Mr. Kola Olugbodi is the Managing Director of Nigeria’s foremost background check company, Background Check International, BCI.
A graduate of Demography and Statistics from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, Olugbodi is an accomplished professional and member of several professional bodies. In this interview, by FrontPage, he speaks on the role of ICT in corporate governance and Educheck, a new digital identity service from BCI. Excerpts:
What dynamism has ICT brought to corporate organisations?
ICT has changed the way things are being done completely. We have totally moved away from the analog to the digital age. It is like you either innovate or die. For instance, we were queueing in banks but suddenly we have everything on online real time. Banking transactions now take less time than what it used to be. One can see the enormous progress in the banking sector. The same thing applies to other sectors of the economy. It is also obvious now that post offices are now getting redundant due to the use of emails in sending messages. These are some of the disruptions and if there is anything that has been in strong operation, it is the IT revolution. We are in the industrial revolution age. What has happened in the last 20 years cannot be compared with the last 40 years. That is the way ICT has affected the corporate world.
Your company recently improved on a digital service launched years back. What is the service all about?
Educheck is an online platform that BCI developed to make verification easy for anyone around the world. It is a verification hub. It is positioned that any manner of verification can be done instantly. Whether it is to verify an educational certificate or verify information about a prospective employee, it can be done from anywhere in the world. If a Nigerian is overseas with business interests in property investment, Educheck helps to verify the property and other information associated with same. An alumnus of an institution can also obtain his certificate.
Online identity is important as your identity needs to be verified when transacting business.
What is the future for digital identity and documentation in Nigeria?
These specialised services are just evolving in Nigeria. Some of the services are what NIN and BVN offer presently. For us in BCI, we don’t just gather data for identity, we authenticate the identity. All we believe is that a book should not be judged by its cover. You must verify claims before you venture into business investment. We verify identity through all ours services in Background Check International.
The future is the way the entire world is today as everything has been digitalised. It is imperative to say that everyone needs digital identity and be present online at all times. In this age of cybercrime, digital identity is the solution to unravel such fraudulent acts.
Digital identity is the way to go as people buy things online. Online identity is important as your identity needs to be verified when transacting business. It should also be noted that there will be identity theft as a result of digital operations but people just need to protect their information and be cautious of what they do online.
