Productivity in Nigeria’s private sector is being challenged by rising operating costs, tighter profit margins and the pressure to take decisions faster, an entrepreneur, Mrs Tayo Babatunde, has said.
In a statement in Lagos on Monday, Babatunde also said that productivity in the private sector was equally being challenged by the complexity of managing distributed teams.
Babatunde is the Managing Director of Radiant diGiLog, a technology company which recently introduced an Artificial Intelligence-powered workforce management and employee productivity platform, also called Radiant diGiLog.
The managing director said that organisations’ operational visibility had moved beyond being a back-office metric and become a critical leadership capability.
“For years, organisations have invested in hiring talented people, improving customer experience and expanding into new markets.
“However, one challenge continues to surface across businesses of every size: leaders struggle to answer what should be simple operational questions,” she said.
According to Babatunde, the questions include those about which employee is available, which task has been completed, which teams need support, and where delays happen.
The managing director said that the speed with which leaders could answer the questions would increasingly determine how effectively organisations would compete.
“As companies grow, work becomes more distributed. Teams operate across multiple locations, shifts, projects and even countries.
“Managers rely on meetings, phone calls, spreadsheets, emails and messaging platforms to put together information before they can act.
“It is rare that people are not working hard. The issue is that more often, leaders lack timely visibility into what is happening across their operations,” she said.
She said that in the past few months, Radiant diGiLog engaged with organisations across logistics, hospitality, manufacturing, professional services and retail services.
“While each business is unique, the conversations reveal a consistent pattern: the challenge is not access to information but bringing the right information together at the right time so that managers can act with confidence.”
The managing director said that Radiant diGiLog was designed to help businesses eliminate manual record-keeping, streamline task execution and improve operational visibility.
According to Babatunde, when operational visibility improves, communication becomes clearer, accountability becomes easier, and managers spend less time getting updates and more time supporting their teams.
She said that improved visibility would also help employees understand expectations from them, shifting operational conversations from reactive to proactive.
“Technology alone does not create these outcomes. People do, but technology gives people the clarity they need to make better decisions, collaborate more effectively and focus on the work that creates value.”
Babatunde urged that operational visibility should not be taken as surveillance, saying that real operational visibility would give leaders the confidence to make timely decisions and give employees the clarity to do their work well.
“This is why we approach workforce management as a connected operating system rather than a collection of isolated tools through our digital platform, Radiant diGiLog.
“Scheduling should connect with attendance and attendance should connect with task execution, while field activities should connect with live location visibility where appropriate.
“Communication should happen in the same operational environment where work is being planned and delivered. Leave requests, approvals, forms and reporting should all contribute to a single view of how the organisation is operating.”
Babatunde said that an organisation’s activities remaining disconnected would make its leaders spend much time searching for information.
“When they are connected, leaders spend more time leading.”
