningful use project, will be one of the topics being discussed at the Next Generation Health-care Summit at The Four Seasons Hotel in Miami on the 15-17 November 2010.

Industry leaders attending to discuss the seismic shift in US health-care this year include Daniel Newman of Boston Medical Centre, Ken Bobis - Mayo Clinic, Tom Langston - SSM Health Care, Cathy Bruno - Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems and Fernando Martinex of Broward Health.

To Recruit or Not to Recruit, That is the Question

Keith Hall, the Commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated recently that the unemployment rate held at 9.5% for July, with hourly wages having increased 1.8 percent over the last twelve months leaves business asking questions of whether to recruit and retaining top talent or develop talent from within an organization.

With this question getting discussed and debated at the NG HR US committee in September there are plenty of believers on both sides of the fence. Recruitment and talent management will become an increasingly strategic issue for many businesses, as their future success will be based on the success of their people.

From a focus around recruitment and retention of top talent many factors tie into developing successful recruitment programs, from sourcing candidates to managing the performance of new hires. Streamlining recruitment processes in preparation for increased hiring in order to focus on quality candidates is a key area to focus on. This holds true especially when integrating Web 2.0 and social networks into the recruitment process due to the reach an quantity that are accessible through these interactive methods.

On the other side of the coin, business leaders in today's borderless global marketplace face unprecedented challenges to gain and sustain a competitive advantage. Given how many people in today's companies are being paid to think and analyze, improving others' thinking is one of the fastest ways to improve performance.

Organizations need to ensure their employees develop and implement the current skills and competencies required to execute the company's business strategy today and into the future. A quality employee-training program is essential to keep staff motivated and a company profitable.

These are issues that are constantly changing and evolving due to the ever faster pace of the marketplace and with executives like: Krystin Mitchell , SVP HR at 7-Eleven Stores, Norma Clayton, VP Learning, Training & Development at Boeing, Kim Creighton, VP HR at HardRock Cafe, and Desiree Dancy, Chief Diversity Officer & VP Corporate HR at The New York Times Company; attending the HR Summit US from the 14th-16th of September in Miami answers are sure to be found.

Developing talent internally does have its risk and with senior executives who have been with a company fifteen years or longer getting poached by competitors for higher salaries, is there a way to prevent the move and develop strong loyalties.

Dan Satterthwaite, Head of HR for DreamWorks believes that providing the right environment not only develops and nurtures talent from internally but allows for maintaining senior talent longer. “It was a commitment that we made, because keeping people focused on creative work and keeping people focused on innovation, inherently requires them to take risks. In an environment where people are fearful, they will not taking risks, and we just cannot afford to let the creativity or innovation, that drives this entire company in any way be affected by the uncertainty and fear that the outside world has created over the last 18 months.”

Transforming businesses with online technology

With the FIFA World Cup transforming South Africa’s infrastructure with high-speed rail systems, better roads and state-of-the-art power systems, now is the time for African businesses to also take economical advantage of the other benefit of the tournament - online technology.
This year's CIO Africa summit promises to be the best to date with over 50 of the leading CIO’s and Senior Executives in the African region coming together for the future of the countries industry. The meeting is to take place in Nairobi, Kenya 7-9 September Where the CIO of FIFA World Cup Organising Committee, Mr. Phumlani Moholi’s discussion focusing on the technical challenges ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

South Africa’s, not to mention the rest of the continent’s, internet systems saw major investment during the build up to the World Cup with the likes of Google even launching their ‘Street View’ technology in June, making South Africa the first African country to have this technology.

While the World Cup may be over, the technology remains and it is set to drastically transform businesses all over the country, especially the tourism sector.

Other countries in Africa have also started to take advantage of their new online infrastructure with web-cams being sent up in Namibia at the country's world famous Etosha National Park. With such technology being harnessed, businesses are now able to market themselves on a much smaller budget. For hotels and other areas of the hospitality sector, not to mention any other business, they can now place themselves to be seen online allowing potential customers to view, representatives including Phumlani Mohoil, CIO of the FIFA World Cup 2010 Organising Committee, Hennie van Wyk, Group Head of Technology for ABSA Bank, George Munyua, General Manager for Equity Bank Limited and Morgen Mufowo of Econet Wireless are already announcing their plans to increase revenue while taking advantage of a pre set infrastructure.

Despite objections being raised about the technology around invasion of privacy, there are mechanisms for users to remove their information from these websites. In addition, for countries that depends on tourism for most of their foreign currency earnings, but do not have significant marketing budgets. Being able to view a hotel or national park online provides an equal opportunities marketing platform for small and large businesses alike.

The benefits of Africa being connected to the rest of the world will be one of the topics discussed at the CIO Africa Summit (hosted by GDS International). Today CIOs need better business insights. Now they have been provided with the Business Intelligence tools and processes to deliver reliable, current, and secure data and accessible information they wish to discuss real tangible strategies that will help develop more effective performance.

With the installation of a new undersea fibre optic cable and an infrastructure securely in place, now is the time for Africa to truly embrace business online in order to bring down costs while boosting employee efficiency and innovation.

Blackberry: User privacy or national security?

With Research in Motion’s Blackberry causing such controversy in the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia, now is the time to sit down and discuss the future of mobile communications and Smartphone’s in the region, and the security concerns that go with them.

As for this week, it was announced that Research in Motion and Saudi Arabia had reached an agreement that will allow BlackBerry services to continue in the country, but the government will be given the ability to monitor messages causing all sorts of privacy concerns. The blackberry is every businessman’s tool of choice, will the ban change the way we communicate within business?

The NGT MENA committee has been formed and will meet to discuss the implications on providers and operators. They also wish to discuss if this will shape the future of telecoms in the Middle East. The committee (hosted by GDS International) will this year comprise of representatives such as Ashfraf Ismail - Mobily, Saudi Arabia, Jan Wuppermann - Vodafone Egypt, Zeyad Al-Obtaibi - Saudi Telecom, Shadi Majdoub - Kuwait National Telecom Company (KNTC) and Khaled Marmoush - Telecom Egypt.

The deal will see a server installed in Saudi Arabia that will allow Saudi authorities to check BlackBerry users’ data. This action was to supplement a possible ban of the devices in the Kingdom.

The Saudi authorities have long been concerned about the use of Blackberry saying, the device’s ability to encrypt messages hampers the security agency’s attempts to prevent terrorism and other illegal activities.

Saudi Arabia isn’t the only country who has said they want to monitor Blackberry communication; the UAE, India and Indonesia have also expressed concern that such mobile communications could be used to violate laws or national concerns.

As a result, Saudi Arabia’s wireless operators include Saudi Telecom, Mobily and a unit of Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications were told to stop messaging services at the weekend after a yearlong consultation with RIM failed to bring BlackBerry functions in line with Saudi Arabia’s telecommunications laws.

The ban is to last until operators can test the new server system that will allow security agencies to monitor user data. After that, “appropriate action on whether to suspend the service” will be taken after the proposed solution is shown to comply with regulatory requirements”, a Saudi telecommunications regulator was quoted as saying.

Is this a step too far for the Middle Eastern communication providers and security providers or is it a legitimate concern? Does it breach privacy laws and cause company security concerns? And what about Research in Motion, should they have agreed to such demands or pulled out of the region altogether? These are just some of the questions that will be asked and answered at the Next Generation Telecoms Summit.

Linking the Right Business Process for Effective CRM

With the retail industry looking for a quick way to grip onto an upward track and away from the poor returns that have been haunting the marketplace since the recession took hold, many leaders are asking whether a short term look going forward is needed or a long term outlook instead.

The plethora of techniques being attempted does not help matters, but it seem that combining strategies has the ability of providing greater benefits especially when a long term focus is needed. The trick to providing supporting effective Customer Relationship Management is an essential part of this combination, especially when consumers are putting more than an additional 10 percent on their spending capabilities for the service. With numbers of that size, customer service could be worth more than 30% of total revenue by the end of 2010 and growing just online, according to a new Ovum survey.

For a company to capitalize on that increased market space, they need to incorporate the right supply chain management solutions with cost effective IT business processes to take the greatest share of an increased marketplace.

“It is about providing your customers with seamless online service oriented purchasing environment and timely management of the distribution of those goods.” Alberto Franchin, Director of Logistics and Customer Service Levi Strauss & Co said.

Companies like Damco have been providing strong services in this area for more than 20 years. Kirry Mukherji, Chief Commercial Officer for Europe told NG Retail Summit for Europe that ““Over the years Damco has been extremely successful with some of the largest retailers in the world, working with them to reduce cost and increase efficiency in their global supply chains. We now have the experience, competencies, systems and procedures in place to be able to replicate this success for mid-size retailers as well. We have simplified our implementation blueprint, which has often been a barrier to entry for retailers with less scale, and adopted an incremental approach, growing organically with our customers. As they evolve to more overseas sourcing we share in that success.”

“Due to the capabilities that companies like Damco can provide in "facilitating the on-boarding of new suppliers and improving collaboration among our sourcing offices and their suppliers, we have implemented better business practices and reduced the administrative load of managing our supplier community. In the end, we are better able to respond to customers and to the evolving demands of our rapidly growing network of retail operations and stores." Harm Van Weezel, Tesco's commercial IT director said, explaining how critical this is to customer relationship management.

“The ability for mid-sized companies to implement a strong IT process that can manage the distribution of products to the consumer and monitor the needs of the consumer prior to purchases is essential for that company to develop more sophisticated revenue streams and start competing at a higher level.”

Topics of correlating supply chain management and customer relationship management through cost effective infrastructures are major talking points at NG Retail Europe Summit for executives like The Dune Group - Justin Burzynski , Mens' product and supply chain director, Staples - Renaud Foliguet, Supply Chain Planning Director, Puma - Markus Birkel, Head of IT, Marks & Spencer - Alexandria Hatchman, Head of Supply Chain & Logistics, and Adidas - Marc Van Der Heijden, VP Global IT & Retail.

The retail industry as a whole has been one of the most proactive verticals for working together in order to develop strategies that can bring about the upward mobility the retail sector which has been missing. The consumer has become more particular about the products they would like to purchase. A mid-sized retailer needs to follow the customers’ needs and provide a better service to capitalize on an increased market share, but also provide efficient product delivery to stay competitive and to get a leg up on the competition.

Will the collaboration between enterprise departments for the best customer service on a long term outlook be the strategy that enables new brands to take a seat at the top?

Transforming businesses with online technology

With the FIFA World Cup transforming South Africa’s infrastructure with high-speed rail systems, better roads and state-of-the-art power systems, now is the time for African businesses to also take economical advantage of the other benefit of the tournament - online technology.

South Africa’s, not to mention the rest of the continent’s, internet systems saw major investment during the build up to the World Cup with the likes of Google even launching their ‘Street View’ technology in June, making South Africa the first African country to have this technology.

Street View allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighbourhood through panoramic street-level images. It is also available in Google Earth and on Google Maps for Mobile. Of course, for businesses it creates a wonderful opportunity to market themselves with people visiting the country for the World Cup able to view the area in which they are staying as well as local restaurants and companies.

While the World Cup may be over, the technology remains and it is set to drastically transform businesses all over the country, especially the tourism sector.

Other countries in Africa have also started to take advantage of their new online infrastructure with web-cams being sent up in Namibia at the country's world famous Etosha national park. With such technology being harnessed, businesses are now able to market themselves on a much smaller budget. For hotels and other areas of the hospitality sector, not to mention any other business, they can now place themselves to be seen online allowing potential customers to view, representatives including Phumlani Mohoil, CIO of the FIFA World Cup 2010 Organising Committee, Hennie van Wyk, Group Head of Technology for ABSA Bank, George Munyua, General Manager for Equity Bank Limited and Morgen Mufowo of Econet Wireless are already announcing their plans to increase revenue while taking advantage of a pre set infrastructure.

Despite objections being raised about the technology around invasion of privacy, there are mechanisms for users to remove their information from these websites. In addition, for countries that depends on tourism for most of their foreign currency earnings, but do not have significant marketing budgets. Being able to view a hotel or national park online provides an equal opportunities marketing platform for small and large businesses alike.

The benefits of Africa being connected to the rest of the world will be one of the topics discussed at the CIO Africa Summit (hosted by GDS International). Today CIOs need better business insights. Now they have been provided with the Business Intelligence tools and processes to deliver reliable, current, and secure data and accessible information they wish to discuss real tangible strategies that will help develop more effective performance.

With the installation of a new undersea fibre optic cable and an infrastructure securely in place, now is the time for Africa to truly embrace business online in order to bring down costs while boosting employee efficiency and innovation.