In celebration of the 10th anniversary of Support Link Technologies, a leading IT and Cybersecurity company in Africa, Olabisi Aso, the founder and Chief Executive Officer shares insights on how navigating the road less travelled in a male predominated industry has helped the company rise above the pack over the last decade.
How can you describe the importance of IT and Cybersecurity in business?
Information Technology and Cybersecurity are pivotal to an organization’s success by providing major day-to-day operational support and enabling enterprise-wide business change. It plays a major role in improving customer service excellence by implementing solutions that improve the ease of doing business whilst protecting business assets.
How can you describe the journey so far?
I have been fortunate to be blessed with a wonderful team whose loyalty is to customers’ satisfaction rather than their convenience, which makes the journey quite interesting. However, the first hurdle to cross is gaining trust in a male-dominated industry. Fortunately, I have had superiors who believed in me and created the path for me to grow.
I love the feeling I get when I walk into a room for a presentation, and it is assumed I am a technical sales staff only to introduce myself as the CEO.
I once went for a negotiation meeting and the procurement officer was asking if they should expect others from Support Link, I responded that I would do my best to ensure we did not need to escalate. Only for the CIO to walk in and ask, “Madam, you came yourself?” I loved the look on everyone’s face.
What can you say are your major milestones at Support Link Technologies for the past 10 years?
Milestones are good to talk about. However, the truth is the challenges are what build you and the business. The milestones are achievable because of the decision to fight the good fight. Today, Support Link Technologies has about 52 staff nationwide and partnerships that ensure customers can do more with IT securely; and we are still growing. Currently, in West Africa, we are the only certified technical partner for BeyondTrust, a worldwide leader in Privileged Access Management (PAM), and our solutions are a mainstay in major banks and telecoms in Nigeria. Our clients include UBA Group, FCMB, Fidelity Bank, IHS Towers and MTN Nigeria just to mention a few.
What can you say has differentiated you from the competition in the past decade?
It is simply walking the road less travelled. Going above and beyond to meet and exceed clients’ expectations. In other words, going a thousand miles to bring smiles to the faces of our customers gives me joy. We do business without trading our conscience, taking every job to be just as important as the next and concentrating efforts on each client’s project. I am proud to say that our very first customer still does business with us till date.
