Lagos state was the capital city of Nigeria for 77 years from 1914, following amalgamation, to 1991 when the capital city moved to Abuja. Lagos is located in the south-western region of Nigeria which is predominantly occupied by Yoruba tribe. In addition, it has a very high integration of other ethnicities (Hausa and Igbo) due to rural-urban migration of individuals in
search of better opportunities. Lagos is one of Nigeria’s 36 states and covers only 0.39% of the country’s total territorial land mass, thus making it the smallest state in the country geographically. Nonetheless, Lagos has the highest population density (21 million people in 3 577 and a 3.2% growth rate (Ministry of Economic Planning & Budget, 2014). In addition,
Lagos has the busiest seaport in West Africa, spanning a 100km stretch of coastline along the Atlantic Ocean. The city has evolved into three main districts: Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland and Sub-Urban Lagos. These districts have 20 local government areas (LGA) and 37 local council development areas (LCDA). Table 3.1 provides an overview of Lagos’ estimated
Unlike other major cities in Nigeria
Lagos can be described as cosmopolitan. The city is home to every culture found in Nigeria and living conditions range from poor slums to affluent developed communities. Although Lagos has steadily evolved over the years, the most significant developments in terms of governance, infrastructure (health, education and transport), trade and industries have
occurred within the last 15 years (2001 - 2016). The vision is that by 2025, Lagos would be considered Africa’s Model Megacity, a global economic and financial hub that is safe, secure, functional and productive. This vision is believed to be achievable through theAn SME in Nigeria is defined as a legitimate business entity with 1 to 49 employees and an annual
turnover of less than 50 million Naira (158 000 USD) (SMEDAN & NBS, 2013). The contbution of SMEs in Lagos, as at 2016, is estimated to be in the region of 7.8 trillion Naira billion USD). SMEs further assure the livelihood of approximately 5.7 million people employed by 3.4 million SMEs (Lawanson, 2010). This arguably represents over 70% of the working population of Lagos (Oni, 2016). SMEs exist in all sectors of the economy: as support
Service providers to big organisations
as smaller competitors empowered by technology or simply as active businesses aimed at sustaining a living (BudgetIT, 2016). The primary challenges faced by the SMEs in Lagos are: poor resource management, a mainly unskilled workforce, poor access to finance, lacking infrastructure, inconsistencies in government policy and bureaucracy, unfair competition,
multiple taxes and levies, inability to access modern technology, poor marketing strategies and non-availability of raw materials locally (Ngwu, 2005; Oni, 2016; BudgetIT, 2016). These challenges resonate with many other developing countries. Lagos state government has been supporting SMEs with funding and training. In an effort to stimulate job and wealth creation, a
25 billion Naira Employment Trust Fund (ETF) for the funding and training of 100 000 emerging entrepreneurs, has also been initiated. Another ICTs generally signify technologies that offer access to information, through telecommunications. Embedded telecommunication technologies include the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones and other communication
mediums. Over the past few decades, ICTs have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities (Good & Qureshi, 2009; Didi-quvane & Twinomurinzi, 2013a; Eze
For example people can communicate
in real-time with others in different countries using technologies such as instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP) and video messaging on social network platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Modern ICTs have created a global village in which people interact with their contemporaries across the world, as if they were merely living next door. For this reason, ICT
is often viewed within the context of how modern communication technologies affect society (Kamal & Qureshi, 2009; Sun & Chen, 2006). One way to gauge ICT’s impact on society is to consider its influence on the way in which business is practised. In recent times, a business’ ability to interact with its environment and to respond rapidly and appropriately to
environmental challenges has become largely dependent on the use of ICT (Good & Qureshi, 2009; Michiel, 2013). Mobile apps stand out as the type of ICT which facilitates all stakeholders’ (including customers, employers, suppliers, regulators, etc.) business interactions. Mobile applications, also known as mobile apps or apps, are small programmes
Conclusion
These programmes offer functionalities by interfacing with other hardware components of the smart device in order to collect, retrieve or store data locally on the smart device, or virtually in the cloud (Young, 2015; Yang et al., 2014). Mobile appsprimarily rely on internet connectivity and cloud technologies. Technically, based on their architectural design, apps can be broadly grouped as: native apps, web apps or hybrid apps (Nayebi et al., 2012). Native apps are
platform-specific, developed for use on specific platforms (like android, iOS and windows) or devices. Apps natively developed for android will not run on iOS and vice-versa. Web apps are usually built around mobile browsers which means they are not installed on the mobile device but could be accessed via the browser on the device. Web apps are driven by web technologies like Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and
JavaScript. The main advantage of web apps is their ability to update content without being constrained by the platform app stores, while their main disadvantage is the limitation in interface with the mobile device hardware. Hybrid apps tend to aggregate the features of native and web apps. These apps are built on web technologies, like web apps, but they are wrapped in a native container which interfaces with the mobile device hardware
Comments
Post a Comment