The Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, has said Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry doesn’t record spectacularly high sales because it spends far less on research and development (R&D).
Barrister Shittu disclosed this in Abuja at a press conference to mark the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day.
He said because of its low spending on research, the ICT industry in the country has failed largely to bring out new innovations and its efforts to change its ways have not proven successful.
“The ICT industry as a whole spends far less on R&D than any other technology-oriented industry as a percentage of sales, and its efforts to change its ways have not yet proven broadly successful”, he said.
He said the operators who incorporated new agile strategies into their organisational DNA fastest would gain a real competitive advantage over their slower rivals.
Telecom companies can no longer afford to not make use of their big data, he said, adding “big data has the potential to place telco in a prime position to win the battle for customers and create new revenue streams.”
The minister said efforts were being made by the Federal Government to promote open data and big data analytics as well as an unambiguous regulatory framework for enhancing data transparency and utility.
“Government is also poised to provide equitable data protection and strategies for information release. Efforts are also being made to support and scale up research and development in the sector to provide te opportunity for exploring the possibilities to leveraging big data…,” he said.
