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
Despite signs that Nigeria’s headline inflation is easing, rising food prices continue to threaten the country’s inflation outlook, the chief executive of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Mr Muda Yusuf, has warned.
He noted that structural inflationary pressures in the real economy remain pronounced despite improving macroeconomic stability.
In a policy brief released following the inflation report, he noted that headline inflation eased marginally, while month-on-month change moderated from 1.75 per cent to 1.66 per cent, indicating that headline inflation has largely plateaued.
According to him, the dominant concern in the latest inflation report is the renewed acceleration in food inflation.
This growth, he said, suggested that food prices have resumed an upward trajectory after a brief period of moderation.
Warning that a renewed increase in food inflation has significant economic and social implications, he stressed that food inflation remained the biggest driver of Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis, stressing that rising food prices continue to erode household purchasing power, worsen poverty and food insecurity while weakening the inclusiveness of the current reform programme.
He maintained that sustained moderation in food prices is critical to improving citizens’ welfare and strengthening public confidence in the ongoing economic reforms.
Acknowledging the easing of core inflation as encouraging, he drew attention to the persistence of urban inflation.
At 16.08 per cent, urban inflation exceeded the national headline inflation rate of 15.91 per cent, while month-on-month urban inflation increased from 1.99 per cent to 2.13 per cent.
According to Mr Yusuf, the figures indicated that inflationary pressures remained particularly intense across urban centres.
He attributed the rising urban inflation partly to increasing population displacement from rural communities affected by insecurity, expressing worry that as more households migrate to urban areas, demand for housing, transportation, utilities and other essential services would increase, adding to inflationary pressures and creating additional urbanisation challenges.
Addressing insecurity in farming communities, he said, was important not only for protecting lives and property and boosting agricultural output but also for easing cost pressures in urban centres, adding that the June CPI data reinforced the view that Nigeria’s inflation challenge is predominantly structural rather than monetary.
On the monetary policy outlook, he said the data do not justify further monetary tightening, arguing that headline inflation has largely stabilised.
The CPPE chief expected the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to retain the current monetary policy rate at its next meeting, adding that the priority is for monetary and fiscal authorities to work together to accelerate structural reforms to expand food supply, improve logistics, reduce energy and production costs, lower debt service costs, as well as strengthen domestic value chains.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Additional shares of Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc have been listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited.
The new equities were added to the company’s existing stocks on Customs Street on Thursday, July 16, 2026, a notice from the bourse confirmed.
Business Post reports the total new ordinary shares of Sterling Holdings listed yesterday were 13,812,239,000 units.
They were from the offer for subscription of 12,581,000,000 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each sold for N7.00 per share, which was oversubscribed by investors.
The financial institution brought the new shares to the stock exchange to increase its total issued and fully paid-up shares to 65,929,251,414 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each from 52,117,012,414 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each.
“Trading licence holders are hereby notified that an additional 13,812,239,000 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each of Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc were on Thursday, July 16, 2026, listed on the daily official list of Nigerian Exchange Limited.
“The additional shares listed on NGX arose from the company’s offer for subscription of 12,581,000,000 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each at N7.00 per share.
“With the listing of the additional shares, the total issued and fully paid-up shares of Sterling Financial Holdings Company Plc have now increased from 52,117,012,414 to 65,929,251,414 ordinary shares of 50 Kobo each,” the notice read.
By Adedapo Adesanya
President Bola Tinubu has signed a Presidential Executive Order on Virtual Assets Coordination, establishing a new framework to coordinate the regulation of virtual assets across government agencies as Nigeria seeks to curb fraud while supporting innovation in the digital economy.
The Executive Order, which takes immediate effect, creates a Virtual Asset Council chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to harmonise oversight of cryptocurrencies, tokenised assets, stablecoins, and other digital assets without creating a new regulator.
As part of the new framework, the CBN will establish a regulatory sandbox that will allow eligible firms to test virtual asset products, blockchain solutions, and related services under regulatory supervision before they are introduced to the wider market.
The development was disclosed in a statement issued on Friday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Mr Bayo Onanuga.
According to the presidency, the Executive Order responds to the growing complexity of virtual assets, which increasingly cut across the traditional boundaries of currencies, securities, commodities, and payment systems.
The fragmented regulatory environment has left gaps that have exposed Nigeria to money laundering, terrorism financing, cybersecurity and data privacy risks, fraud, and revenue losses.
The government said some unregistered operators have exploited these regulatory gaps to defraud unsuspecting Nigerians, resulting in significant financial losses.
“The Order is designed to close these gaps through supervisory coordination, without introducing new layers of regulation or displacing the mandates of existing agencies,” the statement read.
Under the new framework, the Virtual Asset Council will be chaired by the CBN, with the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) serving as vice chairs. Other members include the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
The Council will provide policy direction, improve cooperation among participating agencies, and work with the Attorney General of the Federation to develop a harmonised legal and institutional framework for the sector.
The Executive Order also establishes a Virtual Asset Office, which will serve as the Council’s operational arm. The office will be domiciled at the CBN and will coordinate information sharing, applications, and reporting among the participating agencies through a shared supervisory technology platform.
The presidency stressed that the Executive Order does not create a new regulator or transfer statutory powers from existing agencies, clarifying that instead, each institution will continue to exercise its existing mandate while working within a coordinated framework.
Under the arrangement, registration of virtual asset businesses will depend on the nature of the service being offered.
Activities classified as securities will continue to be regulated by the SEC, while payment, settlement, custody, and other services involving non-security virtual assets will fall under the CBN.
Where there is uncertainty over regulatory jurisdiction, the Virtual Asset Council will determine the appropriate supervising agency.
“The sandbox will provide a controlled environment in which eligible operators can test and operate virtual asset products, services, and blockchain-based solutions under close supervision, enabling the participating agencies to assess the implications for monetary sovereignty, financial stability, market integrity, consumer protection, financial inclusion, and revenue administration before products reach the wider market,” the statement added.
According to the presidency, the sandbox will enable regulators to evaluate the implications of emerging products for financial stability, monetary sovereignty, consumer protection, financial inclusion, market integrity, and revenue administration.
The central bank is expected to announce further details of the sandbox.
