CBN Urges Firms On Big Data Use
Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in charge of Operations, Mr Ade Shonubi, has advised business organisations in the country to leverage the power of big data and Internet of things, to survive the competition in the present and future business environment driven by digital technology.
Shonubi gave the advice in Lagos, while delivering his keynote address at the maiden Thought Leadership Colloquium organised by Greenwich Registrars & Data Solutions Limited, with the theme, ‘Big Data in Nigeria: A Business case in an era of digitalisation and data protection’.
The deputy governor who was represented at the occasion by a Director at the Information Technology department of the CBN, Rakiya Mohammed, said that with the fast pace of the present technology, organisations who failed to meet up with the pace of change using the power of big data would go out of business.
He said, “So to survive in this age, organisations need to have an agile data architecture that will enable them harness the power of big data and be able to play in their competitive ecosystem.
“So I think what we should do as an organisation is to have a very clear vision and a very clear strategy. When we have to look at data, we have to make a conscious decision to look at data as an asset, and to do that, we have to look at the entire organisation.
“So if for example, let us say in Central Bank or as banks, we have our payment infrastructure and we are taking it as our critical information asset, we do everything we can to make sure we protect it, and to make sure we make it better.
“We must make sure we use it to drive revenue or even bring down cost. We have to think about data in that light as well even we want to harness the power.
“The second thing is that we need to have tangible used cases. So when you understand the business drivers for harnessing the power of data in your organisation, you need to also ask yourself: what is it you want to use this data for?
“Is it that you want to increase revenue? Or is it that you want to use it to bring down cost? Or is it that you want to use it to improve the capability of your people so that they are more productive? Or is it that you want to increase customer loyalty?”
The acting Managing Director, Greenwich Registrars &Data Solutions, Obiageli Chiki-Ijegbulam, who made reference to an IBM study, said that under-utilising data was a costly mistake for many organisations.
Chiki-Ijegbulam, stated, “an IBM study in 2017 revealed that inferior data cost the US almost 20 per cent of the nation’s GDP –a pretty convincing case for improving and expanding data opportunity.
“Interestingly, statistics of this sort culminate in the recognition and appreciation of the pivotal role big data and its appreciation play in the building of a dynamic enterprise.”
