Digital Transformation Is Increasingly Urgent: The CEO of TBO

Recently, another participant, TBO Consulting Group from Nigeria, joined FCE Initiative. This company promotes technology implementations, automation, and digital transformation. We asked Temitope Oyeleye, the CEO of the company, about how the company works, how it assesses the current situation, and what he sees in FCE technologies and the Initiative.

How long have you been consulting with TBO Consulting Group and before?

I have been the CEO of TBO Consulting for 5 months now. Before joining TBO, I worked with few top multinational corporations including Vodacom Business Africa in Nigeria and Vodafone Global Enterprise as Executive Head of Global Accounts. I worked for both organizations for over 10 years. I have been working in the technology space since 2004 and I have been part of the technology industry since then. Business development and sales have been my major focus in the last few years and technology and digital innovation are my major drivers.

Tell us about the founders and experts of the company.

I am the founder of the company and I have expertise in technology sales and business development.

Oluwaseyi Babajide is also a shareholder in Technology subsidiary of TBO Consulting Group. He is our Director of Technology and Digital Transformation. He has wealth of experience in solution architecture, technology innovations and business transformation. We also have a team of specialists who work on the technologies we use.

What technologies do you use for digital transformations for your customers?

We use Enterprise Collaboration, Big Data and Analytics, IoT solutions, industrial IoT (I-IoT), automation, cloud technology, AR (Augmented Reality) In View, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Do you have any examples or maybe even studies about the benefits of digital transformation?

We provided a Virtual Workspace Collaboration for a leading business conglomerate in Nigeria. This enabled collaboration between staff on their business applications/tools, audio/video collaborations within all their various business units.

Another case was CRM solutions for a multinational Insurance company, integrated to meet all customer insurance business operations.

TBO Technology Consulting is re-inventing the way Omnichannel Contact Center is done by delivering consistent and top-notch experience throughout the customer journey across all touchpoints. This is with AI-based chatbots for popular voice assistants (Alexa, Cortana) and social platforms (WhatsApp, Skype, Viber, Twitter, Facebook, and more). Corporations using our technology solutions have experienced real business transformation leading to exponential growth in their businesses.

Which industries are most open to digital transformation, how do you think? What kind of companies asks you for digitization usually?

The industries include Banking and financial sector, Insurance industry, supply chain and logistics, telecommunication, and manufacturing industries, FMCG, etc.

Do you work with companies from Nigeria or around the world?

We work with companies in Nigeria and across the world.

How do you assess Nigeria's pace of development?

Yes, the growth has been slow with regards to GDP growth. However, there has been growth in fintech around mobile money, payment, and business automation for the big businesses in telecoms and Financial sector.

Nigeria continues its recovery from the 2016 recession, sustaining an estimated 2% growth rate in 2019, driven by services, particularly telecoms. Agricultural growth increased slightly but remains affected by insurgency in the Northeast region, and ongoing farmer-herder conflicts. Oil sector growth remained stable, but manufacturing production slowed due to the weaker power supply sector. Overall, the slow pace of recovery in 2019 is attributable to weak consumer demand and lower public and private investment.

The country’s growth outlook is vulnerable to domestic and global risks. The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a big blow on Nigeria’s economy in the last few months. Nigeria is expected to go into recession by the next quarter because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is facing a sharper than expected slowdown in the global economy, as well as geopolitical and trade tensions. Domestically, the predictability of macroeconomic policies, the pace of structural reforms, and the country’s security situation are the main risks.We obviously need transformation to stay afloat.

How do state regulators look at the digitization of the business?

There is a lot of support from regulators. However, regulators are still extremely limited in knowledge and expertise, and this limits technology innovations and digitization. However, a lot has improved in regulatory policies in the last few years and this has been a major booster to increased contributions of the telecommunications and IT sector to Nigeria’s GDP. The contribution to GDP is over 10% at the end of 2019.

What do you think are the prospects for digitization soon in Nigeria and abroad? In which industries the benefits and perspectives are the clearest, are they the only industries that turn to digitization now?

Digitization is already transforming the way business is being done in Nigeria and across Sub Saharan Africa. The prospects are huge. The banking and finance sector, insurance, FMCG, Telecommunications, supply chain, and logistics sector enjoy the benefits most and the perspective is clearest there. All industries in the economic chain are turning to technology and digitization now.

Why did you decide to join the Initiative? Will FCE technology be included in your list of offerings and who do you think will be the best for them?

I joined the Initiative because FCE technology is involved in digitization and blockchain technologies. Yes, FCE technology will be included in the list of our offerings and all sectors will benefit from a focus on banking and finance, insurance, manufacturing, agriculture, supply chain and logistics, etc.

What do you expect from global digitization? Do you think that digital transformation is necessary for the sustainable development of the economy or is it just a stage of development of society?

Digitization is the cause of large-scale and sweeping transformations across multiple aspects of business, providing unparalleled opportunities for value creation and capture, as well as being a source of major risk.

There can be no doubt that digital transformation is affecting almost all aspects of the world economy. This all-encompassing transformation, mostly in the realm of activities around digital communication and digital media has brought about a wide range of changes in the global economic and social universe. "Mobile and cloud computing, the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data are not only transforming business activities but also generating new business models which require new firm strategies and affect innovation, consumer behavior and society in general”.

What would you say to companies that are hesitant to digitize, trying to keep old models?

The reality of this time suggests that digital transformation is not only inevitable but increasingly urgent and a Must-Do. It is either organization undergo a real transformation in the way they do business by embracing enablers like technology, or they will be ‘left for dead’.

Companies must quickly re-invent to thrive in a fast-changing world.