How outsourcing can grow MSMEs, Nigeria’s GDP by 10%
Experts at this year’s outsourcing workshop organised by the Association of Outsourcing Professionals of Nigeria (AOPN) agreed that outsourcing had the capacity to grow Nigerian small and medium business, which were in the majority in the country, by leaps and bounds.
They also agreed that big businesses would equally benefit from a functional outsourcing industry, which had the capacity to raise the country’s gross domestic product by 10 percent and create at least one million new jobs.
Adebayo Shittu, minister of communication, said outsourcing could grow the country’s economy by 10 percent and create 1 million jobs if the nation opened up the industry to grow through the creation of guidelines to regulate operators in the sector.
“Business process outsourcing is an emergency and has the potential to grow the economy by 10 percent and create 1 million jobs,” Shittu said.
“We have to open up the industry to flourish and achieve this by creating guidelines to regulate operators and the ease of doing business is key to what we are doing,” the minister added.
The minister urged the board of AOPN to come out with some guidelines on what the government can do to improve the industry.
Also speaking during the event, Opeyemi Agbaje, CEO, RTC Advisory Services Limited, stated that the economic state of the country was pertinent to the development of outsourcing in the country.
Agbaje called on all relevant authorities to learn from the Indian example and how they became a global outsourcing hub.
Similarly, Austine Nweze, president, AOPN, stated that the country’s outsourcing could only compete globally when standards were set. “We need to set standards to ensure we can compete with any outsourcing company anywhere in the world. Our dream is to make Nigeria an outsourcing hub. India is already an outsourcing hub and the next frontier for outsourcing hub is Africa,” he said.
“Currently, Kenyan, Mauritius and even Ghana are ahead of Nigeria because of standards. Nigeria is supposed to be number one and for us to achieve this, we need to put certain things right.
“The internal organisation function must be right to serve the external. We need to build the capacity of the professionals. We also need to make sure that our processes are right and there is mental attitude and we need set some policies to ensure we operate in accordance of the global standards,” Nweze said.
He stated that the outsourcing saved the Indian economy from recession because of its huge potential to create jobs in any economy. According to him, government could create between two and five million jobs if it could outsource 10 percent of its functions.
“Outsourcing contributes about one percent to our GDP while in India it contributes about 18percent to GDP, same thing for South Africa,” Nweze said.
Wole Oshin, GMD, Custodian and Allied Plc, said that the country must address the issue of infrastructure and cost of doing business before the country’s outsourcing industry could compete globally.
Oshin urged the country to position itself to benefit from the global outsourcing industry, which he estimated to reach $300 billion by 2020.
Odinaka Anudu & Josephine Okojie