Managing Director for Africa, Tek Experts and Elev8, Lars Johannisson, speaks on technology development in Nigeria in the last four years, and how the pool of talented youths in Nigeria, attracted Tek Experts to establish presence in Nigeria. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts:
Tek Experts has been in Nigeria in the last four years, driving technology skills development. How will you describe your operations in Nigeria in the last four years?
It has been a learning journey, emotional and passionate journey and above all, a fantastic journey for Tek Experts in Nigeria. It has been a journey about technology growth and working with people with the right talent and skills. Tek Experts has seven locations around the world, United Staes, Coasterica, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Vietnam, China, and we recently established our latest location in September this year in Rwanda.
How many partners is Tek Experts working with in Nigeria and how will your partnership help Nigeria in her journey towards technology growth and development?
We started our partnership programme with Microsoft, four years ago and we have solidified that partnership in the last four years. We have expanded our partnerships to other organisations in Nigeria and our partnerships have grown so well in Nigeria. Again we have more clients now than when we started in 2017 and we have broadened our base with different products in the last four years.
So how will your describe your growth trajectory in the last four years?
We are convinced that our strategies to set up Tek Experts in Nigeria, has been very successful. We are even surprised at our growth trajectory in Nigeria, because we have grown faster than we expected and our performances have been awesome. I can attribute the tremendous growth recorded by Tek Experts to the sudden spread of COVID-19. While some organisations could not continue their businesses as a result of the pandemic, we saw the business opportunities in the spread of the pandemic and we took advantage of it to expand our growth strategies. We had the solution to the challenges created by COVID-19 and we used the solution to work with our customers, and that propelled our busness growth.
Looking at your contributions to technology development in Nigeria, how will you describe the talent pool that Tek Experts have raised so far in terms of numbers?
Nigerian population is huge and we have more youthful population I Lagos. Before Tek Expert came into Nigeria four year ago, the country already had great pool of talented youths, but not fully leveraged to full capacity. So what we did at Tek Experts, was to leverage on that pool of talent skills of youths and upscaled it further to the fullest capacity by empowering them with modern technology skills. As saw the talent pool in Nigerian youths and that was what attracted us to establish Tek Experts in Nigeria. So we saw the talent pool in the Nigerian youths and we further upscaled their skills for global competition.
There has been shortage of specialised technology skills in Africa and the rest of the world. How will Tek Experts help to develop such skills in Nigeria?
Shortage of specialised technology skills is a global phenomenon. However, what we saw among Nigerian youths, is a growing pool of talented youths who are willing to learn new skills. Our contributions technology skills development in Nigeria is ongoing. We have hired exiting talent pool among Nigerian youths and we have trained several of the youths in digital skills. We have trained over one thousand youths and we are working to get more partners among different administrations in Nigeria and among mobile broadband players, so that together, we can collectively contribute to Nigeria’s technology growth.
What kind of technology skills do you think are ideal to drive digital transformation in Nigeria, especially at this era of new normal that the COVID-19 presents to everyone?
Technology is evolving and there is need to have cloud-based technology skills that will help individuals and organisations conveniently take their data to the cloud and effectively manage it there in the cloud, through remote control and management. So I will recommend that everyone should have basic knowledge of cloud computing. Universities should begin to redesign their curriculum to accommodate cloud computing and organisations should begin to retrain staff on cloud technology skills.
How will you describe the growth of the Nigerian economy in the last four years, in relation to digital transformation?
Nigeria is doing well in terms of technology growth and digital transformation. Nigeria, which is the largest economy in Africa, has experienced the largest development of innovative apps tgat have been showcased from Africa. Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa are the top three African countries that are doing very well from Africa, in therms of technology growth. The reason being that Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa have the highest number of challenges that technology solutions can address, and this is largely due to population growth, especially in Nigeria. Again the Nigerian youths have the entrepreneurial spirit to achieve results, no matter how difficult the business environment can be. The more there are challenges to solve, the more solutions developers will develop solutions to address the challenges.
What is your view about Nigerian female participation in technology development skills and how open are they in learning technology skills?
Nigerian Female are very open to learn new technology skills, and they are eager to learn and compete with the men folk. We have trained a lot of Nigerian women in technology skills and I can tell you that they are eager and willing to learn new skills. The Nigerian women that I have met in the course of technology training, do not see technology as a man’s prerogative, and they are willing to compete with the males at any time.
What are your core values and how are these values impacting on your staff?
Our core values are unique to us and to all our staff at Tek Experts. Our core values drive our passion to learn and work to achieve result, and several of our staff members have benefited from our core values. One of our core values is ‘Stronger Together,’ which is all about team work amid collaboration. Our core values offer staff the opportunity to grow bottom to top within the organisation. We have had several cases of young recruits who showed enthusiasm in the Job and we have helped them to grow rapidly. Some have climbed from trainees to Instructors and Senior Instructors at Tek Exerts, so much so that they can train people who work under them.
I take pride in ensure that people learn and we recognise hard work and promote those that are hard working.
How is government policy in Nigeria affecting your kind of business and how friendly are those policies to business growth?
Tek Experts is a global company, and as a global company, we are fully compliant government laws and policies wherever we operate. Nigerian being one of the seven countries we currently have presence, we resolve the policy of Nigeria to a great deal. So far, there has not been any government that is negatively affecting our kind of business. Lagos State government, for instance, has much respect for Tek Experts. We work with the Lagos State government and we have cordial relationship with the federal government.
Nigerian government is keen at local content development to drive her digital transformation initiative. How will Tek Experts key to this initiative and help government to achieve faster result?
Every emerging economy like a Nigeria, work Witt different players to boost home-grown technology. In supporting the initiative in Nigeria, Teck Experts have been involve in mentorship programmes for Nigerian youths, which seeks to grow local content development. Many Nigerians are in the employment of Tek Experts in Nigeria, learning new technology skills that will upscale local content development. Many of them have even left us to establish their own startup companies and they are fixing well.
What is the business relationship between Tek Experts and Elev8?
Tek Experts and Elev8 are part of the same group, While Elev8 is a spin-off from Tek Experts, as a result of the need to train more people in technology skills. So what we do, is to train people on new technology skills and we partner with organisations to train Nigerians in digital skills.
