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Majekodunmi - Enterprise Software Solutions Will Drive Local Content Development [interview](AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Mr. Adefolu Majekodunmi is the Managing Director of Asseco Nigeria. He spoke to Emma Okonji on how the company's entry into the Nigerian enterprise software market will drive business efficiency and reposition the country as a hub for enterprise software business expansion in West Africa. Excerpts: Electricity has been a major challenge to telecoms companies and software developers. How will your enterprise software solution address the issue of power generation and distribution in the country? Electricity challenge in the country is not affecting only telecoms companies and software developers, because every other sector of the economy is also affected. But since the privatisation of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), there has been a lot of expectations from Nigerians concerning electricity supply. However, in our engagement with the power distribution companies (Discos), we noticed that there is a lot of drive going on among them to increase power generation and distribution and to provide more power for Nigerians. Some of them actually said they did not realise the enormity of the task of power generation and distribution that are ahead of them. From our discussions with them, we also discovered that most of them face a lot of technical losses in the process of distributing power. So we have been working with the distribution companies in this regard to assist them reduce their technical losses, using our software solution. When this is achieved, it will help them provide more power to the people and as well reduce their commercial losses. Before venturing into assisting the Discos in addressing their technical and commercial losses through your software solution, did you carry out any feasibility study that gave you the confidence that you can address their challenges? Yes, Asseco has carried out its feasibility studies and has gone ahead to organise several workshops for the Discos. We held the first workshop in May this year, in conjunction with the Ministry of Power in Abuja and it was a three-day training workshop. At that workshop we were able to learn about the challenges the Discos are facing in the course of distributing electricity to consumers and we told them we have a solution to their technical challenges and that is our software solution. We also had an additional workshop in Poland this year, where we visited the largest distribution company in Poland. The first workshop in Nigeria was an opportunity for Asseco to learn about the technical challenges being faced by Discos while the second workshop was basically to show them our software solution and to demonstrate to them how our software solution could address their challenges and also reposition Nigeria as a hub for enterprise software business expansion in West Africa. What value is your software solution going to bring to power distribution in Nigeria? The immediate value that we see, based on our experience about power privatisation in Poland, is in the ability for us to reduce technical and commercial losses incurred by Discos in Nigeria. In Poland, we were able to do this by reducing the losses from 35 per cent to less than five per cent, and that is a huge relief for the Discos over there. How were the losses incurred? Technical and commercial losses were incurred through fraudulent practices, unconventional method of revenue generation, and corporate mismanagement. In the telecoms sector for example, subscribers have had course to complain about faulty billing system, which they see as ripoff on their part. Does your solution address the challenge? Poor billing could come up as a result of poor billing application software, which oftentimes affects the post and prepaid subscribers. This could be seen in data or voice subscription. But we are saying that Asseco has a core billing application software that enables operators to address the issue of either over billing or under billing, which are challenges in any business. For the telecommunications companies, billing system is a major part of their business that must not be gambled with and we are saying that we have the right software application that addresses all of that. We have done it with a number of telecoms companies in Europe and we are saying that it could replicate in Nigeria. What level of synchonisation does your software solution has with existing software solution that is already running in an organisation? Synchronisation of software solutions actually depends on the existing solution that the organisation is already running and the new solution it wants to integrate into the system. Our software solution is highly interoperable and can synchronise easily with other software solutions. Interestingly enough, Asseco also provides integrated tools for any synchonisation. The solution that we have is open system that allows for easy interfacing. We also have a software that focuses on integration between an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software and a billing system. Our solution can accommodate two billing systems that are running in parallel. How long does it take to install your software solution? Again, it depends on the size of the organisation and the number of customers that the organisation has. Our solution can address the challenges of large and small telecommunications companies, oil & gas companies and the Internet Service Providers (ISPs). So the time to install our solution actually depends on the size of project the organisation has at hand. Your solution is new in the market and organisations have been running similar solutions for their businesses. What comparative adavantage does your solution has over similar existing solutions? Now the truth is that our expectation is not to use our solution to replace an existing solutions, because such existing solutions have been running, and a lot of money is involved in the total replacement of existing solutions. What we are saying is that we have the solution that can complement existing core solutions and make the organisation perform at optimal level by addressing all technical and commercial losses that the company may have been incurring before. We do believe that there are several opportunities that surrounds core application solutions. Our solution meets key market demands and one of the key market demands in the banking sector now, is the reduction of cost of transactions (COT) in banking. So our solution is capable of reducing cost of transactions for banks. One area we are currently working on for banks is the business process automation, which looks at how banks could actually reduce cost of transactions and we have the solution for that. What is your focus for the Nigerian enterprise software application market? Our focus for the Nigerian entity is to build a strong local expertise in four primary sectors - financial services (banking, insurance, capital markets); fast moving consumer goods (FMCG); utilities such as power, water, gas; and public sector, such as health, defense, and social services. The Asseco Group has significant experience developing solutions in the sectors we focus on. It has developed complex software solutions for major public and private sector institutions throughout Europe and the Middle East. Our unique strategy for Nigeria is to combine local software development in addition to providing our established knowhow. We are in Nigeria for the long term and we plan to be at the forefront of technology automation in the public sector and emerging private sectors. We will build our growth on local added value in the form of local software development that will promote local content. Most software solutions tend to reduce the workforce of organisations based on the multipurpose task that the solutions perform, thereby putting people out of jobs and increasing the population of the unemployed. Is that the type of solution we are talking about? Our solution is not anti-employment but rather the opposite if it. It actually creates room for skilled employment and offers the best way for organisations to generate good income from their businesses. Taking the power sector as example, where our solution can play a vital role by ensuring that distribution companies are able to minimise losses, gives room for employers to generate more money that they could use to hire more staff and this will help in reducing unemployment population in the country. How will you address the issue of staff training for the purpose of adaptability? Staff training is key to the success of any business, especially when new solutions are about to be introduced. Our specialised training comes in three ways. Firstly we train ourselves to ensure that those within our system have the skills to educate clients. Secondly we train our customers, to ensure they are able to deploy the solution effectively. Thirdly we train our partners that will in turn train others on our behalf. So training is a very big and vital component of any enterprise software company. Counterfeiting appears to be thriving across sectors, including the software sector where you belong. What are your plans to protect your solution in ensuring that your customers enjoy genuine solutions from Assesco and not counterfeit? Yes, counterfeiting thrives but counterfeiting our enterprise solution will be a lot more difficult because it is a core vertical business application that people cannot fake easily. I mean it will be very difficult to fake it and burn it on a disc as pirated copy for sale because a high level of security features is infused into it. What is your vision for the Nigerian software market? Asseco is in Nigeria with a vision to deploy customised software solution that will address the needs of the Nigerian customers, and that is the key differentiation between Asseco and other original equipment manufacturers that are in the country, just to sell their products. We are in Nigerian to develop customised solutions that are specifically developed for the needs of customers, and in doing that, we take into consideration, the Nigerian specific environment in developing our solution for the Nigerian market. Copyright This Day. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |