The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Cable Bahamas director says “digital transformation is our present” due to the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Dominic Petty, the BISX-listed telecommunications provider’s northern Bahamas director, told the Andros Business Outlook: “Digital transformation is transforming the processes that were non-digital or manual to digital processes. In other words, digital transformation is changing the way we do things.”

Branding COVID-19 a “disruption from an invisible enemy”, Mr Petty said: “We had a disruption that was not digital, but the disruption was something that totally caught everyone off-guard”.

Highlighting what he described as “life after COVID-19”, Mr Petty said: “I am very sure that a lot of persons, perhaps for the first time, are starting to use the teleconference platform. Would things like this continue, even after COVID-19 would be over?

“Virtual meetings is something that would have been with us forever, but the thing with virtual meetings is that virtual meetings were more something to augment the way that we do things. But today, it’s the primary way that persons actually conduct meetings and do business.

“With the virtual meetings it tended to be something that was sprinkled into a lot of live conferences with persons working from different parts of the world with their partners and vendors and suppliers, but now it is something that is entrenched into our lifestyles.”

Mr Petty continued: “Second, the internet of things (IOT). The Internet is becoming a lot more popularised, and the use and benefits of it are becoming more popularised, but the IOT basically is the same every day devices that we use like the cell phones, our radios, the speakers, the cameras, our air-conditioners, our cars and things of that nature. All have the capabilities to be able to talk to one another without human interventions.

“So, case in point. At a particular point in time, you may want your air conditioning at home to turn on or be activated based on something that triggered in your house, or based on the temperature. Perhaps your refrigerator could actually track the amount of inventory or food supplies that you have, and if it’s running low, it would be able to prompt persons at the food store so that they may be able to deliver food to you at home. So these are the various technologies and things that are currently being explored.”

Mr Petty said Cable Bahamas had seen “congestion” occur in its systems due to the demand for Internet bandwidth during COVID-19, and said: “As we get more into the technology, obviously the backbone or the infrastructure is something that is very important to technology trends.

“The bandwidth has peaked and the peak is the new norm.n With the cases of COVID-19 going up, you can see the demand for more and more bandwidth as more and more need to be able to access the Internet and do more and more things.

“We have also seen a congestion in our system as well. In order to address that we are constantly watching the numbers to be able to alleviate some of that. The need for bandwidth is the new norm, so we have to adjust to it.”

Mr Petty added: “Also a survey was done as it relates to social media; the social media also went up. This survey actually shows that it was 76 percent more persons using the mobile phone, 45 percent using lap-tops and computers and 32 percent using desktops, tablets, devices and etc. So what does this tell us? There was a big jump in digital activity, so everyone has to get with it.”

“There is a significant increases in social media use, especially with video calling. That’s taking the centre stage. There is also an acceleration of the use of e-commerce. The digital payment method is very important, as this was one of the biggest features of the lockdown due to the pandemic.

“A lot of businesses had to re-think. A lot of persons are starting to pay over the phone by credit cards, kiosk machines, digital wallets, so there is a proliferation of these businesses offering these digital forms of payment. In the future, it is going to become more and more important.”