Prince Osuagwu
19 November 2008
Cape Town — At first, the general question was why would Ericsson, world renowned telecom equipment and other related services provision company delve into sports, and least of all, Ocean Race?
From Letf is Sanjay kaul, Ericsson, Vice President , Multimedia solutions , Mr Frank B. Head, Consulting and SI, and SI, Market Unit Sub Sahara Africa, Claes Odman, Vice President, Multimedia Solutions during company's sponsored Volvo Ocean Race, in Cape town South Africa
But a team of Ericsson officials comprising the company's Vice President, Communications, Henry Stenson, Vice President, Multimedia Solutions, Claes Odman, Vice President Multimedia Solutions, Sub Saharan Africa, Sanjay Kaul, Key Account Director, Region West market unit sub Saharan Africa, Rajesh Bhatia, Vice President, marketing CMO, Johan Bergendahi, Head Corporate Responsibility, Elaine Weidman and the company's Nigerian Manager, Marketing&Communications Olabode Sowunmi, among many others drafted to oversee the success of the company's sponsored Volvo Ocean Race, in Cape town South Africa, were in hand to provide the answers.
For Ericsson, it actually would have been any other sports but the choice of ocean race was based on the level of Hitech and team work involved. Yet, the idea was primarily to showcase to the world, what a robust multimedia platform it has and how it can help transform economies, particularly the emerging markets of Africa, leveraging on the fact that the sailing ships passes through all continents of the world.
Atleast that was the story according to Stenson, when he said " we looked at activities we can involve in and carry customers along without them loosing focus on the services we provide. It could have been any sports but we came to the choice of Volvo Ocean Race because it passes all countries and besides that, sailing is a team work and involves a lot of hitech which would be easy to support with the technologies we have.
As the sailors race on the ocean, Ericsson developed technologies that made it possible for people to monitor the race even through their mobile phones because we put computers, cameras and internet facilities to transmit the scenes real time. With this you can see that it's not just about sponsorship but about a comprehensive sales platform for our products".
However, outside the company's excitement to showcasing its multimedia prowess to the world, its major target is the emerging markets of Africa where technologies are making tremendous difference and transforming lives at geometric progression.
To that effect it has introduced a lot of initiatives particularly in the telecommunications field, to launch itself at the mainstream of technological development of countries like Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya among others in the emerging economies, to prove a lasting tenacity to eliminate barriers to cheap communications and bridge the technological bridge between the developed and developing economies.
This initiatives ranges between, multimedia services and mobile innovation centres, energy saving solutions, to the Millennium village initiatives. According to the company the initiatives were necessary for the fact that more than 90 percent of new mobile subscriber growth will be in emerging markets.
Ericsson Vice President, multimedia solutions, Sanjay Kaul, said that the annual growth rate of mobile subscribers in Africa in 2007 was more than 40 percent and that with more than 80 million new subscribers, recent studies could only be right to predict an increase in mobile penetration that can lead to a one to five percent increase in the annual growth rate in a country's GDP.
And so the company opened three mobile Innovation Centers in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya which would employ local expertise, and encourage the creation of sustainable business models and applications relevant to Africa and other emerging markets.
"Mobile communication significantly improves quality of life, providing the tools to deliver enormous socio economic benefits to people in developing countries. Connectivity helps to offset a lack of resources, particularly in rural areas, and provides access to a range of services, including education and healthcare@ Kaul noted.
In a related development, the company recently became a major partner to the United Nations Development Programme UNDP on poverty alleviation in the rural African communities, providing a prototype village tagged millennium village in rural Nigeria areas of Kaduna and Ondo states.
Ericsson's Head of Corporate Responsibility, Elaine Weidman who spoke to Hi-Tech in Cape Town, South Africa said that the two millennium villages in Nigeria have shown that the rural dwellers are eager to join their counterparts in the developed worlds in the global village, adding that the political and economic environment of the country have also played major positive roles in keeping the dreams alive.
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