Cloud, AI, and an evolving landscape: Unpacking Nigeria’s leading IT trends in 2024

By Oluwafiropo Tobi Ogundare, Territory Sales Lead for West Africa and Mauritius at Red Hat

Leveraging technology is now a priority for every business, regardless of its scale or industry. For some, that means kickstarting cloud migration plans. For others, it’s about looking at how they can integrate machine learning and AI-enabled applications into their operations. These ambitions, among others, form part of an evolving IT landscape, and organisations need to be receptive to current trends and new ways of working.

With that said, let’s unpack the five key trends that are influencing enterprise IT in Nigeria, as well as the technologies that enable them.

1. IT is now a pillar of business operations
The days of IT being a standalone department or team within an organisation, one that only pokes its head up when someone has a faulty machine, are long gone. IT now encompasses all day-to-day activities of a modern business as units continue to leverage technology to greater extents. This includes everything from administration and human resources to finance and marketing.

Modern IT architectures allow organisations to enhance business operations in several ways. They can be small additions, such as the adoption of email and instant messaging for internal and external communications, more complex implementations, such as data analytics for product development and strategy, or complete overhauls in manufacturing and inventory management thanks to automation and computerised systems.

2. Everyone’s ready for the cloud
Many organisations that were initially hesitant about cloud migration are now ready to take the leap. This hesitancy was fuelled by uncertainties surrounding policy and regulatory decisions that could potentially impact adoption efforts further down the road.

Last year, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed signed the Data Protection Bill into law. The bill outlines data protection principles for organisations that gather and store personal data. This paves the way for local enterprises to implement data residency strategies with confidence – migrating to or keeping sensitive data on a private cloud – as compliance is a critical component of IT modernisation.

Successful migrations are also dependent on organisations willing to embrace a change in culture. As more enterprises adopt agile processes and methodologies, they can utilise DevOps and cloud-based computing methods that, over time, contribute to the maturation of Nigeria’s modern IT landscape.

3. Leaders are doing more with less
Cost optimisation may be as big a priority for businesses as modernisation is, but the former doesn’t have to compromise the latter. Many companies in Nigeria that are in the early stages of their cloud journey are also ready to embrace AIOps (i.e. the application of AI for IT operations).

AIOps becomes more important as organisations’ technology and systems increase in scale and complexity. It allows IT teams to simplify their operations while improving overall reliability and streamlining patching and configuration management. AIOps is also being integrated into existing automation platforms, giving organisations the edge they need and the opportunity to experiment with AI-enabled applications without having to make additional, and potentially expensive, investments.

4. Bringing the cloud to the customer
With the adoption of cloud computing representing trillions of Naira in value for Nigeria’s economy, the cloud service sector continues to grow. Hyperscalers are bringing the public cloud closer to customers, increasing availability levels for all industries.

While many organisations are setting off on their cloud journey, existing cloud customers are having to revise their committed spend and overall strategies in the face of a tough economic climate. Organisations that have built their core infrastructure on the cloud, and are ‘locked in’ with a certain provider, may be faced with tough decisions further down the line. Hence, there will be greater emphasis on hybrid and multi-cloud approaches.

5. Staying on your toes
With IT systems growing in scale and complexity, combined with an eye towards the cloud, sectors such as public services and manufacturing are looking at ways of moving away from ‘heavy’ IT infrastructure and running as lightly as possible. Not only are organisations achieving this via Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (i.e. operating workloads without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure), but also through containerisation.

By packaging applications in containers, enterprises can move them across platforms and infrastructure with the assurance they will be compatible with the new environment. Containers also facilitate microservices, which means application performance does not take a backseat when enterprises are working on a specific area of the application.

Running light IT infrastructure, embarking on cloud journeys, and doing more with less are just some of the many trends influencing Nigerian enterprises and their approach to the topic of IT. Digital transformation should not be the only incentive. By making the right choices, enterprises can see significant returns on smart investments, remain competitive in local and international markets, and demonstrate their agility and willingness to move with the times.