Onuegbu: Emerging Technologies Will Enhance Network Connectivity

Executive Vice Chairman, Signal Alliance, Mr. Collins Onuegbu, speaks on the need for organisations to adopt emerging technologies to boost network connectivity, integration and data security. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts:

How will you describe the impact of network connectivity on business growth, productivity and security?

We use technology to serve organisations, and the organisations then use the same technology to serve their staff and customers. Signal Alliance is a Business-to-Business (B2B) company and our focus is to offer technology solutions that will help for proper network integration processes in organisations.

As technology evolves, the needs of organisations get expanded and what we do is to provide a service that allows organisations to seamlessly provide services to their customers. So, the impact of our services to organisations have been great because customers needs have over the years, increased and our service provisions to orgnisations have been impactful because the services have helped organisations to connect more branches to serve their customers better and secured.

What are your specific service offerings and how have organisations adapted to your solutions in driving business growth?

Signal Alliance is an integrated technology company, providing integration services to customers, using technology. Signal Alliance as a company, has diversified its technology investments and we offer a whole range of technology services to organisations. Signal Alliance Consulting for instance, still offers consulting services to corporate organisations, irrespective of what kind of technology services the organisations are offering their customers.

Signal Alliance Cloud provides cloud computing services to organisations, and it has helped a lot of orgamisations move to the cloud, and we are planning to scale our Cloud Company across Africa, to enable our customers move to the cloud fast. Before the spread of COVID-19, we were persuading organisations to move to the cloud, and the response was low. But today, organisations willingly want to move to the cloud because COVID-19 has forced all businesses that want to remain in business to move to the cloud, since all businesses are going online to avoid physical contact as part of COVID-19 protocols.

We also have an arm that is developing the FinTech and Startups as well as in the health industry, using technology to drive healthcare delivery system. We have also invested in the enterprise business, providing enterprise solutions to corporate organisations.

How do you address interoperability of your solutions with existing solutions offered by other service providers when marketing your solutions?

One of the opportunities for business diversification, is that it gives room to find new customers and to offer new services to customers. So to speak about interoperability, I will say that each of our solutions is innovating, scalable and interoperable with existing solutions. For example the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools we are using now has evolved with time and quite different from ERP solutions of the past, and that evolution will continue, which gives room for interoperability of solutions, where by older technologies are scalable and newer technologies are able to synchronize with older technologies.

How are you leveraging emerging technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoTs), in providing quality service to organisations?

The bottom line in service offering is to satisfy the customer and ensure business resilience, growth and sustainability, and we leverage emerging technologies to achieve all of these. So every service we offer organisations today, is embedded with emerging technologies that offer quality experience for customers that use our solutions and services. The projection about IoTs is that every device will be connected to the internet in the next five to 10 years, in order to enhance connectivity and ease of operation.

What we are doing as technology solutions providers, is to work towards achieving the connectivity projection and ensure that devices are all connected to the internet. This will in turn help to deepen the market to the point where more people can use the services to improve their lives.

How do you guarantee IT security for organisations, given the rise in cyber insecurity across the globe?

We have a Cloud Company that helps organisations move their services to the cloud and we take security very seriously, because as services move to the cloud, they are more exposed to vulnerabilities, which we try to guard against by introducing high level security in all our solutions and service offerings. So we go the extra mile in protecting customers from online hacking and other vulnerabilities.

Today there is cyberspace war, where hackers are everywhere attacking organisations’ websites, just to steal data or make it dysfunctional. Countries are also attacking each other in cyberspace and there is a whole lot of attacks going on in cyberspace. As solution providers, we take cognisance of all these attacks and try to build security architecture around our solutions and services in order to protect customers and organisations. Nigeria as a country, has the obligation to protect its cyberspace from the ongoing cyberwar in the cloud.

Cybersecurity has become a thing of necessity to organisations and individuals, and as a technology service provider, Signal Alliance is doing everything possible to protect organisations that we provide services to. We have reached a level where people steal the identity of others, distort the information, deface the image and use it for criminal intentions. So we are all living in cyberspace where there are lots of cyber wars taking place and organisations as well as individuals, need to be protected.

As pioneer in the technology industry, how will you describe the transition from mainframe computers to personal computers?

The transition to personal computing started in the 90s and we were part of the transition. When organisations started using personal computers (PCs), it was easy for them to acquire PCs for their staff.

After the emergence of PC, there was the need to connect the PCs together for seamless communication, which led to the interconnectivity era, using Wide Area Network (WAN), to enable people connect to each other, via their PCs.

That was when Signal Alliance saw the need to connect organisations and their staff to a central server and data centre, through network integration process, and we became Network Integrator to organisations.

Giving the limited infrastructure during transition period from mainframe computers to personal computers, how was Signal Alliance able to scale business processes at that time?

Connectivity at that time was a challenge at various levels, because internet was at its infancy stage at that time. It was a period when we were using modems to connect to the internet and the modems were slow in connectivity at that time, and the NITEL SAT3 was the only broadband internet provider then. What we did at Signal Alliance then was to use the telephone to connect to modem before connecting to the internet before we could communicate with customers. At a point, we had to use pager to connect to customers because there were no mobile phones then. So, connectivity and communication were very difficult in the past, but today, new technologies have emerged to enhance connectivity and communications speed.

Technology is evolving and technology solutions are becoming more available, yet Nigeria has serious security challenges. How can government tap into existing tech solutions to address national insecurity?

Technology is an enabler and there are lots of things that technology can help us to achieve, even in the area of security. For Nigeria to address her security challenges, government needs to address the issue of identity management and data protection.

Developed countries of the world are using technology to address identity theft and data protection and Nigeria can do same to address her security challenges. Technology allows government to know the exact number of the country’s population and what each citizen is doing and where they reside, and these are some of the foundational task before the Nigerian government that will help her address insecurity across the country.

For example it is taking a longer time for the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to complete the registration of National Identity Number (NIN) of all citizens of Nigeria. By the time it is completed, and all registered NIN are linked to SIM cards, it will become easier for government to have the database of all Nigerians and everybody living in Nigeria. Government will then be able to identity every individual through the national database. With this perpetrators of crime could easily be traced and apprehended. So government must first address the issue of identity management in the country, in order to address national security challenges.

The technology to address Nigeria’s insecurity is available. What Nigeria needs is proper policy implementation to address her challenges.

How will you describe the IT Policy implementation in Nigeria and what are the hiccups?

The National Information Technology Development Agency of Nigeria (NITDA) is responsible for Information Technology (IT) Policy Implementation in the country, and NITDA has evolved over the years. We have minister that supervises NITDA operations, and several ministers have accomplished some level of IT implementation in the past. Some policies have been implemented and some implemented in very difficult environments.

Signal Alliance clocked 25 years in exitence recently. How has it been doing technology business in Nigeria, and what were the challenges?

The tech space is a difficulty industry to do business and Nigeria is a difficult country to do business, but despite the difficulties, technology businesses and other businesses still manage to survive the difficult terrain.

For the past 25 years, Signal Alliance has tried to provide the best of service offerings and solutions to organisations, and has garnered quality experience in the past 25 years of doing tech business. One thing I have learnt in the past 25 years, is that it is not possible to do business outside of the context of the economy. Most people that set up their own business, sometimes think that they can operates outside of the overall economy, which for me, is a grave mistake on their part. So no business should work in isolation of government and businesses must have good relationship with government.

The challenges of doing tech business in Nigeria are enormous, but we need patience to weather the storm.

How will you describe adoption rate of new technologies by organisations before COVID-19 and post COVID-19?

COVID-19 has helped in driving the adoption of specific solutions, which organisations hitherto did not consider as important to adopt. Adoption of tech solutions is slower with organisations and government than individuals, the reason being that it takes budgeting circle to get approval for the adoption of new technologies.

Before the spread of COVID-19, Signal Alliance was persuading organisations to adopt cloud technology solution, and majority were slow to adopt, but as soon as COVID-19 sets in, the orientation of the organisations changed and they saw the need to adopt cloud technology and move their operations to the cloud, because all businesses, including government businesses are now moving to the cloud.

What is your view about the challenges faced by indigenous startups in accessing local funding, a development that has compelled them to look for international funding from Angel Investors?

I have been into investment and funding of startups as Angel Investor in the past seven years, and if comparisons are made in terms of the funds we were raising in the past, and the funds we are raising now, it will be obvious that the growth has been very phenomenal. It has grown over the years from a low base, and this is what is actually attracting the foreign funding you talked about.

I think the local Angel Investors are doing well and have succeeded in attracting foreign investments. The number of local Angel Investors is growing by the day and that alone has funded lots of startup projects in the country. The group of Angel Investors that I belong to, has funded several startups in the past and recently, and I see more of that funding locally.

What is your view about the future growth of Signal Alliance?

Signal Alliance started as a technology startup, and going forward, we want to see ourselves as a platform of Venture Company, and I will like us to venture into new areas of business.