KwaZulu-Natal acting MEC for economic development and tourism, Ina Cronje, recently delivered an address highlighting the importance of technology in the province. While she said it was becoming increasingly important for politicians and policy-makers to perceive mobile broadband and mobile technologies as important tools to fight poverty and improve service delivery – these sentiments were not echoed in her budget allocations.
“It is obvious that the mobile broadband market is enormous and growing at a tremendous rate. There is no doubt that mobile broadband is on its way to becoming a huge success and millions of people, government and other organisations will start using the mobile platform as an integral component of their communication culture,” she said.
The MEC spoke of the future of technology in KwaZulu-Natal and its implementation. She emphasised there were discussions seeking to find innovative technology and introduce government solutions that will take provincial and local government successfully towards 2010 and beyond.
Pursuing e-services
Cronje emphasised the provision of broadband infrastructure and services, saying it would contribute to e-government, e-health and e-education services.
“In order for our province to optimally harness the benefits of broadband, competition is vital. We need to ensure the absence of monopoly by one particular party. While broadband can be deployed via more than one technology and approach, we need to acknowledge and embrace the capabilities and impact of mobile broadband and mobile technologies on our society,” she said.
Cronje noted the provincial government would use mobile broadband networks to extend universal service to areas not served by fixed networks. However, she noted, it is vital that a balanced and market-based methodology is used to determine which solutions become commercially viable.
In the meantime, government would ensure there is a pipeline of appropriate skills to develop the required mobile applications. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Economic Development and Tourism has established software engineering centres, which would provide the necessary skills for the development of mobile application platforms.
Health services
Cronje noted the use of mobile technology in healthcare is on the increase and there is a steady shift to adopt mobile healthcare applications. She added that the provincial government needed to make the appropriate technology choice to help transform the healthcare sector and link systems with mobile devices.
“We need to ensure the trend to incorporate mobile technology becomes more prevalent across almost the whole of KwaZulu-Natal healthcare, thus performing a variety of data acquisition tasks.”
She announced the KZN ICT Cluster – an initiative of the Department of Economic Development – and the Department of Health had begun working together to develop mobile healthcare applications, which would provide real-time monitoring of conditions, reinforce effective treatment and healthier behaviour.
“In order to ensure we harness the benefits of mobile technologies and applications for the vital area of e-health, we need to ensure it is affordable to the masses and rely less on imported technologies and solutions,” she stated.
Mobile CRM
Cronje said the department would also equip its mobile workforce through mobile customer relationship management (CRM) tools. The provincial government is investigating implementing a solution which would allow it to increase the productivity of its mobile workers and streamline its operations.
“With mobile CRM, changes and updates made in the field can take effect in real-time or near real-time on the servers at the central office. With mobile CRM, workers can share documents and have full access to their company's CRM or ERP system, while they're in the field, at home, or travelling.
“Plus, depending on the software being used, management can get centralised, Web-based 'dashboard' views of business activity and do real-time analysis of the information which is coming from every end point, including the mobile devices.”
She added it was about access to real data as well as the ability to conduct transactions remotely. Despite its rapid growth rate so far, only a small percentage of companies are using mobile CRM and many of those only on a limited basis.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Audra Mahlong
Quelle/Source: ITWeb, 07.07.2009
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