OPINION: OUTSOURCING, A Menace to Nigerian Indigenous companies, Society and Economy (Part 1)

By Andre, February 15, 2017

Has Nigerians been indirectly sold out to modern slavery by its government?

Why would Nigerian government allow foreign companies or so call expatriates to kill indigenous companies or individuals to be killed by foreign companies in the name of ties with some countries?

What is outsourcing?

It is the practice of having some specific job roles done outside a company instead of allowing internal department(s) or employee(s) to handle them; tasks can be outsourced to either a company or an individual. It could mean employing offshore companies taking over some responsibilities within the country, or outsourcing a job role to companies within the same country, i.e. outsourcing to foreign or indigenous companies.

Outsourcing has become a major development in human resources over the past years. It is said to be cost- effective if properly managed. It is also a very good way of checking worker’s performance within a company or government organisation.

Telecommunications, banking sector, manufacturing sectors, government organisations, NGOs and so on are seriously taking advantage of this system because of its numerous benefits.

Yes, Blah! Blah!! Blah!!! We can continue to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing but is Nigeria as a country ripe for outsourcing some of its job functions or even companies to foreigners?

For me No! No!! No!!! Why? How many companies do we have in the country that we will be calling upon other countries to assist us in managing them? What are we manufacturing for now in the country that is difficult for its indigenes to handle or manage? When you say we don’t have technical know-how, why not call on expatriates to come and transfer the knowledge to us? Why are we the one to transfer the little knowledge we have to those that have more than us? Example is that of Ericson, Huawei and MTN versus Nigeria NOC Engineers case.

What is Nigerian government doing about the case? Are they going to use a whole decade to investigate as usual and will still come out with no result?

Outsourcing is supposed to Increase efficiency when it comes to work rate and output but the truth is, it is not working in Nigeria. Another very good case is that of MTN Nigeria contracting its customer care company to an Indian company.

Many of its subscribers could recollect that MTN customer care service was one of the best some years ago or even, let’s talk about months ago. Despite its huge subscriber base, it was able to manage some good percentage when it comes to resolving issues online.

From the customer’s END.

Now, as a subscriber, you can hardly call 180 and get your issue resolved? Just calling for data activation, most of the customer care agents will simple tell you, the application I am supposed to use is not available. They no longer have applications to resolve customers’ issue, why?

Customer care agents are now crazily running after number of calls as a result of the Average handling time (AHT) targets given to them. How can you manage a customer with an AHT of 2minutes? Does it make sense? Yes, give your workers target but make it a reasonable one. This reminds of Airtel Nigeria customer care service too, same bad testimony as a subscriber.

It is an understatement to say Agents’ poor knowledge of the companies’ products and services is also a contributing to this menace. It’s obvious that they were not properly trained and managed on products and services. Remember, we also have so many lazy agents who also fails to develop themselves, an issue on its own. They are just like Kindergarten graduates handling US pentagon mainframe systems. They don’t know what they are doing on systems.

A good example is calling an agent to help me de-activate an auto renewal service on my daily blackberry subscription (when the service was still available on MTNN network around December 2016). He did not even allow me to finish my query before tell me that he has done it. Then I immediately asked him that did you actually know that I was going to call in for that issue or is your system that fast. His rude response was “thank you for choosing MTN” and went ahead to hanged up the call on me. Yet my issue was not resolved, the auto renewal service still took place the next day.

IS IT HIS FAULT NO? No proper monitoring. No proper training. Agents are rushing to meet up. 

Agents are tired after crazy lengthy working crazing hours.

Stay tuned for PART 2.