By Clifford Agugoesi, Editor-in-Chief
The Director, Sales – West Africa, at the Wet Indian Ocean Cable Company(WIOCC) Nikki Popoola has been leading development of bespoke solutions to meet the specific business requirements of WIOCC OTT and ISP clients in West Africa impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since the onset of the pandemic, our clients have expressed markedly different needs for support in maintaining business continuity,” explained Nikki. “One impact is that we have grown our client base in the region, connecting a number of new service providers. We have also been asked to increase existing clients’ capacity, in some cases by as much as 100 per cent, to help them meet greater demand for connectivity and data services from residential areas. Given the significant financial challenges COVID-19 is imposing on many businesses, it has also been particularly important to work closely with our clients to identify specific challenges in this area. This understanding has then enabled us to develop commercial solutions that are tailored appropriately to their needs, assisting them in continuing to manage their businesses effectively.”
She continued: “It took one of our clients over six months to complete their internal procurement processes, due to lockdown preventing physical movement of people and goods, and the extensive procedures involved in adapting teams to cloud-based systems. However, by remaining in regular contact throughout the prolonged process and planning accordingly, we were able to activate their capacity immediately all their processes were completed.”
WIOCC prides itself as an agile organisation, that often tailors its service offerings to meet specific requirements or situations. “We engage all WIOCC teams throughout the client’s journey so that we can offer flexible technical and commercial solutions to meet individual business needs,” WIOCC says.
