James Agada, managing director of ExpertEdge and chief technology officer, Computer Warehouse Group (CWG) Plc, is a thoroughbred electronic engineer with over two decade experience in the information technology industry.
Agada has worked with reputable IT companies before helping to form ExpertEdge in 1994.

He spoke to chike onwuegbuchi on issues around software and Computer Warehouse Group Plc.

Certification of Local Software & Role in Marketing and Patronage

Yes, certification has a role to play in marketing and branding. But in the software world, certification is normally done on the Company rather than the product.
Why it is done on the Company is that the product gives you the link to areas you can certify a company. For instance, if you are using word document, did anybody certified it? of course, no. We use Google daily without being certified.
But in some areas the software such as software used in running an airplane, there might be no certifications, but they are of standard, dogged and resilient.
Although, while you want to purchase certain products you might require to know if the software met certain standards, but it is very hard to deduce that, because any software in its composition has a mode it can operate depending on the environment, parameters and the users.
That is why nobody writes software and gives you a guarantee that it is bug-free.
In fact, if you read most licenses for software, there are usually clear disclaimers that they will not be responsible for any loss you might suffer as a result of a bug in the system.
They can only guarantee that when bug cases arise they will use their anti-bug system to fight it. However, companies that provide third party or outsourcing services, when you do not know the man’s competencies, you would want to see some certifications that will assure you that they have the competence. That gave rise to levels of certifications.
These are process certification. The idea is that when you follow these processes, hopefully, the quality of what you produce will match what is requested for.
But there is large portion of the work where people signify Mr. X I want banking software and it should do A, B, C, D&E in the following order.
So, you have that already specified; in other words, you can check if the final product meets the standard.

Basic Causes of Incidences of Failed Software Implementations
If we actually take time to study IT projects in general, there are probably more failed ones than the successful projects.
But it is not peculiar to Nigeria. It is a worldwide phenomenon, because software is trying to capture the way you work; part of the problem is, does the user know all the possible use cases he can have. So, as a banker, you do your processes, but you do not know all the possible ways to go about it.
The failure of IT or software related projects starts with the setting, which is establishing the act. If you fail to establish what your processes are properly, there is a great tendency to failure. Failure here implies that it is not meeting the requirements.
Maybe you set it to calculate interests under this condition, however, in actually use there are more conditions that you thought.
The second thing that causes failure in the software management projects is that the initial plan ought to incorporate all the decisions and at what point they need to be implemented, but bringing it as an adhoc thing will not fly.
Part of the success we’ve had is because the processes were laid down and when the banks came, we told them before you start we are going to take you away for 45 to 52 days and train the people in the bank, so they will understand what the software can and cannot do.
The next two weeks will be used to set the parameters; now you know the software; you have to configure it and establish where there are gaps, adopt the software and close the gaps.
Then, you do training and retraining to keep the update on the processes. We have used this process to deliver our Finnacle successfully.
So, project management is a big issue; you have to set the process correctly.
More so, choosing the wrong partner and wrong software add to the failures. It is your project, not the consultant’s.
You have to be dedicated to it and fight till it is delivered. Such choices as he is my brother, business partner; kickbacks, influential personality, are not supposed to be the standards.
Competence matters. For instance, in changing you bank application; it is like changing the processes engine; the man to do it must be qualified.

Managing Processes in Face of Incessant Project Failures
There is a clear process for implementation. We have adopted that into many projects we are doing. I think you can apply that process to any software project for a better result.
A software provider can be sure of the properties, but you do not know the man’s or client’s business and vice versa.
The first thing is that the man has to learn your software, as you learn his business too. Then, two of you can discuss on how to get the best out of the processes.
A lot of software providers go with the notion, ‘this is the software’, now, come and take it to run your business.
Most times, the providers tend to assume that this is what the people required for their operations.

CWG 2.0 For SMEs
CWG 2.0 is not a product rather an initiative of the company. Most of the time, we have focused on large corporations. But if we look at it in Nigeria, we probably do not have more than 2,000 big corporations.
If you use the Stock market as a yardstick, only 200 are listed on the market. But, if you look at the statistics government gave us, we have more than 17 million medium and small enterprises. So, to have an impact on the economy, it cannot be only the large corporate.
Like somebody said, Dangote on its own can employ about 10,000 or all the corporations that are flourishing employ 100,000 people all together, but how many Dangotes are you going to have in Nigeria.
But the 17million SMEs are individuals doing something and they need support. To us as a business, it is not just going to make impact on the economy. It also means that we are going to sell to the 17 million enterprises.
These smaller companies do not have millions of dollars to spend on; but the smaller amounts they have can be used to transforms their fortunes.
So, how do you support them? How do you use IT to make them increase their profit margins? A large portion of what we are doing in CWG 2.0 is to make this happens.
It will improve their business and they can employ others.
For instance, if most of them employ one person it will reduce the issue of unemployment in Nigeria.
The SMEs platform CWG 2.0, have three initiatives. One of them allows businesses to operate, but you pay only subscription fee and it is delivered over the web.
That solution also ties into the cashless initiative of the government. What we have done is that you can even use your mobile phone to access it or the regular PoS.
Now, as an SME, you may end up not making any investment fee, because you will get the PoS from the bank and can use it to run your business and other commercial activities.
We also know that critical to this segment of business is their inability to sell outside the immediate market. The easiest way to overcome that is to have online shop. We are aware there are several online shops at different combination in Nigeria, but what we have done is that we created a platform in collaboration with Spin, where we have equity holding too.
The solution is where anybody can open an online shop. What we have done to make it easier is by integrating payment and logistics system on it.
Therefore, without doing anything extra, people can go and start accessing you through the internet. And when you sell, our logistics partner will come to your shop, pick it up and deliver it.
What that means is that we have taken away the barrier that prevented them from selling online. Even the question of accepting payment is eliminated, because it is with a proof of delivery that will guarantee you take your money.

Subscription to That
Of course, there is a subscription fee, but the fee is very minimal; an average of about N2,500 for a month.
If you are to go rent a shop, for instance, Tejuosho, do you know how much it will cost. Even the subscription of N10,000 amount, that has not gotten you a shop in that market, but with that you are sure of reaching out to your customers anywhere in Nigeria.

CWG’s Data Centre
The Data centre we have is the Tier 111 with 25 to 45 racks. For now, we are our biggest customer, because we are using a considerable amount. However, there are other customers. We need to make distinctions.
Ordinarily, you build a big house, people come and rent. That is why a lot of people are building data centres in Nigeria.
Why is our different? It becomes different, because when you have such infrastructure, you need to keep something inside. When you do that, you need to manage it.
We have the capacity to support your hardware, software and your obligations. We have the engineers ready to attend to additional services in a jiffy.
However, we also realized that the data centre requirements in Nigeria is not necessarily going to be met by people who build any large data centre. My opinion is that there is already a block of data centres but there is a scarcity of properly managed data centres.
Our programme is that, we are going to maintain the support services; we are not saying build a 100 rack data centre; rather we will follow the trends of businesses.
For instance, we are building a teleport; that alone will consume 5 to 10 racks. Others are coming on board. So, if we look at banks, what many people will quickly find out is that if the banks require putting their data recovery centre, which is what keeps them going, the problem you will have as a datacenter is power.
By the time you have five of those banks putting their servers with you; you will need a power source, not a generator issue, to keep powering them.
That is going to be major challenges in future because most of them are using enterprise servers that consume power. For now, we are not in that business, because of power.
If power situation in Nigeria improves significantly where generator will be your fall-back, then it will become easy to go into that business. Currently, the public power is the fall-back.