The 250,000 IT, telecoms professionals in Nigeria, constitute only 40 percent of the actual figure needed, and are inadequate for a market and population of over 170 million people.
This was the summation of experts in business, legal and ICT sectors across Nigeria and India that gathered in Mumbai, India, at the 2015 Indian Nigerian Business Forum (INBF), organised by the law firm, Perchstone & Graeys in collaboration with the Federation of India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), last week
Theodora Kio-Lawson, Editor, Law Business, BusinessDay, who just came back from India, gives a brief-by-brief analysis of the events that transpired at the two-day meeting.
The event, where BusinessDay newspaper was highly represented, Gerald Ilukwe, managing director/CEO, Galaxy Backbone, an ICT provider for the Federal Government, said the Nigerian ICT industry was fast changing, and thus a new kind of partnership was required, beyond the export of offshore products and services to localised investments.
“Local demand will increasingly be met by local supply, as multinationals like Microsoft, IBM and SAP are no longer the ‘Go-To’ companies here. The market and its needs has expanded beyond these ones,” he said.
Ilukwe, who spoke on the theme, ‘Information and Communications Technology: Attaining Global Competitive Advantage,’ said a number of factor, such as Nigeria’s large local market, the innovation in financial services, as well as increasing investor activity – local and foreign, could enhance and see to the development of ICT in Nigeria. Others such as the absence of skilled manpower and best practices, low technology adoption in organisations and insufficient enabling legislation, could be clog in the wheel of this progress, he posited.
Also buttressing this point, Bismark Rewane, CEO, Financial Derivatives Company Limited, noted that recent challenges in the oil and gas sector underscored the need for Nigeria to diversify its economy, with ICT serving as the driver of this process.
To him, ICT has the potential of being Nigeria’s largest revenue earner, as the development of the ICT sector will lead to the transformation of other sectors.
“The industry, between 2012 and 2014, created over 12 million job opportunities, while attracting over $6 billion within this period. In 2016/17, Nigeria will experience a high investment in technical know-how in ICT, education, healthcare and agriculture; all of which will be thriving industries in the next couple of years with the support of multinational interests,” he said.
Speaking about the potentials of the IT industry in India, B. Gopalakrishnan, associate vice president, HCL Learning and Enterprise Solutions Limited, disclosed that in the last year, India’s IT sector contributed 8 percent to the GDP, employing more than 10 million people.
“Today, India is estimated to employ 3 million people, while indirect job creation is estimated at 8.9 million. Experts forecast that the industry will reach revenue of $300 billion in 2020,” Gopalakrishnan said.
Also agreeing with the above, Dinesh Madhavan, director, healthcare services, HCG, Enterprises, who also addressed the challenges and benefits of ICT from a healthcare perspective, informed the audience that ICT could be a great enabler for Nigeria’s healthcare sector, if advanced technology was adequately utilised.
Such examples, according to him, will include Cloud-based Virtual Health Records, on-the-go information on Immunisation, Tele-medicine (i.e. Tele-radiology, Tele-pathology, Tele-ICU, Tele-nursing, Tele-pharmacy, etc).
Taken from BusinessDayOnline
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