Fintech and leasing solutions provider InnoVent has opened an InnoVent Zambia office in Lusaka, as Africa’s appetite grows for cost-effective IT asset acquisition and management solutions. The opening of the new branch expands the company’s presence in Zambia, where its refurbished technology business, Qrent, has been present for the past eight years.
The latest expansion follows just months after the opening of new offices in Kenya and Nigeria. InnoVent now has eight offices in six countries, which include South Africa, UK, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Lydia Ngoma, Business Development Manager at InnoVent, says: “The pandemic has fast-tracked dependence on the latest digital technologies around the world, but at the same time, economic constraints are making CIOs more cautious around IT spend."
Zambia, which was particularly hard-hit by the economic impacts of the pandemic, is experiencing low growth rates, high inflation and disruption of major economic activities that have left most organisations in a predicament.
Businesses are struggling to stretch their budgets over a multitude of operational costs, and organisations are forced to save capital or reduce cash demands. This is not an ideal time for businesses to incur debt or allocate limited working capital for significant investments in digital tools.
The challenge now rests with business leaders to find ways to get the latest and greatest equipment without breaking the bank or affecting operations. This is where leasing IT equipment is gaining traction as a solution to enabling digital growth on the continent.
The World Bank’s latest economic analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa shows African countries are not wasting the opportunity from the COVID-19 crisis, they are increasingly adopting digital technologies to drive business and economic growth.
“IT hardware will be the engine that will facilitate this process, supporting and enabling the infrastructure businesses will use to improve processes, generate revenues, and build relationships with employees, customers and other stakeholders,” says Ngoma.
InnoVent understands that CIOs and CFOs must keep systems and equipment running smoothly and up to date. It supports an integrated, life cycle approach to IT procurement that removes the financial barriers of large upfront costs for clients.
When you combine smart acquisition, asset management, responsible end-of-life management solutions and the refurbishment of IT equipment to extend its lifetime, InnoVent’s approach supports both a lower cost of finance and the growth of the circular economy.
In 2016, the African Circular Economy Alliance (ACEA) was launched with a mission of spurring Africa’s transition to a circular economy that delivers economic growth, jobs and positive environmental outcomes.
“This move to open an InnoVent Zambia office is aligned to our global vision to help organisations achieve their sustainability goals through their IT. We have helped Zambian businesses acquire 'second life' equipment through Qrent, and now with InnoVent, we can help them finance and manage their technology assets in their 'first life' facilitating a smooth transition to the circular economy.
The leasing industry is already well-positioned to be a front-runner to the circular economy in which a linear ‘produce, use and discard’ approach is replaced with a circular and more sustainable solution to “produce, use, reuse and recycle equipment,” Ngoma concludes.
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