A
PUBLICATION
Providing Unparalleled Technology Intelligence
ISSUE 18 //
Global
Cooling Partner
www.intelligentcio.com
Intelligent
Education Partner
Intelligent
Security Partner
Intelligent
Supporting Partner
Intelligent
Cabling Partner
Intelligent
Software Partner
Intelligent
Manufacturing Partner
Intelligent
Energy Partner
Assessing
the threats
Why technologies need
to integrate to provide a
dynamic security solution
Proving
a hit
How a technology hub in
Sierra Leone is proving to
be beneficial
Elevating
education
Experts believe
technology can play a
crucial role in education
EDITOR’S
NOTE
H
ello and welcome to the latest edition
of Intelligent CIO Africa. This month’s
cover story focuses on how Furnmart,
a leading retailer of furniture, kitchen
appliances, home entertainment and bedding,
is set for growth and enhanced profits thanks
to a solution implemented by Argility.
The new Java-based retail management
and merchandising system provides
enhanced functionality to enable the
group to continue competing successfully
into the future. Furnmart, which has stores
in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia,
wanted a long-term sustainable solution
that still provided the existing functionality
and auditability of the Ceres point-of-
sale system within a full end-to-end retail
management and merchandising system.
And, as Theo Kukard, General Manager:
IT at Furnmart explains, the company
continued to partner with Argility because
it ‘has a deep understanding of the retail
business and provides invaluable support.’
Meanwhile, a technology hub is proving to
be a hit in Sierra Leone and is the feature for
this month’s Country Focus. Sensi Tech Hub
(Sensi) grew out of Sensi’s SMS programme,
a toll-free interactive SMS programme that
www.intelligentcio.com
was successfully run in response to the Ebola
outbreak in Sierra Leone in 2014. And it
was after the Ebola crisis in late 2015 that
Morris Marah, Founder and Director of Sensi
Tech Hub, decided to set up the hub and he
launched it the following January. Since then,
Sensi has been providing young people,
marginalised women and organisations with
skills, resources and support to identify new
ways to tackle the challenges facing society.
Security threats can come from anywhere,
whether it is cybercriminals looking to
attack your business’ data, intruders
targeting physical hardware or even internal
employees haplessly giving away company
secrets or letting unauthorised people into
your environment.
One of our features this month is threat
assessment, which includes an insight
from Eckart Zollnes, Head of Business
Development for NewTelco SA. He says
that organisations should have a multi-
layer security strategy in place, with
each layer integrating with the next and
controlled from a single platform, while
background technologies, such as artificial
intelligence and machine learning can
come into play.
Set for growth
Argility’s 15-year partnership with Furnmart continues with a full
implementation of a new Java-based retail management and
merchandising system. It provides enhanced functionalit y to enable
the group to continue competing successfully into the future.
PROJECT LATEST | INTELLIGENT CABLING | INTELLIGENT DATA CENTRES
In Trending, we look at the impact of the
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
which has recently come into force. The
direct consequence of GDPR is serious,
including fines of up to 4% of annual global
turnover or a flat €20 million, whichever is
more. Even if local companies are not in the
firing line, GDPR could severely impact their
relationships with European companies.
Data loss prevention is the focus of Jorina
van Rensburg, Managing Director at Condyn,
in Final Word. She says the company has
been working on the development of
corporate systems to prevent information
leakage for more than 12 years and
employees fall prey to data breach and
further suspicion of malicious intent because
of the neglect of information security rules,
excessive trust in colleagues’ integrity and
mere recklessness.
As usual, we also have our other regular
features and news across the continent.
Hope you enjoy the read.
Editor
INTELLIGENTCIO
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