By Alex C
Computer Warehouse Group Plc (CWG), a Nigerian technology company, is set to refocus its business portfolio toward cloud computing from hardware and software.
Mr. Austin Okere, Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director, CWG, said that the company’s goal is to become the biggest cloud-computing provider in Africa by 2015.
“In twelve to eighteen months time, we will approach the market again. By that time, we would have crystallized our transformation process. Our role is to be a trailblazer; to go to the exchange and show to people the value of going to the exchange. CWG plans to sell shares on the United States exchange Nasdaq in the longer term” Okere said.
Interestingly, the Nigerian Stock Exchange is seeking attain a $1 trillion market capitalization by 2016 by encouraging more technology and telecommunications companies to go public. The exchange is working to make it easier for companies in various sectors of the economy to list.
CWG closed on the floors of the NSE at 5.48 shares and traded 1, 437 volumes of shares as at Monday 19th May 2014. Market capitalisation stood at N13,836.04 million.
Large organisations are increasingly turning to the cloud as a cost-effective method of running resource-intensive applications. Cloud computing is empowering people to work from any location via their mobile device. This is because files, documents, software and locations are available online, with no physical tie to the system being used.
While businesses able to source Information Technology (IT) services on-demand according to need, there is less of a requirement for capital expenditure. Cloud vendors are responsible for managing the majority of servers and connections, and for ensuring the security of IT hardware – whereas cloud subscribers are merely consumers.
With this development, there is no longer any need to pay for services they do not require as businesses sign up for specific IT functions they require. Cloud computing providers’ reputations are built on providing secure, constantly available services to their customers.
As such, they invest significant amounts of money securing their servers, data centres and connections, which has a positive knock-on effect to other users. Individual companies may not be able to spend thousands of pounds on IT security, but as a cloud user, they benefit from economies of scale.
Cloud services enabling employees to work from almost any location, an on-premise IT disaster will not have the severity of implications it could otherwise. Many employees are able to carry on working from another location, given that they can access the tools and solutions they need over the internet.
CWG still gets 53 percent of its revenue from hardware and almost a third from software. The company provides IT services and computer networking solutions to businesses.
Image Source: https://www.cwlgroup.com/