In December 2022, a pivotal moment arrived in the world of corporate sustainability reporting when the Official Journal of the European Union announced EU Directive 2022/2464. This directive, issued by the European Parliament and Council of the EU, marked a significant milestone in the journey towards greater transparency and responsibility in corporate practices.
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NAIROBI, AUGUST 2023 – Bluechip Technologies, a trusted Oracle Certified Partner, is proud to announce that we are the first company to bring Exadata Cloud at Customer on an OpEx (Operating Expense) model to the market. As Oracle’s chosen Hosting Service Provider, we are offering this groundbreaking solution in a colocation data center, enabling organizations to address data residency requirements while leveraging in-country cloud services.
Exadata Cloud at Customer provides businesses with the power and flexibility of Oracle’s Exadata Database Machine, combined with the control and security of an on-premises infrastructure. By partnering with Bluechip Technologies, organizations can now enjoy the benefits of this innovative platform on an OpEx model, eliminating the need for large upfront investments in infrastructure.
Key Highlights of Bluechip Technologies Offering:
NAIROBI, AUGUST 2023 – Bluechip Technologies achievement as the first to market with Exadata Cloud at Customer on an OpEx model in a colocation data center demonstrates our commitment to delivering cutting-edge solutions that address our clients’ unique needs. By combining Oracle’s leading technology with our expertise and localized support, we enable organizations to achieve their digital transformation goals while complying with data residency regulations.
To learn more about how Bluechip Technologies can help your organization leverage Exadata Cloud at Customer on an OpEx model, please visit our website at https://www.bluechiptech.biz or contact our sales team at +254769743997 or email: info.kenya@bluechiptech.biz
About Bluechip Technologies:
Bluechip Technologies is an Oracle Certified Partner and a trusted provider of cloud and infrastructure solutions. We specialize in delivering secure, scalable, and reliable solutions that empower businesses to achieve their strategic objectives. With a focus on customer success, we leverage our deep expertise and strategic partnerships to provide exceptional value and drive innovation for organizations across various industries.
It’s not very often that you hear about African tech companies expanding into Europe, but Bluechip Technologies, a 15-year established Pan-African Data Management and Analytics company, has done precisely that.
Bluechip Technologies partners with Global Technology companies, such as Oracle, Microsoft, HP and Dell EMC, to provide ‘full stack solutions’ in the data management space to enterprises such as Banks, Telcos, Insurance, Manufacturing, FMCG, Mining, Oil & Gas, and Public Sector entities.
Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, Bluechip Technologies has invested in a number of new operations across Africa in the past few years. This strategic expansion positions it as a “new competitive entrant in the EU market, offering data warehousing and analytics products as well as highly experienced senior data engineers from our Nigeria team as consultants for European firms”, according to the founders.
Olumide Soyombo is one of Nigeria’s high-profile angel investors, having launched Voltron Capital last year. He founded Bluechip Technologies in 2008 with partner Kazeem Tewogbade to specialise in Data Warehousing, Analytics and Enterprise Systems for Banks and Telcos. Since then, Bluechip Technologies has grown to employ over 300 Digital Transformation specialists and expanded operations across other African markets such as Kenya, DRC Congo, Zambia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Ghana. Many of our clients are Tier 1 corporates with Pan-African and even Global reach, such as FirstBank, GTBank, MTN and Lafarge.
Bluechip’s Customer Master Data Management and Enterprise Data Warehouse solutions collate data from disparate sources – structured, unstructured and semi-structure data – translating them into usable Business Analytics & Enterprise Performance Management dashboards and reporting. Additionally, Bluechip Technologies has created a portfolio of industry-specific solutions such as ‘Simplex Voucher Management’, ‘Customer Experience Management’ and ‘Cash Complete’ that add to the capabilities.
Bluechip Technologies is also one of the few African tech companies focusing on developing and placing Data Management talent. IT Graduates may apply to be selected to enter our ‘Primo Academy’, a six-month program that transforms talented IT graduates into Data professionals.
According to Olumide Soyombo, the post-pandemic trend in remote working, a critical shortage of tech talent, and an increase in demand for managing data more efficiently presents a great opportunity for Bluechip Technologies to deliver specialized services in Europe. According to Fortune Business Insights, ‘The Global Big Data Analytics market is projected to grow from $271.83 billion in 2022 to $655.53 billion by 2029’, and Bluechip Technologies aims to win a good slice of that business, having already grown to revenues of over $60m in 2022-23.
Bluechip Technologies, having delivered a comprehensive range of Enterprise Technology Infrastructure and Software solutions in the African market in partnership with international OEMs, such as Oracle and Microsoft, is confident that with the right level of skill and experience, at a significant cost advantage, will do the same in Europe.
Richard Lewis, an experienced IT and Telecoms professional with forty years of experience at the Executive level, is leading Bluechip Technologies European expansion as CEO of Bluechip Data Global Ltd in Ireland.
According to Olumide Soyombo, “Richard has a good feel for the market. He has seen some of the initial requirements from customers that can make him say, “Hey if this is what you’re paying for a developer from India, we can give you an equally qualified developer for 20-30% less than this price. We are confident that our ‘Talent as a Service’ offering is the launchpad for our European expansion journey”.
Richard Lewis (CEO, Bluechip Technologies EU). Image Credits: Bluechip Technologies
In common with all Mobile Network Operators, Nigerian-based 9mobile needed to build expansive business support systems to ensure it had the business intelligence to be able to understand customer behaviours, increase ARPU and reduce churn with the help of Voucher Management System.
Nigeria is a fast-paced and competitive business landscape, with all four major operators wanting to increase voucher sales, as well as margins, whilst reducing risk and operating costs.
Bluechip Technologies was the natural partner when 9mobile needed a robust Voucher Management Software to manage the complete lifecycle of prepaid vouchers, from PIN generation through Redemption and Administration.
Nigeria has the largest number of mobile subscribers in Africa, and with four major mobile operators, it is inevitably a very competitive landscape. One of the largest players – and the youngest – is the wholly Nigerian-owned, 9mobile.
9mobile has always operated on the core values of industry-leading customer service and innovation, and today, it boasts over 13 million customers and growing. In December 2022, 9mobile was awarded the Deborah Leipziger Africa Prize for Innovation at the 16th edition of the prestigious Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, and Responsibility Awards.
The partnership between 9mobile and Bluechip Technologies began with 9mobile’s inception as a mobile operator in Nigeria in 2008.
One of the first projects Bluechip Technologies delivered was a state-of-the-art Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to provide a ‘single source of the truth’ and to automate the delivery of daily business Key Performance Indicators to enable proactive decision making via a self-service Business Intelligence suite which ensures that 9mobile always had accurate and timely business information at their fingertips.
Bluechip Technologies implemented Simplex – a ‘Trade Watchtower’ product to manage 9mobile’s entire Sales & Distribution Lifecycle and provide a 360° view of the business by capturing all activities within the value chain and delivering omni-channel monitoring of the ‘in-the-field sales force’.
Simplex is a cloud-based market-leading Voucher Management solution that manages the complete lifecycle of prepaid vouchers, from their generation through to redemption, covering all aspects of PIN Management, Stock Management, Fraud Management, Order and Sales Management and Security. By design, Simplex offers Open APIs with built-in integration with ERP systems to Service Providers and the IN. Using the integrated payment gateway allows easy payments via bank transfers or credit cards.
It is designed for forward-thinking telecoms, energy, retail, and entertainment businesses. Simplex is securely engineered through a combination of market-leading technology solutions as well as multiple industry know-how.
Utilising the Voucher Management Software, Bluechip Technologies was able to meet 9mobile’s needs.
It was able to achieve the following;
Provide visibility across the inventory across the entire value chain, especially the last mile.
Read the full case study here.
Digital banking in Nigeria is on the rise, and banks need to do all they can to ensure seamless transactions and processes for clients.
Wema Bank pioneered and today operates the most extensive digital banking system across Nigeria – ALAT – a digital-only banking service launched in 2017. ALAT is a branchless & paperless bank with the ability to perform banking transactions easily on-line using a mobile phone, PC or tablet.
Wema Bank Plc (Wema Bank) is a Nigerian commercial bank licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the regulator of the nation’s banking sector. Wema Bank was established in 1945 and is Nigeria’s longest-established indigenous bank.
Wema Bank chose Bluechip Technologies to implement its Customer Master Data Management (CMDM) solution to improve the quality of data flowing into the Enterprise Data Warehouse.
As part of the digital transformation at Wema Bank, Bluechip implemented several models:
The benefits included:
An essential deliverable from Bluechip Technologies to Wema Bank was the Transaction Classification & Recommendation Model. Wema Bank needed a solution that would enhance insight into customer product propensity and channel adoption, using customer demographics & transacting behaviours.
The approach taken was to classify ‘customer clusters’ based on demographics and behaviours.
A few of the benefits included:
Summary
Wema Bank invested heavily to improve its Data Quality – both old and new – in order to be able to achieve the desired customer experience across all channels – whether it was services or campaigns. In the first year of implementation, Wema pushed its Data Quality Index up to 80%, and CMDM remains a foundational application within the bank’s Data Management ecosystem.
Read the full case study here.
Designed and built by Bluechip Technologies was a Cash Management Solution for banks.
Despite huge advances being made in cashless payments in Nigeria, the country still ranks very high in the table of countries most reliant upon cash. The challenge for a modern Nigerian bank, such as GTBank, is not only to progressively introduce new digital banking services but also, at the same time, to efficiently manage the ongoing utilisation of cash.
Typically, the challenges faced by the bank include the high cost associated with volume cash handling and the high risk associated with crime and losses from other incidents, such as fire or flooding.
Guaranty Trust Bank PLC (GTBank) was originally founded in 1990 and now serves over 24 million customers across 10 African countries and also in the United Kingdom. Headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria, GTBank subsidiaries are established in Cote D’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom. Employing over 12,000 people, GTBank services individuals, businesses, private, and public institutions with a broad range of market-leading financial products and services.
In 2012, GTBank selected Bluechip Technologies to help build an Enterprise Data Management & Business Intelligence Platform to enable better and faster insights for effective decision-making. The aim was to:
The solution enabled the bank to optimize their requirements for the management of cash across their extensive Branch network.
GTBank is traditionally a ‘cash consuming bank’, meaning that the amount of cash deposited on a daily basis is not enough to cater for the withdrawal requests for cash.
Cash requirements in the branch were tricky; Cash shortages in a branch would invariably create customer dissatisfaction. Overstocking of cash in a branch creates a greater risk of loss and also incrementally higher insurance costs.
Having implemented Bluechip’s Cash Decisioning System, GTBank was able to collect information on cash balance in an individual Bank Teller’s till, in ATM and the vault, across all branches. As such, GTBank was able to monitor the cash flow movement across branches within the bank.
Today, this Cash Decisioning System, built alongside a Tier 1 Nigerian Bank, has evolved over the years, has been productized and is known as ‘Cash Complete’.
‘Cash Complete’ is a Cloud application that can be deployed on multiple cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, OCI, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and others. The solution uses machine learning and AI technology to learn the minimum level of threshold of cash required by any bank.
For GTBank, Bluechip’s implementation of ‘Cash Management Solution for banks’ was able to:
To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.
As telecom companies expand and grow, the requirements for efficiency and ensuring their business operates to the best of their abilities.
Telecoms company MTN Nigeria’s parent group MTN Group decided to use Oracle Cloud Applications to drive one of the largest cloud transformations in the global telecom industry across all its core business areas, including human resources, finance, supply chain and operations.
Established in 2001, MTN Nigeria is Africa’s largest provider of communications services, connecting approximately 70 million people in communities across the country with each other and the world. In revenue terms, it is the single largest contributor to MTN Group, which services 270 million customers across 19 markets.
The digital implementation aimed to drive efficiency in inventory management, scale operations and integration across its local and regional operations through automation, self-service, IoT and mobile application capabilities. A key objective was enhancing management visibility across all business operations for real-time performance measurement.
MTN Nigeria decided to implement Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); Supply Chain Management (SCM); Enterprise Performance Management (EPM); Customer Experience (CX); Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Oracle Service Cloud solutions with TechMahindra as their primary partner.
TechMahindra engaged Bluechip Technologies to identify, analyse, design, test and deploy the Oracle Fusion Cloud SaaS solutions in MTN Nigeria with the following objectives:
Bluechip’s project scope involved the review and implementation of the business requirements, business processes, technical interface and integration using Oracle tools – SOAR and OIC, systems integration testing, automation testing and user acceptance resting.
As a whole, the project ensured that many of the primary objectives laid out were fully met, including (but not limited to, read more in the full case study here):
From MTN Nigeria’s perspective, not only have their core business ERP applications moved to the cloud, with all the cost savings and efficiencies that brings, but reporting into MTN Group has become so much quicker and easier with Oracle Cloud EPM.
To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.
In 2022 and beyond, a bank’s success will increasingly depend on how well the growing asset of customer data is being managed. When it comes to decision making, both poor data quality and non-availability of data must be pro-actively addressed. First City Monument Banks (FCMB) looked to Bluechip Technologies as a partner to enhance its Customer Data Management using state-of-the-art cloud technologies.
First City Monument Bank (FCMB) is a member of FCMB Group Plc. Founded in 1982, the bank has a long history of stability and growth and today is one of the leading financial services institutions in Nigeria, with over 10 million customers.
Having successfully developed as a retail and commercial banking-led group, FCMB embarked on a Digital Transformation programme focused on Customer Data Management to continue to deliver exceptional services to its customers.
The aim of the project was to implement an end-to-end Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence solution with strong Data Governance on Microsoft Azure to provide the foundation for the bank’s business intelligence and digital banking initiatives.
The objectives included:
Using its Customer Master Data Manager (CMDM) for administering and managing data quality helped Bluechip Technologies establish policies and procedures to drive data quality improvement.
The functionalities included:
Find out exactly what this included in the full case study here.
Bluechip’s Customer Master Data Management solution proved to be the ideal foundation for First City Monument Bank to execute it’s digital transformation vision.
In August 2022, FCMB Group Plc reported impressive growth in earnings, revenue, deposits, loans and asset under management growth in its first half-year financial results for 2022. The Group also recorded a 73.2 percent year-on-year growth in profit before tax and huge growth across all of its business segments, and Gross Revenue was up 34 percent year-on-year.
To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.r
At a time when many banks are innovating cloud transformation of their businesses and cash management software to cloud-based solutions, companies must ensure they can offer a smooth transition for their client.
Here at Bluechip, we have helped FirstBank – a Nigerian multinational Bank and Financial Services company headquartered in Nigeria and with subsidiaries in West Africa, the UK and elsewhere – to embark on a project to move the bank’s Enterprise Resource Planning from on-premise to cloud-based solutions.
Established in 1894, FirstBank offers a comprehensive range of retail and corporate financial services through more than 170,000 business outlets to over 17 million customer accounts.
With over 16,000 employees, FirstBank held the strategic ambition to enhance its human resources management. Given the availability of an advanced solution with Oracle Fusion Cloud, it selected Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM to provide a cost-effective and highly efficient solution to their current and future needs.
The aim of the switch was to support FirstBank’s Innovation goal to deliver innovative products and services to their customers, as well as improve customer experience, increase efficiency, reduce costs and ensure;
Summary
The transformation from Oracle On-Premise EBS to Oracle Fusion Cloud has brought huge benefits to FirstBank. Their primary objective was to upgrade their ‘back-office systems’. Also a vital component in their overall innovative digital transformation strategy that aims to drive the adoption of digital banking throughout Africa.
In 2022, First Bank of Nigeria Limited won two International Investor Awards awards – Best Bank in Nigeria 2022 and Best Bank in Digital Transformation Nigeria 2022 in recognition of its continued efforts at reinventing its digital banking channels.
To read all about the outcomes and improvements of the transformation, click through to the full case study here.
A great customer experience is one of the most powerful marketing tools a business can have, and if that goes, quite often, so does your customer.
According to a MuleSoft webinar, 80% of customers will leave a company if they have a bad experience. So the onus really is on the provider to transform a customer experience and create positivity – understanding not only what they want but who they are, when they want it, and how they interact.
It can be difficult for customers to keep track of all the different data points and applications involved in each transaction. Having too many touchpoints can create a lot of frustration.
It is critical to have access to data – particularly customer data — to stand apart from the competition. This is where customer master data management (CMDM) comes into play.
As already mentioned, disconnected data sets are one of the biggest challenges when creating the building block for a smooth and connected customer experience. So what other challenges and barriers come into this when looking at customer data?
The 360-degree view of customers – It promises to deliver and give marketers that picture-perfect profile of their customers. However, with GDPR coming into force in 2018 and implementation costs rising, things became much more complicated. It is believed that only 10% of surveyed organisations have managed to achieve this. A report from Gartner concluded that “By 2026, 80% of organizations pursuing a ‘360-degree view of the customer will abandon these efforts because they flout data privacy regulations, rely on obsolete data collection methods, and erode customer trust.”
The absence of high-quality, dependable data – From missing data to duplicate data, it’s one of the biggest barriers. Unstructured data means a business will not be able to create a solid customer data management system and subsequent workflows.
High costs – The rising costs of system maintenance and IT support for an on- premise solutions are squeezing company budgets, with little room to invest in innovations that will elevate the business in the future.
Lack of data governance skills – The absence of a rigid data management system twinned with the lack of data governance skills in-house makes it almost impossible to get a real understanding of the customer.
Eliminates silos of data – Collecting data from multiple disparate data sources, such as cloud applications or local data sets. Bluechip can collect data from various business applications, such as CRM and accounting systems.
Creates a single version of the truth – A solid master data management means the data and the customer 360 profile, a business with the real insight and intelligence of the customer to execute the next action.
Cut through different definitions and different systems – For example, the term “usage” could have a different meaning hence a different value in a marketing system vs an accounting system. A customer master data management system helps establish common definitions of data, so that all data views are accurate and consistent.
Make trusted data available for decision-makers – This data can be presented to decision-makers in a format that allows them to make business decisions quickly, such as introducing new products or creating personalised marketing promotions, identifying up-sell or cross-sell opportunities, or bottlenecks in growth. This information can then be used to improve customer experiences further.
Creates a balance between data analytics and privacy and data protection –
Monetising the data assets to your business advantage is important to deliver exceptional customer experiences and stay ahead of the competition. However, evolving regulations around data and privacy can restrict how you use the data. With a customer master data management, a business can define its rules of how they can use the customer data and ensure its governed, as well as remaining compliant with any data regulations such as GDPR.
Increases business agility – A good system will continuously clean, dedupe, and merge rogue data with AI-fuelled tools, giving you the power to verify and improve your data in real time.
