Nigeria can Tackle Software Challenge, says Indian Expert

Kamal Yadav, technical consultant, and Varun Yadav, senior manager, Marketing and International Business, both of Busy Infotech Private Limited, at the unveiling of Busy software solution in Lagos.

In order for the exiting gap between Nigeria and Indian software industry to be bridged government must tackle the issue of infrastructure and give incentive to practitioners in the industry.

Speaking to ICT-BizAfrica on the state of the software industry in Nigeria, an Indian software expert, Mr. Varun Yadav said that the gap between the industry in both countries is not too wide, expressing hope that there is every possibility that Nigeria can catch up with Indian in the development of software.

He however said that if that must happen soon the right infrastructure and incentive must be made available for the industry to thrive saying that the Indian software industry is where it is today due to the support that it getting from the Indian government.

Yadav, who is the senior manager, marketing and international business for Busy, an Indian software company operating in Nigeria said that the software industry in Nigeria has the capacity to be a world leader.

According to him, Nigerians are now taking career in information and communication technology very serious stating that even there are government initiative that are driving the people to acquire ICT skills.

He disclosed that a lot of Nigerian ICT experts and companies are now interacting with Indian ICT companies stating that many companies in the country are now investing in ICT.

Yadav who was in the country as part of its role in Busy said that he was in the country to unveil its new accounting solution, BUSY 12, one of the most popular Accounting and Inventory Management software for MSMEs in India, with over half-a-million users in over 20 countries.

He said that BUSY 12 comes with a host of new features and enhanced functionalities including sales/purchase quotation, customizable reports, data access through SMS/e-mail, auto back-up of data, and provision for voucher audit.

For instance, in BUSY 12, he said, “the user can customize the reports to suit his needs. He can add new columns/rows in existing reports, hide existing columns from reports, apply formulae between report columns, create multiple formats for each report, tag users with report formats, and link report columns to database using SQL queries”.

Yadav explained that BUSY 12, comes with an automatic data back-up facility that the user would not need to spend time on taking back-up of his critical business data stressing, “This feature comes with an automatic data scheduler which lets the user take the back-up of all companies in one go, separate the folders date-wise, take back-up of data for any number of days. The user will get auto generated email alerts for any operation related to data back-up.”

He further said that the  user can access his business information like account balance, outstanding bills and stock balance on his mobile phone through SMS and ledger, outstanding bills, and daily Sales/Purchase receipts on his e-mail adding that the user can let his Customers/Vendors know their account balance, outstanding details on their own.

“With BUSY 12, the user can prepare Sales/Purchase Quotation,customize the quotation format to suit his requirements, link the quotation with corresponding Order, Challan, and Invoices”, he said.

The BUSY 12, Yadav noted helps the user to secure data against theft/misuse saying that company data with selective computers is accessible only from those computers thereby eliminating the risk of theft.

He added that BUSY 12 comes in three editions with each edition addressing needs specific to various growth stages  of MSMEs– Basic Edition for traders and distributors requiring basic features, Standard Edition for traders, retailers and manufacturers requiring power features & Enterprise Edition for small and medium enterprises.