CIOs across Africa’s commercial and industrial sectors face rising technical debt from underfunded OT, IIT and IT infrastructure, outdated architecture, and loss of critical skills and legacy knowledge. Dion Govender, iOCO’s chief executive of connected industrial solutions, discusses a solution to address these issues.
Every leader reading this is facing the pressure to raise productivity and cut costs amid infrastructure gaps, energy volatility and operational silos. They also struggle with misaligned business and system needs, slow skills development and difficulty attracting younger talent.
Enter iOCO Connected Industrial Ecosystems (CIE), a transformative approach where everything is connected, monitored and managed in real time.
At the heart of CIE are four focus areas:
- Connectivity
- Operational technology (OT)
- Industrial energy management
- Power infrastructure information management
In partnership with global OEMs like GE, Schneider Electric, Rajant and AVEVA, CIE leverages platforms such as unified operations centres to integrate assets, teams and geographies seamlessly.
CIE breaks down silos by extracting OT data and integrating it into IT systems, enabling real-time visibility into performance, energy use and asset health. This shift from fragmented to integrated operations empowers industries to move from reactive to proactive decision-making.
Why this matters to CIOs in Africa
CIOs are now strategic enablers of growth. CIE drives efficiency with real time monitoring and predictive analytics that cut downtime and optimise energy use. It supports scaling with modular cloud platforms for cross border expansion in Namibia, Zambia, Angola and Botswana.
It advances sustainability with integrated energy management that meets ESG goals while reducing costs. It enables data driven strategy with unified data environments that deliver insights for faster decisions.
CIEs address key regional challenges:
- Infrastructure gaps: Centralised control across remote or under-resourced sites
- Energy volatility: Optimised usage for resilience and sustainability
- Skills development: Remote monitoring and digital tools empower local teams
- Regional growth: Scalable solutions for SADC expansion
Africa’s industrial future is connected and CIOs are leading. To drive agility and sustainability they are asking: What if we could build secure OT systems that integrate with IT while protecting air gapped requirements? What if we could provide rapid access to trusted, AI-ready operations data as a single source of truth? What if we could achieve this without the costly replacement of legacy systems and infrastructure?
For CIOs in Africa, the opportunity is clear: unlock growth, resilience and sustainability by bridging OT and IT, harnessing trusted data and modernising without costly disruption.
