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PRESS INTERVIEW: Outsourcing Technology Roles and Digital Transformation

Extract from the press interview of Lekan Ayorinde – CEO Outsource Nigeria (Omni Channel ) with Chijioke of BussinessDay newspaper on Outsourcing Technology Roles and Digital Transformation in Nigeria

1. Your company is regarded as one of the leading outsourcing companies in the country. Tell us about Outsource Nigeria and what actually motivated you into this line of business? 

Outsource Nigeria, registered as Omni Channel Limited is a full-service Human Resources agency, specializing in providing outsourced turnkey manpower solutions in information communication technology related roles. Our solution include HR Services, Recruiting, IT Support, Business Intelligence, Developers, and Operations including management of field / phone / automated based resources. The core of our success is our people.

Each of our seasoned executives brings a unique background and level of expertise in multiple disciplines and industries. Our vertical knowledge ranges from Energy, Technology, Advertising, Travel, Retail, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Telecommunications, and many more, including selling tangible products and intangible servicesusing the power of digital media and information technology. Years of experience within the services industry sets us apart as a leading solutions provider within this complex market.

We’re a people-powered business. Our clients choose us because of our people who deliver great ideas to help them succeed: for their knowledge, their skills, their technical abilities, their digital mindset, their independence, their objectivity and their diverse characters.

2. Why do companies need to outsource? What costs can organizations save through effective outsourcing? 

There are many advantages to outsourcing, even if you only manage a small business. Some of the advantages of outsourcing includes: Reducing operational costs, freeing up internal resources for redeployment on core value-adding tasks, increasing efficiency/productivity levels and Accessing quality manpower/staffing. It is misconception that outsourcing contracts are worth millions and only large companies can afford them.

You could outsource everything that is ‘routine’, that is to say it could be done by others. Some of them include tasks such as accounting, invoicing, customer care, payroll and IT. If you normally do them yourself, then outsourcing would free you up to focus on how you can grow your company. Even if you have others who do these jobs for you, outsourcing would save you thousands of Naira every month.

Can’t afford a secretary? You can opt for a virtual assistant. This would free up your schedule considerably to do what you do best – running your business. The virtual assistant could take calls, route them to your number, handle emails, and schedule appointments, to name a few. They would even take care of your travel plans, all at a fraction of what it would cost you to hire a personal secretary.

If you can think of it, there is somebody in your state who is capable and willing to do it for you for a fraction of what you would normally pay your staff. Technical support, software development, graphics design, server management, human resources, engineering consultancy, customer service, legal services, and accounting are some of the areas where you can get highly qualified personnel to do your job for you.

3. What makes Outsource Nigeria standout in the nation’s outsourcing industry? What are your milestones in the first few years you have been in business? 

Our outsourcing model of managed operations is quite unique – We help our client build a full-time, dedicated team that work remotely or on-premises, taking care of everything from equipment, office space, software, power and tools, while you retain full control of your team, including KPIs, quality, workflow and productivity. So not only do you enjoy significant cost savings (up to 70%), but you still get employees who work just for you, in your business, working towards your business-specific goals.

With 2 state-of-the-art offices in Lagos, Nigeria and over 10+ people dedicated to talent acquisition and training in different states in Nigeria– Since inception Outsource Nigeria has trained over 15,000 graduates on critical skills in information system and software development. Our graduate training programme enables us to maintain a pool of talented individuals who are shortlisted to fill various roles from our clients.

4. Give us the reasons why a company should outsource its services to Outsource Nigeria? 

As the biggest and most experienced managed operations provider in Information Technology Outsourcing, we enable our client to leverage big-business infrastructure, like: 24 hour/365 days dedicated IT support and robust infrastructure for maximum uptime, Local dedicated talent acquisition to build and scale your team, Fully maintained facilities so you never have to worry about furniture, tech equipment, or maintenance, Professional employee engagement activities, Risk management and disaster recovery plans to keep your team safe and your business running, Professional performance management and discipline framework.

Having an IT support plan in place is critical for success in today’s business environment. But we know that for small and medium businesses, maintaining this can be expensive and distracting.

And in an ever-changing landscape of increased cyber threats and new legislation, your IT needs to be proactively managed and strategically led.

With our outsource IT support service we’ll provide fully managed remote or On-Premises support, with 24/7 monitoring and management ensuring all your systems and staff are up and running, helping you get the most out of your technology so you can focus on your commercial success.

We’ll integrate seamlessly to extend and enhance your internal resources, technical capabilities and skill-set, adding stability and value to your operations. We’ll help you improve internal efficiencies and deliver exceptional end-user experience to you and your customers.

You should outsourced your IT and support desk to us because: IT Is Our Core Competency – All of the day-to-day tasks, such as installation of hardware and software, information systems, security tasks, network administration, maintenance, upgrades, technology management, etc. are taken care of by IT professionals. They’ve spent hundreds of hours developing best practices and customizing management tools so you don’t have to. — Consistent Results – We are already in the business of measuring our activities, so it’s in ourbusiness interest to try to make IT consistently better for our clients. — Resources Are Rapidly Scalable. If you experience a bunch of problems at once, we can quickly allocate many representatives to solve the problems simultaneously. This means multiple employees can get help from different IT technicians at the same time. And when things are working smoothly, nobody is being paid to sit and wait for the phone to ring. This reduces downtime and improves employee productivity. — We Have The Right, Trained Experts For The Job. IT as a category contains many disciplines: security, cloud, storage, communications, networking, ERP, EMR, accounting software, etc. Most small businesses can’t afford to employ experts in each of these areas. Hiring someone who is a Help Desk specialist and expecting them to manage your network is like hiring a machinist and expecting them to also handle accounting. When you use our managed IT services, these experts are easily accessible because the cost of employing each one of them is distributed amongst each one of our clients.

5. Who are your major clienteles and what value have you added to their businesses? 

We work in partnership with discerning and prestigious clients from the banking, oil and gas and many SMEs–  sourcing highly qualified and motivated individuals for roles in many industries. Our clients turn to us to facilitate steeper growth than they would be able to realize.

Many of our clients aren’t in the information technology business; IT is simply an essential but peripheral element that is required to maintain and support the organisation’s function. Suddenly they realise that their IT infrastructure no longer supports their needs. Executives will look to outsource their IT processes, and who better to partner with than a company experienced not only in developing their own multi industry, innovative technology, but in providing best in class IT outsourcing services?

As the needs, capabilities and scope of our clients constantly change, we use our technology outsourcing skills, experience and innovation to provide our customers with flexible IT solutions that will work with them, instead of becoming a drain on resources.

By outsourcing their information technology processes, clients can focus on their business with the absolute peace of mind that we are keeping them ahead of the technology game.

6. What is the outsourcing industry like in Sub Saharan African countries and are there plans in the pipeline to expand to other African countries? 

Africa surely has a growing business ecosystem, and it has a lot of potentials to grow big in the next coming years. With a huge workforce and infrastructure, the continent is becoming popular among all western countries. A fast acceleration makes a point for developing long-lasting relationships between outsourcers and native professionals.

An Ecosystem like ACE (Accelerated Certified Expert) gives many African companies a reliability certificate, and then they can succeed in their tie-ups with American organizations. The global market is now seriously moving for IT outsourcing In Africa as this continent is rich in resources and human capital. At Outsource Nigeria we have been ale to capture come potential leads from offshore companies looking for partners in the Africa continent to facilitate their market penetration in Africa. nourishes all the industries with fast growth.

7. What are your suggestions to clients during this Covid-19 pandemic? 8. Where do you see Outsource Nigeria in the next 5 years? 

The unprecedented economic shutdown of the past few months has made one thing crystal clear – the “new normal” is going to require even greater reliance and expansion of Information Technology across most industries and organizations. The organizations who prosper in this new era will be increasingly the ones who can harness and truly exploit the power of Information Technology to drive their business forward.

Imagine for a minute what the world would have looked like over the past few months without widespread, high speed internet access, mobile computing, video conferencing, online banking, knowledge management portals, EDI, etc. My guess is that without these technologies and many others, the shutdown would not have lasted nearly as long if it would have even been considered a viable alternative to dealing with the pandemic.

These technologies and many others are what made it even possible for organizations whose revenue model was not destroyed (e.g. airlines, cruise lines, hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, etc.) to have the capability to rethink their operations and rapidly move to a high-scale, distributed workforce model that effectively maintained the business moving forward and in many cases may have improved it. These past few months have truly been a testament to the power and importance of Information Technology in the modern corporate landscape.

The Distributed Workforce at Scale model has been a great success for many, but will get more challenging as time goes on. Even organizations that do not see a permanent move to this operating model will need to be ready and able to switch from onsite to remote on-demand. Maintaining operational effectiveness, efficiency, security and internal control will be critical to long term success. Even more critical and challenging will be maintaining the commonality of purpose, team bonds and culture that makes your organization unique. Technology will play a big role in making all this work for the long term. Think MS-Teams, Slack, Hosted PBX, Virtual Workstations, Work Monitoring, Bring Your Own Device, Online Storage, File Sharing etc.

In an attempt to develop greater business agility and resilience, companies are increasingly looking to reduce the Covid-19 risk through outsourcing. By outsourcing companies can scale at will and leverage on roust infrastructure that they could not access in a semi-lockdown situation. 

Our services have helped many organizations scale their resources and leverage on technology to thrive in their industry during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. we offer technology and IT outsourcing that is created to simplify processes, to move with the times, to allow accelerated delivery time to market so that we can meet the needs of our clients when they need it, not days, weeks, years after they needed it.

Lives, careers, organisations will continue to change and evolve even without technology. However, our technology expertise will enable your organisation to continue to grow, so that you can focus on steering your organisation in the right direction and maintaining a smooth course through any changes that may arise. Information technology outsourcing to Outsource Nigeria means that organisations can remain efficient, compliant and forward-moving in an ever changing world.Our vision for the future is “To be an independent, sustainably profitable and globally focused firm, known for helping people and businesses succeed.”