" ITREALMS: ICT critical to outsourcing – Galaxy Backbone

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

ICT critical to outsourcing – Galaxy Backbone

A one-day national conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Outsourcing was recently hosted by Galaxy Backbone plc in the city of Abuja, with the Group Head, Development & Strategy, Galaxy Backbone, Mr. Sadiq Abubakar, describing ICT outsourcing as critical to creating for public sector institutions.

According to him, the strategic value is obvious for those whose primary responsibility is the delivery of public services to citizens and businesses in return for the taxes paid.

Manager, Corporate Communication at Galaxy Backbone, Mr. Franklyn Ginger-Eke in a press statement made available to Daily Champion quoted Abubakar as saying that the overarching role of ICT is to reduce operational costs, wealth creation and driving efficiency in the delivery of public services to citizens by public institutions in a modern economy.

Abubakar further said, 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.

He cited for instance, the establishment of Galaxy Backbone by Federal Government for the procurement and implementation of bandwidth, connectivity, datacenter hosting and other ICT infrastructure for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) represents a commendable example of outsourcing.

“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 said.

Abubakar stressed that a robust nationwide ICT infrastructure was a major requirement for outsourcing to grow and thrive in Nigeria.

He opined 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 would 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, a defined focus on the core operations of Government MDAs, thus freeing resources investment, people and infrastructure.

Other benefits he listed to 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.

He emphasized that Galaxy Backbone has also 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,” he said.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

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