CEO Letter - August 2025

At Deimos, we have the privilege of supporting an incredibly diverse group of organisations across the African continent - including digital banks transforming personal finance in Nigeria, mobility platforms revolutionising transport infrastructure across West Africa, cross-border remittance providers simplifying financial inclusion in Southern Africa, etc. While their industries, goals and constraints differ, a common pattern has emerged in how they are approaching cloud strategy in 2025.

They are not just consuming cloud technology. They are redefining how it is used, architected, and governed - in a way that reflects the unique conditions of our markets.

The reality is this: the dominant cloud models built in Europe and North America don't neatly apply here. Infrastructure is uneven. Regulatory demands are growing. Cost pressures are real. And teams are demanding agility.

Hybrid and Multi-Cloud strategies are not trends in Africa - they are practical necessities. And here’s why:

1. Data Sovereignty Legislation

Governments across Africa are moving swiftly to introduce and enforce data localisation laws. Sensitive information - especially in finance, healthcare, and government - must often be stored within national borders.

For our clients, that means architecting with intention. Hybrid cloud models are enabling them to store critical data in-country (or even on-prem) while still leveraging global public cloud services for innovation and scale.

This balance - between compliance and capability - is where the real value lies.

2. Resilience Over Redundancy

Hyperscaler outages, though rare, are no longer theoretical. Businesses across Africa are rethinking their infrastructure models, not to duplicate services blindly, but to build resilience - the ability to maintain uptime across unpredictable network or provider failures.

A growing number of clients are designing failover between providers, diversifying workloads across AWS, Google Cloud, Huawei Cloud, and private environments to stay online when it matters most.

Resilience is the new uptime - and multi-cloud is enabling it.

3. Decentralised Procurement

One of the most interesting shifts we’ve observed is how cloud adoption decisions are being made. Procurement is no longer centralised. Product teams, security leads, and developers are selecting the tools that work best for their stack and workflow.

This freedom is leading to smarter choices - like using JumpCloud for identity management, Datadog for observability, or GitLab for CI/CD pipelines - often across different clouds.

But decentralisation introduces complexity. That’s why Deimos brings cohesion: unified billing, local currency support, multi-cloud observability, and expert advisory - all under one roof.

4. Smart Spend Management

Cloud costs are increasing. That’s not unique to Africa, but our clients face additional complexity due to currency volatility and regional pricing discrepancies.

Smart businesses are now benchmarking across platforms and shifting workloads to the most cost-effective cloud for the job. Multi-cloud strategies allow them to optimise not just infrastructure, but spend - without compromising performance.

We support these efforts with quarterly Cloud Cost Optimisation Assessments and deep architectural reviews to ensure budgets are aligned with outcomes.

5. Security as a Shared Model

As attack surfaces grow, so must our security mindset. We are helping clients reframe security not as a checkpoint, but as a continuous posture - embedded across clouds, platforms, and teams.

That means embracing Cloud Security Architecture, Vulnerability Management, and DevSecOps pipelines that operate across environments.

In a multi-cloud world, where borders are technical not geographic, security must be unified and proactive - not reactive.

Building for Africa’s Reality

These five shifts aren’t future-facing predictions. They are present-day imperatives. Across industries and regions, African businesses are building hybrid and multi-cloud strategies that are resilient, compliant, cost-efficient, and scalable.

At Deimos, we’re proud to support this transformation.

We offer end-to-end Hybrid and Multi-Cloud capabilities - including Cloud Migrations, Security, Cost Optimisation, and modern Kubernetes deployments - delivered with deep engineering expertise and a strong commitment to local context.

We support all major cloud platforms - AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Huawei Cloud - and a host of productivity and security tools.

And we do this with local billing, SLA-backed support, and flexible terms that make sense for African businesses.

Final Thoughts

The future of cloud in Africa won’t be dominated by a single provider or rigid approach. It will be shaped by businesses that take control of their destiny - choosing the right mix of tools, platforms, and partners to thrive on their terms.

Thank you for letting Deimos be part of that journey. If you’re exploring how hybrid and multi-cloud can unlock value for your organisation, we’d be honoured to help.

Here’s to building cloud strategies that are as bold and diverse as Africa itself.

Warm regards,
Andrew Mori
CEO, Deimos