E-Business
TAM Summit Highlights Technologies Potency in Time Management
Africans have been urged to embrace technological interventions as practical measures to overcoming poor time management.
Panelists at the inaugural TAM Summit unanimously agreed that technology can aid individuals and organisations in setting clear timelines for their set goals and objectives.
TAM Summit under the theme, “From ‘African Time’ to ‘On Time’: A paradigm Shift”, was conveyed by SB Telecoms in Lagos on Thursday, May 19, 2016 seeking for attitudinal change while drawing attention to the economic loss in Africa due to the “African Time” mental appendage.
Speaking at the Summit, Mr. Afolabi Abiodun, CEO of SB Telecoms & Devices and Conveners, disclosed that a survey conducted with the aid of TAM solution, found that almost 12% of annual labour cost is lost to lateness, tardiness, time theft and absenteeism.
He said, that in an economic climate, such is a huge lost as there was no successful venture devoid of time as a major contributory factor.
Abiodun said, “In 2005, the American government set a goal to reduce their dependency on foreign crude oil from 60% of their total need to 30% by 2015 and 0% by 2020. One of their key follow-through mechanisms is the perfecting of the fracking technology to access their Shale Oil. Today, America’s daily production has increased from 5.4 million barrels in 2005 per day to 9.3 million barrels per day as at the end of 2015.
“For the past three decades, various Nigerian governments have touted Vision 2020 to take us to the Promised Land of development. Four years to expected delivery date, we are yet to scratch the surface of this laudable target. Why? Although it is easy to blame lack of political will and socio-economic factors, but the real culprit, in my honest opinion, is a lack of interest in doing things in a timely manner and a readiness to give excuses, even though Nigeria is well known for drawing plans and issuing communiqués”.
He lamented that lack of time management has eaten deep into the fabric of the African society, and has turned the people to victims- of its manifestations in corruption, infrastructural decay, apathy, poverty, and so on.
“But it would be difficult to have any meaningful development if we hesitate to demand accountability, not only of resources and budgets but also of TIME- in the private sector and at all levels of government. Because, as we all know, no society can hope to make progress or catch up if there’s a culture of disregard for time.
To solve the challenge, he said that SB Telecoms developed a Time Attendance Management Systems (TAMS) service which from 2013 to the present has been deployed by over 1,000 organizations (including multinationals).
According to Abiodun, “Currently, TAMS has become much more than a time management solution. Based on customer research and feedback, we have developed other modules such as: payroll, appraisal, vacation and leave management.
In the course of promoting time management and the value proposition of TAMS, a few business owners and HR practitioners have protested that punctuality has nothing to do with performance. My response has always been that if we took the time to do some number crunching, we would appreciate the cost of time to us.
“To achieve more productivity, TAMS is getting better and better. TAMS is integrated with 20 Commercial Banks and 56 Microfinance Banks and all Pension Fund Administrators. I am happy to inform you that TAMS is one of 150 solutions worldwide invited to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Washington DC, to be hosted by President Barak Obama next month”.
Nodding in agreement, Mr. Adeola Adejokun, principal partner of Kishi-Lagos, said that he strongly believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people across the globe.
He said that applications like Google Calendar, Smart Planner, smart wristwatches, are proven solutions Nigerians and African at large can leverage to undo the sickening ‘African Time’ syndrome.
Adejokun said, “I have realized that ‘African Time’ malaise as lack of consequence management enforcement which requires institutions that will monitor people in the work environment, whether in corporate or public sector.
“We can use technologies available today to tackle this head-on, because ‘time theft’ leads to erosion of values. Without rightly defined and times processes, it is usually difficult to have thr right culture in any place.
On her part, Mrs. Bukky George, who chaired the Summit, said that time like health is wealth and should be efficiently managed, hence poor time management is at the root of poor planning bedeviling the African society.
George who is also the founder/CEO of HealthPlus Limited, said, although ‘poor time management’ is a global phenomenon, Africans, especially youths must have attitudinal change to adapt to 21Century work environment, particularly, every sector of the economy revolves around such principles as time, predictability and efficiency.
She added that in spite the enormous infrastructural deficits in the country, proper time management can be maintained.
Mr. Oyeniyi Oguntoyinbo, MD/CEO of Philliy & Mools, said that every thriving multinational (companies) today started on the clear-cut principles of strategic and conscious timing of programmes.
According to him, a service company, for instance, must be built around timely response to customer’s inquiries or dissatisfaction.
“It is amazing when you list the consequences of poor time management. We often use the phrase, ‘Time is money’, but a lot of employees do not appreciate the fact that late responses to customer’s questions can lead to the demise of the entity. It is an attitude we must address as a people, business and country or Continent. Time is same everywhere, and we can’t change it, rather invest it wisely,” Oguntoyinbo added.
Chinese “threat actors” have hacked Microsoft’s SharePoint document software servers and targeted the data of the businesses using it, the firm has said.
China state-backed Linen Typhoon and Violet Typhoon as well as China-based Storm-2603 were said to have “exploited vulnerabilities” in on-premises SharePoint servers, the kind used by firms, but not in its cloud-based service.
The US tech giant has released security updates in response and has advised all on-premises SharePoint server customers to install them.
“Investigations into other actors also using these exploits are still ongoing,” Microsoft said in a statement.
The firm said it had “high confidence” the hackers would continue to target systems which have not installed its security updates.
It added that it would update its website blog with more information as its investigation continues.
Microsoft said it had observed attacks in which hackers had sent a request to a SharePoint server “enabling the theft of the key material by threat actors”.
Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting firm, a division of Google Cloud, told reporter, it was “aware of several victims in several different sectors across a number of global geographies”.
Carmakal said it appeared that governments and businesses that use SharePoint on their sites were the primary target.
A number of adversaries who stole material encoded by cryptography were then able to regain ongoing access to the victims’ SharePoint data, he said.
“This was exploited in a very broad way, very opportunistically before a patch was made available. That’s why this is significant,” Carmakal said.
Carmakal said the “China-nexus actor” was deploying techniques similar to previous campaigns associated with Beijing.
Microsoft said Linen Typhoon had “focused on stealing intellectual property, primarily targeting organizations related to government, defence, strategic planning, and human rights” for 13 years.
It added that Violet Typhoon had been “dedicated to espionage”, primarily targeting former government and military staff, non-governmental organizations, think tanks, higher education, the media, the financial sector and the health sector in the US, Europe, and East Asia.
Meanwhile, Storm-2603 was “assessed with medium confidence to be a China-based threat actor”.
National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has issued a public warning that it is not associated with NINcard.com.
According to the commission, the website has been circulating online to offer services for Nigerians seeking National Identification Number (NIN) services.
NIMC, in a post on its official X account on Wednesday, said, “NINcard.com is not in anyway affiliated to NIMC. Stay vigilant!”
The warning was accompanied by screenshots of fake payment receipts and OTP request pages from the website, both of which were boldly stamped “FAKE” by NIMC to alert the public.
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), in partnership with the Advocacy for Policy and Innovation (API), has convened a one-day workshop in Abuja to advance dialogue on the draft Online Harm Protection (OHP) Bill to confront harmful online content.
The bill, a rights-based, locally rooted, and multi-stakeholder initiative, is aimed at addressing the challenges of the digital age.
The event, which held yesterday, brought together government officials, civil society, academics, digital platforms, and legal experts to shape a policy framework designed to combat online ills such as cyberbullying, disinformation, hate speech, digital exploitation, and gender-based violence, while safeguarding democratic freedoms and digital inclusion.
In his keynote remarks, Kashifu Inuwa, director general, NITDA urged a paradigm shift in the way society engages with digital technologies.
“For almost two decades, we have viewed digital technology through a consumer lens. But these technologies are not just products and services. They are transforming how we live, work, and interact. They shape our politics, our society, and our democracy,” he said.
Warning against unaccountable digital power in the hands of private corporations, the DG likened the digital journey to the tale of Alice in Wonderland, where initial fascination with innovation has given way to deeper concerns about privacy, autonomy, and manipulation by big tech platforms.
“We thought we were using Google, but now we realise Google is using us. Social media, once a tool of expression, has become a tool of surveillance and influence,” Inuwa noted.
He, therefore, emphasised the urgency of developing a democratic and accountable framework. He explained that following the 2021 Twitter ban, NITDA facilitated dialogue between the government and platform operators, leading to a Code of Practice that stressed Nigeria’s sovereignty and legal standards.
According to him, the same process birthed the multi-stakeholder steering committee and the OHP White Paper in December 2024, laying the foundation for the current legislative push.
Earlier in her opening remarks, Victoria Manya, co-founder, API, observed the moral and civic necessity of the bill.
Her words: “The internet did not break society, it merely revealed its unfiltered version. Every day, Nigerians are exposed to harassment, disinformation, exploitation, and even algorithmic violence. The OHP Bill is not a war on the Internet. It is a peace offering to its users, a social contract for a digital future that is safe, inclusive, and democratic.
“We cannot answer the question of algorithmic power with unchecked state control. We must answer it with shared, rights-based governance. This bill must not be written for the people, but with them.”
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