By Cyber Era NG Correspondent

More than 100 of West Africa’s most influential IT and business decision makers gathered online few days ago for the 8th annual installment of the IDC West Africa CIO Summit, with director- general of Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Kashifu Inuwa presenting the day’s opening address.

Hosted on IDC’s industry-leading digital platform, the event brought together senior business leaders, influential IT heads, and respected industry analysts to share their collective expertise around the theme ‘Innovative Digital Strategies: Evolving to the Demands of a New Reality’.

“Evolving to the demands of a new reality will require changes in approach to connectivity and IT infrastructure, security, workforce, and customer experience,” said IDC’s associate vice president for Sub-Saharan Africa, Mark Walker as he opened the day’s proceedings. “Executive buy-in and collaboration across lines of business and technology leadership will be key to facilitating this transformation.”

“Securing this executive buy-in will require a clear focus on the individual goals of the entire C-suite,” added  IDC’s senior research analyst in West Africa, Oluwole Babatope. “Indeed, IT leaders should ensure innovative digital strategies incorporate the CEO’s goal of customer experience, the CMO’s goal of customer engagement, the COO’s goal of customer journey, and the CFO’s goal of cost management.”

The IDC West Africa CIO Summit 2021 combined presentations, panel discussions, real-life use cases, and individual technology tracks to give delegates exclusive guidance on overcoming the challenges that lie in wait. IDC’s chief research officer, Meredith Whalen, presented the Summit’s keynote address, ‘The Future Enterprise: Developing Digital Resiliency’, in which she warned the region’s businesses that COVID-19 will not be the last disruption they face.

The event also played host to the launch of IDC’s CIO Advisory Council for West Africa. The council is an independent industry body tasked with spurring collaboration, incubating innovation, and accelerating the proliferation of new technology trends across the region, and its esteemed members for 2021 include:

• CIO, Providus Bank, Bukola Ajetunmobi
• CIO, Airtel Nigeria, Oluwaseun Solanke
•  Group CIO, Dangote Group
• CIO, Wema Bank, Richard Amafonye
• Divisional Head, Business Technology & Digital Innovation, CSCS, Tobe Nnadozie
• Head of IT, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Godfred Ofori-Som
• CIO, Polaris Bank, Tagbo Nnoli
• Director, Management Information Systems, Ghana Highway Authority, Foster Ekuede Lelekele

For the very first time, this year’s IDC West Africa CIO Summit incorporated a dedicated CIO Masterclass Arena that attendees were able to access throughout the course of the event. This section of the virtual platform showcased a series of exclusive CXO best-practice presentations, fireside chats, and panel discussions with more than 30 respected industry thought leaders from global and regional pioneers such as HSBC, Chevron Corporation, McDonald’s, Levi Strauss & Co., Toyota, OANDA, ARB Apex Bank, and Nigeria’s Central Securities Clearing System.

IDC had the following partners for the event: VMware and UiPath; Platinum Partners: Palo Alto Networks, Dell Technologies, Citrix, Poly, and Open Text; Technology Focus Group Partners: Darktrace, Check Point, Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium, ManageEngine, and FireEye.