AOPN seeks regulation of outsourcing to sanitise practice

The Association of Outsourcing Professionals of Nigeria (AOPN) has called for the passage of a bill to regulate the outsourcing practice in Nigeria.

The association, which said the move was to regulate the challenges of unethical practices in the industry, promised to use its platform and other networks to ensure the outsourcing bill becomes law.

AOPN President, Mope Abudu, said this during the association’s outsourcing interface/ninth investiture conference, which had the theme ‘Outsourcing in a Fast-Changing Environment: Challenges and Opportunities’.

She said the need for the sector to become sanitised in terms of how outsourcing services are delivered was pertinent, following the many unethical practices going on in the sector and employers having their way.

Noting that the sector is an important enabler of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), Abudu maintained that providing a very good platform for service providers both as individuals and corporate institutions, would make Nigeria stand as a veritable brand for the professionals.

To make Nigeria a hub of outsourcing, she said: “Ironically, we almost have everything we need. Today, we talk about the youth of Nigeria, who constitute over 60 per cent of our population and are very enabled when it comes to technology adoption, and because the world is now becoming technology-driven we have human resources that can provide skills.

“However, what we need to do is to train them in skills that are available for today and tomorrow, not train them in the skills that are relevant for yesterday. So, that means we need to harness this resource that we have and provide services that would promote our clientele to be very competitive so that we are not working in the dark ages but we are working for the future and overtake our other competing nations, like India and the rest of them who have been at the forefront. We have everything that it takes, we just need to be very disciplined and AOPN is determined to make sure that we are at the forefront of promoting outsourcing.”

The guest speaker and Group Managing Director of SOL Group, Dr Olufemi Ogunlowo, said with the global landscape evolving and technological advancement, Nigeria must embrace change, adapt to technology and foster collaboration to be globally competitive in the outsourcing space.

He added that the need to reskill and retool to catch up with current realities was paramount as skills in outsourcing are now technology-driven.