By Joppie Maritz
Namibia has set itself a clear digital direction. The Sixth National Development Plan aims to digitise all government services by 2030 and to more than double the ICT sector’s share of the economy, from 1.6% in 2024 to 4%.
The networks are being built to carry it. In September last year, the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) reported N$1.2 billion of investment in the ICT sector over the previous twelve months.
CRAN’s latest quarterly figures show ICT sector revenue up 12% between April and June this year.
Organisations are following with investment of their own. I see it most in boardrooms moving to hybrid meetings. Ten years ago a boardroom had a projector.
Today clients ask for video conferencing as the most important item in the room. Council chambers are going paperless.
Lecture halls stream to students who are not in the room. Churches, venues and broadcasters produce for audiences online as well as in person.
The question is no longer whether to invest in technology. It is what that investment buys.
Bought as a list of products
Many technology projects still begin with a specification: a screen of a certain size, a camera, a set of microphones, often a brand. Suppliers quote against the list.
The lowest compliant price wins. The project is complete when the equipment is installed and switched on.
The most common failure I see is customers buying equipment without knowing what they are buying.
They make a decision based on a brand name, a price or a spec sheet and end up with equipment that works on its own but does not solve their problem. The money is spent and the problem is still there.
On paper, the organisation has invested. In practice, the room may not work. People joining remotely cannot hear the discussion. The system needs a technician to start a meeting. Nobody trained the people who use it every day. When something fails, there is no one nearby who knows how it was put together.
None of this is a failure of the equipment. It is what happens when technology is bought as products instead of as a solution to a problem.
It also happens when the supplier delivers the equipment but not a full turnkey solution that gives the people who use it a positive experience.
The cost does not appear on the invoice
A system that does not deliver rarely shows up as a line in the budget. Its cost is in meetings that start late, decisions that wait for the next session, staff who work around the technology and equipment that is replaced years before it should be.
Start with the problem
Getting value from technology does not need bigger budgets. It needs a different starting point.
Define the outcome before the equipment. Who uses the space, what has to happen there, what should the experience be and what goes wrong today? The answers should decide the technology, not the other way around.
Specify results, not only products. Tenders and briefs can describe what the system must achieve and put training and support in the scope, so they cannot be cut to win on price. Public tenders can weigh lifetime cost and local support, not only the lowest compliant price.
Ask for certified people. Whoever supplies and installs the system should be certified to do it. The industry standard is AVIXA’s Certified Technology Specialist (CTS) certification.
See it working first. Where it is possible, the people who will use a system should see it working in a real setting before the money is spent.
Plan for the life of the system. Training, maintenance and local support decide whether an investment still works in five years. Equipment is the same everywhere. What differs is whether someone in Namibia can fix it on a Monday morning and whether staff were trained to use it. Building local technicians is part of the investment and a responsibility we have as Namibians. Before signing off, decide who owns the system after installation and how you will measure whether it worked.
Namibia’s digital ambitions are clear and the investment is following. Whether that investment pays off will depend on how each organisation spends: on technology alone or on solutions to the problems it needs to solve.
*Joppie Maritz has 17 years’ experience in the AV industry. He established Stage Audio Works Namibia, the Stage Audio Works Group’s Namibian business, in 2014 and is its Managing Director.
