ISON to set up ultramodern facilities in four cities

ITRealms

The Global Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), ISON, a business process outsourcing, Pravin Kumar, has said the company plans to establish four state-of the-art facilities in Ibadan, Abeokuta, Ilorin, and Kano, reports ITRealms.

ISON BPO, he said, has excellent Call Centre facilities around the globe including the one in Ibadan and plans to replicate same standards all over Nigeria with plans to deploy an additional $20 million about N3.97billion investment with about 4,000 workers to be engaged in Nigeria before end of this year.

The CEO while speaking Tuesday in Lagos at ProTea Hotel during a press conference said ISON, which has about 7,000 employees across 12 countries, in which 4,500 are in 10 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa, noted that in Nigeria,they have about 1,300 workers since it commenced operation in Nigeria in 2011 of which 99 per cent of the workers are Nigerians, adding that Airtel and AIICO are the company’s key clients in the country.

He also stated that the company targets to employ about 25,000 workers in Nigeria in the next four years, ITRealms reports.

Mr. Kumar also said the company’s business expansion activities in Nigeria, is focusing in the call centre segment of the telecommunication sector.

He itemized infrastructure like power, good roads, location, language and security among others as ISON’s primary considerations in the establishment of offices in the cities, adding that ISON BPO has presence in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda with plans to add nine more centres with additional 5000 employees in the region. 

ITRealms gathered that Mr. Kumar,an industry veteran with over 35 years of experience is credited with the creation of three large business empires in the BPO, is regarded as a pioneer in call center services.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

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Efficiency, key factor to drive outsourcing

ITRealms

The Association of Outsourcing Professionals of Nigeria (AOPN) has said that efficiency is the major factor that could effectively promote the goals of outsourcing in Nigeria, reports ITRealms.

This was also the position of stakeholders at the just concluded AOPN 2015 Outsourcing Expo,Wednesday, at Muson Centre, Lagos.

The President of the Association, Dr. Austin Nweze, in an exclusive chat with ITRealms, spoke glowingly about the benefits of outsourcing which he described as having a bright future in Nigeria.  He explained that outsourcing is a situation where a person from one company takes up a particular job description in another company so that the service buyer could concentrate on his core competence, saying that the worker is treated as a staff where he is sent to work.

He disclosed that there is a remarkable difference between outsourcing and casualization, saying that this clarification has become germane in order to allay the fears in the public domain that outsourcing is synonymous with casualization.

Stressing that if eventually he is relieved of his work he goes back to his parent company and is posted to another place with all his salaries and entitlements intact, adding that in casualization the employee’s salary stops once he is relieved  of his job. He stated that the idea of the Expo is to galvanize ideas aimed at making Nigeria the hub of outsourcing in Africa.

The Expo, ITRealms gathered, involved exhibitions by member companies of the association where they had the opportunity to showcase what their companies are doing to the general public.  Stakeholders concurred on the modality to realize the goal of outsourcing,  emphasising it should be placed on efficiency and not profit maximization and cost reduction whether as a buyer or as a service provider,because that is the only thing that could drive value.

Though at infancy stage, panelists on the occasion said there is need for the industry players to step up their game in value proposition, process articulation and standardization for people to take the industry very serious and wrest the market from foreigners who Nigerian companies most times prefer to patronize, while at the same time agreeing that technology is what will drive the outsourcing initiative in the long run.

ITRealms reports that participant expressed the fear that computer may eventually take up human performance tasks which may rock the aim of outsourcing; however,this fear was allayed as there was a consensus of opinion that computer has rather enhanced job creation and better performance. The success achieved in call centres, for instance, in Nigeria was used as an example.

Mr. Sunday Folayan, President, Nigeria Internet Registry Administrators(NIRA), Member Governing Board of NITDAand representative of Mr. Peter Jack, Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) said that outsourcing is already here with us, adding that NITDA is playing a key role in showing the road map.

The Managing Director, Business School Netherland, Lary Bale at the Expo which had the theme: “The Value of Outsourcing” advocated that members of the association should find their ways into politics to be able to lobby through some of the objectives of the association into law, ITRealms reports.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

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