Deji Kadri, chief executive of ZeeSoft, has a passionate believe in the empowerment and development of local IT talent.

With more than a decade experience spanning various areas of IT, Kadri has transformed ZeeSoft into the last word in software solutions.

He spoke to hilary okeke 

Businesses and Web, Mobile, Intranet and Extranet Solutions
Basically, businesses are always looking for more convenient ways of delivering at the barest minimum cost. In the case of hawking, you move from door to door and there are limited numbers of people you can reach. Looking at the fact that Nigeria has more than 60 million mobile users, which is more than the population of some countries, and the fact that we have over 12 million internet users; leveraging on integrated solutions would help businesses reach a larger market. Look at the way banking has been transformed using the mobile phone to send SMS alerts on account status. Before now, you have to go to the banking hall to get such information. That is part of what we are talking about.

Foreign Versus Local Software

Most Nigerians do not just favour foreign software – they favour anything foreign. Our dependency on foreign products is ridiculous. What we need to do as local software developers and manufacturers, is to prove our mettle and show that we can really do these things even better and cheaper. India is a good example; they have done it and succeeded. They used to be like Nigeria but are globally recognized today. There government indicated interest in that area and it is a success story today. The whole world now outsources software to India and theirs have dominated the Nigerian banking sector. We need to compete with them and prove our mettle so that we can grow, by bringing out our solutions and making sure they are running.

Nigeria and e-Government Solution

Internet penetration in Nigeria is not like in most of the advanced countries but to a large extent, e-Government could work. Even in America, internet penetration is not 100per cent. e-Government is very helpful because if there are government services that are available electronically, most corporate bodies will gain from that; most people online will gain from that – certain demography of people will gain. Services via e-channels usually reduce the burden on an organization to deliver efficiently. It reduces the burden on government to serve those it cannot serve electronically. Even if e-government is not accessible to everybody, it would make government accessible to everybody – if government is supposed to serve 100 people manually and now just have to serve 60 and the remaining 40 electronically, it would be convenient for government to render services since the burden on it has been reduced.

Ensuring Websites Stay Active at Peak Periods

It is a matter of infrastructure. You know the number of people who are going to use your portal, and you should build your infrastructure to serve those peak periods. You do not do that to serve averagely. If you expect a hundred hits a day during peak periods and five hits a day off peak, you prepare the infrastructure for one hundred hits. If you see any site that is packing up or going down because of maximum hits, you should know that it is just planning issue, which needs to be addressed with the right infrastructure. Think of a fast food joint – you know that on a normal day, ten people walk in every minute but at peak periods, a hundred people walk in every minute, you should then have a standby staff to be able to cushion the pressure. Same thing happens in the electronic world. A good infrastructure should be built into the cost of the project. I would rather provide a high quality service than a cheap low quality one, if you ask me.

Gains of Online Vehicle Insurance Initiative

Well, it is a private initiative but both sides would gain since the owners of the site would get additional revenue and the additional honour that would be bestowed upon them as a company that has started to use information technology to deliver services. Then for the users, it is the convenience. You know this is a statutory requirement which must be met. But we know that we all have busy days and to go to your insurance company and wait in their office is really tedious. But now from the convenience of your office, you can do your registrations. There are an estimated 28 million ATM cards available; 12 million internet users and 7 million vehicles in Nigeria. Put all these figures close together and you have a super solution. People who have not been able to adopt this strategy should embrace it. There is a lot to be gained from it and it can be done here today. One thing I have noticed is that when we deliver some of these solutions to clients or make proposals, they become surprised and ask if this can be done in Nigeria. At least, it has been proven that it can be done; it is working and running now, which is a good thing.

Unpopularity of Disaster Recovery in Nigeria

Well, some people do it but it is not popular like you said. People have not begun to understand that data is much more important than the hardware which holds it. You could buy a good hard disk for about N8, 000; if it crashes and you need to recover the data, you could be charged up to N40, 000. That shows you that the data is much more important than the hard disk. It is like having a house and what you have in it is usually more dear to you than the house itself. It is something we hope companies would embrace because it simply means that if something happens to your data – a disaster, accident or whatever – business can still go on; you can still have access to data. Imagine a bank or the Nigerian Stock Exchange losing all transaction data, it would be very ugly because you would not know who owns what. So, data is very important and people should make sure that it is adequately backed up or replicated. I think the reason why people are not enthusiastic about backing up their  data is lack of sensitization about the whole thing. Some companies have not even realized the value of IT. There are lots of big companies here that do not have an IT manager that partakes in management meetings. So, you cannot even push such ideas. When you talk to most of them, they realize what they nust do but do not have the power of budget. But notably the banks, you find that there is an executive director of technology, there is a CIO who participates in top level meetings and has his own budget and is in the position to authorize multi million Naira IT purchases.

Dearth of Human cCapacity in the IT Industry

When I hold carrier talks with young people, one feedback I usually get is that they find it difficult securing jobs; that jobs are scarce in Nigeria. But friends that are into consulting and recruitment tell me that they find it difficult to fill IT positions. So, jobs might be scarce but there is still shortage of good IT skills. Many people claim to be IT professionals but when you interview them, they cannot defend what is on their resume. But once you are good and can defend your resume, job is sure. We are employers of IT labour and we are aware of this. Large companies like MTN and the banks hold job fairs in the UK to fill these positions. I advice that youths should go into IT – it is so worldwide. Well, if we see this as a major problem, organizations should look inwards and encourage people who wish to change careers. Secondly, there are lots of unemployed non-IT graduates, and big organizations can afford to take the plunge, employ the brilliant ones among them as graduate-trainees and train them on IT. There are lots of IT training facilities all around, if they do not want to do it here in the country, they can do it abroad; they can also bring people who have the expertise from outside and within Nigeria to train their staff. If they are willing to commit to human capacity building, they should train their people to have the necessary IT expertise.
 
And ZeeSoft

Well, it is the people within ZeeSoft. They are enthusiastic, brilliant, and they love what they do. Without our people, we are nothing. It is not just technology; it is the people; and of course, power has been a major challenge. This is a call on the federal government to do something and address the power situation because Lagos is the commercial hub of black Africa and power failure is highly detrimental to business here.