Nigeria Ventures into Outsourcing Business

By Eddyson Lugangwa Posted 05 January 2007 @ 09:53 am EET     Print     Reprint     E-Mail     Comments

LAGOS (IBTimes.com) - The Nigerian government has initiated moves to develop a vibrant unified outsourcing business in the country to help Nigerian companies raise work efficiency and competitiveness, a senior Nigerian official said at the weekend.

Cleopas Angaye, director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) told reporters in the capital Abuja that committees had been set up to fashion out a policy for the take-off of the initiative.

"Outsourcing is a concept of taking internal company functions and paying outside firms to handle them in the process saving money, improving quality as well as freeing company resources for other activities," Angaye said.

He added that several documentation and reports had been made, committees had been set up, and indeed the government had demonstrated considerate commitment to the cause.

He said a clear policy direction would help ensure continuity and sustainability as well as provide the mechanism for establishing targets and setting measurable objectives.

According to him, the proposed policy will assist in monitoringthe implementation of the plan, evaluating the outcomes and redesigning and re-strategizing of programs. The envisaged policy, he said, would "guide all parties involved in the outsourcing business, guide implementation, ascribe roles to key institutions and provide a general framework for action."

He said Nigeria would benefit immensely from the initiative as global forecast on outsourcing indicated an increase both in volume and types of jobs outsourced. "For a long time to come, outsourcing will remain a viable option for entrepreneurs and investors whose businesses are drivenby the need for efficiency and cost savings," he added.

He said outsource business that would come to Nigeria would depend on clear cut policy framework and ability of stakeholders to work together. "It has been forecast that as the outsourcing market in Asia gets saturated in the near future, as labor costs go up in those countries, the world will turn its attention to Africa fully as the next destination for outsourcing," he said.

The NITDA director general said he was optimistic that Nigeria would be the gate way to Africa, stressing that the task before the country was not to only prepare for the near future but to begin to compete now.