BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 4. Azerbaijan's IT sector is advancing rapidly in many areas, unlike in the neighboring countries, particularly some of the former Soviet states, Deputy Director of the DIS Group Consulting Division Sergei Yevtushenko told Trend.
According to Yevtushenko, the UN included Azerbaijan in the list of top countries for digital governance and online services back in 2020.
"The country is focused on proven and reliable technologies through using foreign experience at optimal costs. In addition, IT specialists adopt world expertise and apply the acquired knowledge both in technologies and in approaches to the organization and implementation of projects, infrastructure development, and building the IT support landscape,” he said.
“Azerbaijan's applying foreign experience doesn't negate the success in developing its own ideas and innovations, especially in education, technological innovations, and intellectual property,” the expert noted.
He also noted that the formation of a resilient startup ecosystem will lead to increase of attractiveness of innovation activity and steady development of the IT industry in Azerbaijan.
“The government of Azerbaijan is providing support to appearance of both local and international professional venture investors, development of infrastructure, technology parks and innovation centers in the country, forming respective legal framework. Such steps greatly increase the interest of both applicants and investors,” Yevtushenko said.
“Startups are a showcase for talented people and innovative ideas, but rather often large companies seek to use these opportunities for their own benefit. Given the shortage of talented specialists, these companies employ them, apply their innovations, receive additional profit and don’t always fully share it with the authors of ideas. This occurs in many markets, including in Azerbaijan," he stressed.
The expert also noted that the launch of payment solutions such as Apple Pay and Google Pay in Azerbaijan, as well as plans to launch Samsung Pay and PayPal, will significantly expand the e-commerce services.
“These solutions make it possible to simplify and speed up payments for goods and services, as well as increase their security. This also has a positive effect on customer satisfaction, leading to the development and simplification of doing business,” he said. “Besides, the payment solutions allow not only to simplify the acceptance of payments in shops, cafes and restaurants, and filling stations but also to bring online commerce to a new level, including mobile applications, payment for services, utilities and other services."
“With the launch of such payment tools as Apple Pay and Google Pay, the users won’t need to enter bank card data or risky confidential information, and the risk of losing cards and their unauthorized use will be reduced. Moreover,ample opportunities emerge to develop interesting loyalty programs, bonus accruals, cashback and other customer-oriented benefits,” Yevtushenko said.
“The possibilities for instant issuance of virtual payment cards are also expanding. This can be used not only by banks but also, for example, by mobile operators, turning mobile phone accounts into full-fledged financial instruments,” the expert added.
He emphasized the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) in Azerbaijan can first of all be used in industry and manufacturing.
"The Industry 4.0 approach doesn’t focus on any particular area, and it can be applied in various industries. As a first application of this concept, digitalization tasks can be proposed. Digitalization can be applied to various objects and processes. Both the equipment and the personnel, both the actual performance of the equipment and financial planning can have ‘Digital copies," Yevtushenko noted.
“The use of ‘digital copies’ minimizes possible risks, while providing almost unlimited opportunities. This includes building models, conducting research and analytics, and testing hypotheses. As a result, we get the opportunity to test the solution even before its actual implementation, and then implement it," he said.