Outsourcing comes of age in Nigeria

“The establishment of Galaxy Backbone by the federal government represents a commendable example of outsourcing.”

The overarching role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in reducing operational costs, wealth creation and driving efficiency in the delivery of public services to citizens by public institutions in a modern economy such as Nigeria received further boost at the 1st National Conference on Outsourcing held in Abuja.

Sadiq Abubakar, the Group Head, Development & Strategy, Galaxy Backbone, described ICT as a strategic value creator especially for the public institutions whose primary responsibility is the delivery of public services to citizens and businesses in return for the taxes paid. He said that ICT is critical and has the capacity to simplify the process of service delivery and to that extent is at the core of the outsourcing industry.

Abubakar said that the establishment of Galaxy Backbone by the federal government for the procurement and implementation of bandwidth, connectivity, Datacenter hosting and other ICT Infrastructure for MDAs represents a commendable example of outsourcing. According to him, outsourcing involves the contracting out of a business function previously performed in-house, but is not core to the operations of an organization, to an external provider. Such a business arrangement would involve an exchange of services and payments. He further stated that a robust nationwide ICT infrastructure was a major requirement for outsourcing to grow and thrive in Nigeria.

He said that the concept of outsourcing was not strange to the federal government as evidenced by the Galaxy Backbone model, but empathized on the need for all stakeholders in the outsourcing industry to work together to develop a framework that will guide the growth of the industry. Abubakar listed the benefits derivable from outsourcing in general and Galaxy Backbone in particular to include cost savings, defining quality levels, and a defined focus on the core operations of government MDAs; thus freeing resources for investment in people and infrastructure. Other benefits include improved quality of services based on service level agreements, access to expert knowledge and experience, access to operational best practice, access to a large talent pool drawn from the private sector and Diaspora and enhanced capacity for innovation.

Abubakar also told the audience that Galaxy Backbone equally adopted the outsourcing model as a business strategy in order to meet the needs of its customers through the provision of innovative infrastructure services delivered through its extensive and integrated network made up of a tier 3 data centre, Abuja metro optical fiber, 5000 VSAT nodes and a state of the art Network Operations Centre. Through this business model, Galaxy is able to partner with industry players to meet market needs and customers’ expectations, contrary to misconceptions about the company being a monopoly.

-By  EMMANUEL OKUBENJI 

Source: DailyTimes