With the launch of Asseco Nigeria, a subsidiary of the Asseco Group, a leading software company in Central and Eastern Europe and the sixth largest technology company in Europe, the Nigerian technology industry is expected to get a further boost.
Simon Melchior, chief executive, Asseco Nigeria, who doubles as its West African representative, said at the weekend in Lagos that the Asseco Group had grown rapidly through the past decade and was now in over 40 countries with 17,000 employees worldwide.
Melchior said that by stating that the Asseco Group was focused on growing Asseco Nigeria to become the number one technology company in Nigeria and the hub for the group’s expansion in West Africa.
He said that Asseco first ventured into Nigeria approximately 18 months ago, following the visit to Nigeria of the Prime Minister of Poland in April 2013, saying “our Prime Minister’s visit to Nigeria was his first visit to Africa and similarly to him, we couldn’t envision having a presence in Africa without being established here in Nigeria. Following several subsequent visits and meetings with public and private sector officials, we decided to invest in setting up a subsidiary in Nigeria.”
It was highlighted during the launch that the Asseco Group was a federation of independent successful IT companies.
The group, which is quoted on the Warsaw, Tel Aviv and New York stock exchanges, focuses primarily on software development of vertical core solutions for a number of industries.
Adefolu Majekodunmi, managing director of Asseco Nigeria, emphasised that the focus of the Nigerian entity was to build a strong local expertise in four primary sectors – financial services (banking, insurance, capital markets), FMCG, utilities (power, water, gas) and public sector (health, defence, and social services).
During his briefing, he said: “The Asseco Group has significant experience developing solutions in the sectors we focus on. It has developed complex software solutions for major public and private sector institutions throughout Europe and the Middle East. Our unique strategy for Nigeria is to combine local software development in addition to providing our established know-how.
“We are here for the long term and plan to be at the forefront of technology automation in the public sector and emerging private sector. We will build our growth on local added value in the form of local software development.”
Also at the launch was Emilomo Ogunboye, a representative of the Federal Ministry of Power, who discussed about a series of technology workshops undertaken by the ministry and Asseco this year.
“At the request of the honourable minister of power, the first workshop on software technology for the power distribution sector was held in Abuja in May 2014. A subsequent and more detailed workshop occurred last week in Poland. This was extremely successful and included a very insightful visit to Tauron, the largest power distribution company in Poland using Asseco software to manage the billing and revenue collection of over 5.3 million customers.”
It was said that the participating Nigerian power distribution companies were extremely impressed with the passion shown by the project management team of Tauron on the success of the Asseco solution, saying, “Asseco has proved to be a global heavyweight in power sector software.”
OLUYINKA ALAWODE