The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Tuesday urged financial institutions and organisations to embrace technology to remain competitive.

Mr Adebisi Shonubi, Deputy Governor, CBN, stated this at Greenwich Registrars and Data Solutions Ltd seminar held in Lagos with the theme: Big Data in Nigeria.

Shonubi represented by Hajiya Rakiya Mohammed, Director, Information Technology Department, said many organisations had gone out of business due to their inability to adapt to current trends in technology.

He stated that organisations must harness the power of data and wind of change in their environment to remain competitive in product development and services.

To survive in this age, organisations need to have an idea and data that will enable them to play in their ecosystem,” Shonubi stated.

According to him, organisations must have a very clear vision to look at data as an asset to harness its benefits.

He also stressed the need for traditional institutions to seek ways of leveraging technology and provide better services to customers through the deployment of alternative engagement channels and platforms.

Shonubi said companies must redesign and harness data and generate insights that enabled quantifiable difference to customers, revenues and profits in order to remain relevant in the industry.

Also speaking, Obiageli Chiki-Ijegbulem, acting Managing Director, Greenwich Registrars & Data Solutions, stated that one of the most important developments of the 21st century was the rise of data driven service delivery.

Chiki-Ijegbulem said, “most traditional organisations that have not crossed the digital divide are at a disadvantage because they incubate a cohesive ecosystem that inhibits the establishment of a fully integrated digital culture.”

“This conundrum stems from an enshrined mundane work culture, weak disposition to change management and quality of the human capital.

“Factually, the significance of big data does not revolve around the quantity of data you have, but what you do with it.

“You can take data from almost any source, analyse it to generate intelligence that will help your business in areas like customer life cycle management, new product development and smart decision-making.

“Ideally, mature organisations build protocols and employ tools for data security, these tools in themselves depend on big data to track and neutralise evolving threats,” she said.

The Executive Director, IT & Operations, Access Bank Plc, Mr Ade Bajomo said Nigeria had the opportunity to solve Africans problems by leveraging the best technology ecosystem.

According to him, this can be achieved if companies digitalise their strategies in such a way that they become more competitive to serve the customers in the most efficient manner.

“We need to drive and participate in this transformation to boost our organisations.

“Based on this pattern, we want to move into predictive, which is digital transformation.

“The fourth industrial revolution is powered by data and 90 per cent of all the data created in the world was generated in the last two years,” Bajomo said. (NAN)

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