MissionMode is an expert in emergency notification and incident management applications. Recently, the company was in Nigeria to cement its synergy with Unotelos. Our correspondent Theresa Igata chats up the CEO, MALCOLM HAFNER, on his mission to Nigeria.

 Why partner with Unotelos in Nigeria?

It’s all about finding people who know the business in the country that they’re operating in. We have partners around the world and we know for a fact that it’s much better to have people who are local and understand the business community and can do a good job. The next thing is that they’re innovative, they have good customer relationships and they’ve got good ambition. Those are three things that are important to us, and we’ve got shared values as well. We want to do things in the right way; we want to be effective and quick about it. Those are the reasons we chose Unotelos.

Strategy  for Nigerian business environment?

This is one of the reasons I had come over to Nigeria, to see exactly what it is like. And to be quite honest I see huge appetite to get on and make change. There’s the huge improvement I see; not any corporate improvement but self-improvement that I see everywhere; everyone works hard and are open to new opportunities. I just love that and it’s so encouraging.

It’s a case of having been presented to a small number of people on what we do and the feedback I’ve had are positive, on how it can make a difference to their organisation, and also the fact that we’ve got track record around the world with large brands obviously helps. But you know it’s all about the people here and their willingness to make changes and actually accelerate.

The impression I get here is that everyone is to accelerate business quicker than perhaps they naturally would do which is fantastic because I think that’s just great for the Nigerian economy and if we can be a small part of it that will be great and if we can make businesses work quicker and better, then that makes Nigerian business more competitive on a global scale.

Internet penetration

Some comments about internet penetration to all are the same as I’ve been hearing since 2003 and 2004 but in reality we’re not talking about reaching all the population in Nigeria; we’re talking about reaching businesses. We’re talking about how we can make a difference to those businesses and if we can make a difference to those businesses then everyone else would change.

We know the internet is going to get better because there’s just so much demand for it; whether you see it or don’t see it, it’s there because there’s an insatiable appetite for it around the world

And it’s normally held back by people who don’t want to make investment, but actually the reality is, business will drive and drive it forward. I see here a lot of people saying, not many people can have it, and it’s really slow and peachy. The reality is that if you can improve your business when something is available 90 per cent as opposed to 100 per cent of the time, you’re not going to stop using it because of that 10 per cent. You’re going to use it because it will benefit you for 90 per cent of the time.

 Mission mode services

To use our application one has to become a customer first, by signing a contract with Unotelos in Nigeria and as a company signed up with Unotelos in Nigeria, we make them have access to the software and then they can use it and run it as though it were their own. We deliver our software across the web so they have to log on to the web.