ITAN calls for quality awareness for CEOs

Information Technology Industry Association of Nigeria (ITAN) has call for quality awareness training for chief executive officers of IT companies in the country.

Participants at ITAN organized IT CEO summit in Lagos, last weekend, made this call in a communiqué at the end of the event and made available to ITRealms Online.

This year’s theme was on “Empowering IT CEOs for offshoring and outsourcing projects” which was part of the broad strategy to empower Nigeria IT CEOs in collaboration with international counterparts to tap into the huge potentials for IT Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) growth in Nigeria, was hosted in conjunction with the National Association of Software and Services Companies of India (NASSCOM) of India.

ITAN in the 11-point communiqué noted need for CEO’s of IT companies and IT heads of banks, telecoms among others to undertake quality awareness training towards the attainment of global quality standards.

It also reaffirmed the partnership between ITAN and NASSCOM to articulate an appropriate framework for IT-based BPO in Nigeria while avoiding drawbacks in the NASSCOM experience.
Nigeria, ITAN said, needs to adopt process, quality models, framework and certifications such as Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).

“Quality creates the foundation for the growth of IT and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. Quality itself is not the differentiator but creates conditions for differentiation,” part of the communiqué endorsed by the ITAN president, Dr. Jimson Olufuye read.

For ITAN, process is the glue between people and technology, therefore, these form the success indices for organisational performance, which critical factors must be addressed adequately.

They decried the dearth of critical Nigerian IT industry data, which ITAN intends to spearhead periodic collation of such data for investment and industry growth.

On the potential for reduction in overseas, especially United States-based outsourcing business, participants said it is increasing and as such there is need to grow internal outsourcing businesses through the development of white papers and advisory to government throughout Nigeria.

They noted that the state of the Nigerian educational system is not impressive based on global universities standards and ratings, stressing there is therefore need for university administrators in Nigeria to make the universities visible on the internet, shore-up the educational standards and collaborate with the industry associations like ITAN to enhance digital competitiveness.

“Innovation and creativity are key to Nigeria’s realization of Vision 20 2020 and competing beyond 2020,” ITAN said.

Pointing out that there are new laws and regulations sponsored by the Federal Goverment of Nigeria through National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP) for Technology Transfer agreements.

“It is compulsory for foreign investors to strictly adhere to these laws to achieve easy entry into the Nigerian market,” the communiqué stated.

The 2010 edition of IT Future – IT CEO Summit, attracted top Indian IT CEOs from the National Association of Software and Services Companies of India (NASSCOM). The 24-man NASSCOM delegation was lead by Mr Anil Bakht, CEO Eastern Software and Lead, NASSCOM Strategic Initiatives. Others in the NASSCOM delegation were … Also in the summit by video conference were Mr Phil Bond, President TechAmerica and Mr Shaifu’ Saleh, President, PIKOM (the ICT Association of Malaysia).

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