Microsoft renews government connections in KZN
MICROSOFT has received a boost in Kwazulu-natal (KZN) following the renewal of several partnerships with several public sector clients.
The company’s senior account executive in the province, Sandile Mahlaba, said this week that a number of government departments had renewed their partnership with Microsoft to include Microsoft cloud technology in the modern workplace and Azure (a hosted data centre).
“KZN Microsoft’s share of wallet is growing as we extend our key clients’ coverage and renew our agreement within Microsoft strategy.
“We see a number of clients in KZN adopting cloud technology and use of Microsoft technology for government service delivery improvement,” said Mahlaba.
Microsoft said it also saw more growth in citizen engagement solutions that would assist government to proactively interact with citizens, and the use of big data to understand government spend, including better planning for service delivery.
Mahlaba said their most significant deal was with the ethekwini Municipality, which renewed its enterprise agreement forming a foundation, ethekwini Municipality Smart City.
“This agreement will see the implementation of the digital transformation road map to modernise and digitise a number of city processes and policies.”
The company had over the past 10 months increased its executive coverage in the region by introducing a provincial executive focusing on the public sector. Mahlaba said this was to ensure government priorities were met and that a return on investment was made for every dollar spent on their technology.
“We are now visible in a number of government conversations about smart cities, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), government cloud and government digital transformation,” he said.
Microsoft said it was engaging with the province’s metro around its Smart City concept with the intention of investing in good opportunities aimed at digital skills development within the region.
As Microsoft introduced the Microsoft cloud technology, a skills boost would be needed in KZN to ensure that SMMES and government technical staff were able to take advantage of this new technology.
Mahlaba said that with the advent of the 4IR, their area of focus was development of digital skills and increased adoption of the technology as a foundation to access to service delivery and information in the region.
“We understand the 4IR comes with skills development requirements and new thinking in the way we do business. Our role is to ensure we empower every citizen and organisation to do more with our technology.”
Mahlaba said their mission was key to improving service delivery, offering better health services, and improving education methods.
He said some of the challenges Microsoft faced in KZN were that there were too many people in its rural areas who lacked access to technology and basic literacy skills.
In addition, cybercrime was still top of mind for businesses and individuals.