By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Leading public sector ICT infrastructure and services provider wholly owned by the Federal Government, Galaxy Backbone Ltd, has achieved another feat with the acquisition of the ISO/IEC 20000 certification.
The ISO 20000 is an international standard which helps organizations demonstrate excellence, and prove best practice in IT Service Management.
It ensures that companies can achieve evidence-based benchmarks to continuously improve their delivery of IT services.
Galaxy’s ISO 20000 commenced in June 2015 with the unveiling of Galaxy 2.0 strategy and the constitution of Galaxy ITIL/ISO 20000 Working Group (GIWG) as a demonstration of Galaxy management’s commitment to institutionalize an auditable IT Service Management System in the company.
Managing Director/CEO Galaxy Backbone Ltd, Mr Yusuf Kazaure, stated that, “I am pleased to announce to you today that we have been certified to ISO 20000 standard within the scope we set for the certification.
“I congratulate the management and staff of Galaxy for this achievement and I appreciate those who worked hard to achieve this goal. It is particularly noteworthy that this is the first time we achieved a feat like this with minimum support from external consultants. I believe this approach has helped us to understand the management system better and will enhance our adoption process”.
He said further that, “ITIL implementation is a cultural change and not a project. While we have achieved a milestone with the certification, the journey is just beginning; a lot of work lies ahead to make ITIL best-practices a culture in the organization and a means of continually improving our services. I count on the cooperation of all staff to continue to work together as teams to achieve our corporate targets and business objectives.”
According to Mr Kazaure, the Galaxy 2.0 strategy is anchored around four key corporate objectives which include long term sustainability of Galaxy Backbone, becoming an elite team that solves government problems using ICT, being an agile organization and instituting a culture of innovation in service delivery to customers.
Furthermore, he said to underscore the company’s commitment to empowering its team that every staff of the company has been trained on ITIL Foundation while some have become certified as ITIL experts and others as ITIL examiners.
Presenting the ISO/IEC 20000 certificate to Galaxy Backbone, the Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Harriet Thompson described the feat as a mark of demonstration of Galaxy’s capability for the design, development, delivery and improvement of IT services that fulfil customer’s service requirements and empowers the government of Nigeria to deliver quality public services to its citizens in a manner that reduces poverty and improves their lives.
The certificate is awarded by British Standard Institute, a United Kingdom National Standard Body that helps organizations worldwide to make excellence in IT service delivery their habit.
Galaxy Backbone’s implementation of IT Service Management involved development of its human capacity and capabilities to transform its resources to valuable services. ISO/IEC 20000 IT Service Management (ITSM) certificate is recognized worldwide, and helps to provide assurance to Galaxy’s stakeholders about its ability to efficiently and effectively deliver IT services in an internationally acceptable manner.
It will be recalled that in 2011, Galaxy Backbone became the first public sector institution in Nigeria to be ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certified for Information Security Management System (ISMS) and was upgraded to ISO/IEC 27001:2013 in 2014.
This is a demonstration of the company’s commitment to benchmarking international best practices and in line with the vision to be a leading enabler of digital inclusion in Nigeria and Africa.
Aduragbemi Omiyale 
Adedapo Adesanya