Economy
Expert Highlights Benefits of Business Process Services
**Tasks Nigerian Firms to Embrace System
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Nigerian companies have been advised to see the urgent need to embrace the Business Process Services (BPS) because they are well positioned to enjoy the benefits of this system.
One of the top shots at Accenture FMCG, Mr Ololade Raji, noted that Nigerian firms can plug directly into the delivery machine of an experienced business process services provider to enable businesses to leapfrog competitors and drive business value – rather than being a back-office function.
Mr Raji said there’s a golden opportunity for Nigerian companies – one that turns their delay in investing in outsourcing and shared services into a unique strength.
According to him, the world of business process outsourcing (BPO), broadly defined, has undergone multiple incarnations. Pure facilities management preceded data and infrastructure outsourcing; thereafter came application support.
He said the business world was now in a new era, the business process support (BPS), which allows an external partner to manage everything from finance, to HR, sales support, credit and collections, as well as digital marketing.
Mr Raji argued that local companies have been reluctant to rely on third-party delivery of key services – in many cases due to fears around loss of control, where there is a legacy thinking of ownership equalling control.
That said, Nigeria has not been left untouched by traditional BPO – the application and IT areas have matured more rapidly over the past five years, nonetheless only one conglomerate has taken a bold BPO step in Nigeria, he said.
“Going forward, however, as we begin to see major moves towards drivers such as As-a-Service, increased automation and artificial intelligence, for forward-thinking Nigerian companies, leapfrogging competitors is going to be all about taking advantage of those next-generation capabilities today,” the business expert said.
A fundamental shift from BPO to BPS
Once, outsourcing meant taking as many people as possible and setting them up in a delivery centre. That is changing. A combination of the on-tap liquid workforce, robotics, access to industry expertise, cloud technology and artificial intelligence – that’s where the sphere is headed. Fixed costs are declining steeply; you now buy services as required. Digital is remaking outsourcing – ‘outsourcing’ as a term in fact is no longer accurate. It’s all about business process services and the way BPS enables more effective, intelligent decision making.
There are more exciting changes. Whereas cost reduction once lay at the core, the key driver is now business outcomes – selling more products, improving account usage and increasing revenue. Another relates to a mindset shift.
A service such as finance or procurement – when managed by an external partner – is now no longer simply a back-office process.
Analytics function becomes capable of shaping how a business thinks about itself. Utilizing an expert service provider means that those in both middle and upper management are free to think more strategically, Mr Raji noted.
He emphasised that, “Given the benefits, it’s hard to understand what’s been preventing companies in Nigeria from taking the plunge, although lingering fears around the ownership-control continuum may continue to play a key role.
“At first blush, it appears to some that loss of ownership of a function means loss of control over it. In fact, the converse is often true – particularly in the sense that a more arm’s-length relationship often results in better decision making.
“Interestingly, utilizing an expert provider like Accenture can give you greater control through deep expertise and a commercial arrangement giving committed performance and business outcomes.”
The value of going direct
Mr Raji further stressed that “companies in Nigeria will no doubt begin to increasingly realise the value and gains business process services enable – fixed costs decline as services are bought as needed; migration into cloud platforms powers both scalability and ease of access.
“The liquid workforce means high skill at reduced, flexible cost. Moreover, there are the benefits made possible not only by automation, but increasingly, by cognitive computing and artificial intelligence. The list goes on.”
He averred that as the drive around efficiency, flexibility and reactivity reshape the global business landscape, successful companies will need to realise operational efficiencies and access the strategic insights made possible by expert partners. It just so happens that Nigerian companies may be uniquely well positioned to do so.
Crucially, having largely side-stepped the shared services model, Nigerian companies are now better positioned to take a ‘long-jump’ approach to BPS: moving straight from in-housed disparate functions to plugging directly into an expert partner’s value delivery machine.
Many businesses in developed economies will, by contrast, have undergone a longer, ‘triple-jump’ process, having worked on a shared services basis in between, and endured the associated restructuring and upheaval.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange recorded a 0.69 per cent appreciation on Monday, January 13, as investors showed renewed interests in unlisted securities.
During the trading session, the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) increased by 21.07 points to wrap the session at 3,095.00 points compared with the 3,073.93 points recorded in the previous session.
In the same vein, the value of the local alternative stock exchange went up by N7.22 billion to close at N1.061 trillion compared with last Friday’s N1.051 trillion.
Yesterday, FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc recorded a growth of N3.78 to close at N42.00 per share versus N38.22 per share, Mixta Real Estate Plc improved by 20 Kobo to end at N2.35 per unit versus the preceding closing rate of N2.15 per unit, and Industrial and General Insurance (IGI) Plc gained 1 Kobo to finish at 25 Kobo per share compared with the previous session’s 24 Kobo per share.
Conversely, Geo-Fluids Plc lost 29 Kobo to quote at N4.56 per unit compared with the preceding day’s N4.85 per unit, and Afriland Properties Plc slid by 75 kobo to end the session at N15.50 per share versus the preceding closing rate of N16.25 per share.
During the session, the volume of securities traded decreased by 27.2 per cent to 3.1 million units from 4.3 million units, the value of securities slumped by 81.5 per cent to N3.2 million from N17.2 million, and the number of deals expanded by 57.9 per cent to 30 deals from 19 deals.
At the close of trades, FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc remained the most active stock by value (year-to-date) with 1.9 million units worth N74.2 million, followed by 11 Plc with 12,963 units valued at N3.2 million, and IGI Plc with 10.7 million units sold for N2.1 million.
Also, IGI Plc remained the most traded stock by volume (year-to-date) with 10.6 million units sold for N2.1 million, trailed by FrieslandCampina Wamco Nigeria Plc with 1.9 million units valued at N74.2 million, and Acorn Petroleum Plc with 1.2 million units worth N1.9 million.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira recorded a 0.38 per cent or N5.86 depreciation on the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Monday, January 13 to close at N1,548.89/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N1,543.03/$1.
The local currency weakened further in the official market yesterday as the deadline to cut off Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators from the Electronic Foreign Exchange Matching System (EFEMS) built to enhance transparency in the FX system looms.
Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in December opened a 42-day window to allow BDCs to buy FX worth $25,000 per week from the spot market.
However, the domestic currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling in the official market on Monday by N11.87 to trade at N1,877.43/£1 compared with last Friday’s N1,889.29/£1 and against the Euro, it improved its value by N4.94 to close at N1,578.87/€1, in contrast to the previous trading day’s N1,583.81/€1.
A look at the parallel market indicated that the Nigerian Naira slumped against the greenback yesterday by N5 to sell at N1,655/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,650/$1.
In the cryptocurrency market, large positive outcomes came even as risk assets weighed the possibility of US Federal Reserve rate cuts in the wake of Friday’s hotter-than-expected US jobs report.
The biggest gainer was recorded by Dogecoin (DOGE) as it rose by 3.9 per cent to sell at $0.3422, Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 0.9 per cent to trade at $94,843.98, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 0.8 per cent to sell for $687.84, and Solana (SOL) recorded a 0.8 per cent growth to quote at $185.24.
Further, Ripple (XRP) increased its value by 0.7 per cent to close at $2.53, and Cardano jumped by 0.3 per cent to settle at $0.9469.
On the flip side, Ethereum (ETH) depreciated by 1.9 per cent to finish at $3,159.52, and Litecoin (LTC) went down by 0.9 per cent to close at $98.68, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.
By Adedapo Adesanya
Oil prices rose on Monday as Chinese and Indian buyers sought new suppliers after the administration of President Joe Biden of the United States imposed toughest sanctions yet on Russian energy.
Last Friday, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, as well as 183 vessels that traded oil as part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers. The move is expected to cost Russia billions of Dollars per month.
This pushed the price of Brent higher by $1.25 or 1.6 per cent yesterday to $81.01 per barrel and raised the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude by $2.25 or 2.9 per cent to $78.82 a barrel.
As a result, Chinese and Indian refiners are seeking alternative fuel supplies as they adapt to the severe sanctions on Russian producers and tankers that are designed to curb the revenues of the world’s second-largest oil exporter.
The large sanction gives Ukraine and the US President-elect, Mr Donald Trump, leverage to reach a deal for peace in the almost three years war.
Market analysts note that these sanctions have the potential to take as much as 700,000 barrels per day of supply off the market, which would erase the surplus that we are expecting for this year.
On its part, Goldman Sachs estimated that vessels targeted by the new sanctions transported 1.7 million barrels per day of oil in 2024, or 25 per cent of Russia’s exports. The bank is increasingly expecting its projection for a Brent range of $70-$85 to trade.
The Vladimir Putin-led government said the sanctions risked destabilising global markets, and Russia would seek to counter them.
Many of the tankers named have been used to ship oil to India and China after previous Western sanctions. A price cap imposed by the Group of Seven countries in 2022 shifted trade in Russian oil from Europe to Asia. Some of the ships have also moved oil from Iran, which is also under sanctions.
Also, six European Union countries called on the European Commission to lower the price cap put on Russian oil by G7 countries, arguing it would reduce Russia’s revenue to continue the war while not causing a market shock.
However, weaker demand from major oil buyers, China, could have an impact on the tighter supply as data showed that China’s crude oil imports fell in 2024 for the first time in two decades outside of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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