ATM Business, Corporate Expansion, Metering, How Adewale Adeyipo is Taking CWG into the Future

In December 2018, foremost ICT solutions provider, Computer Warehouse Group (CWG) rounded up its year with major appointments. One of them was the appointment of Adewale Adeyipo as Acting CEO of the company, replacing the outgoing James Agada who resigned earlier.

But since his appointment, Mr Adeyipo has largely kept a low profile and one could be forgiven for thinking he’s shy of the press. According to some sources within the company, the Acting CEO was even slow to move from his old office into the new, certainly more prestigious one. So is the new CEO as slow in taking full charge of the company or is he simply taking his time to work out of a focus and determine key policy areas of his administration?

The latter seems very much the case as the Mr Adeyipo, in a move which could be understood to mean he’s finally settled into his exalted position, decided to present himself to the media.

“In 2019, a raw gold in form of an organisation was handed to me,” the CEO says.

“And the question then is, what is this raw gold? I see a whole lot of possibilities and potential in the organisation I currently run.”

Adewale Adeyipo laid out the businesses he had focused on since taking charge, beginning with the ATM Installation and Support.

“We’ve moved that transaction now from the regular buy and sell of ATM to what we call ‘ATM as a service engagement,'” he says. “The idea with that is also very simple. We own the ATM, all banks do is pay for every transaction that happens on that ATM. We deploy. We support and keep the ATM up. The bank is only meant to put cash into that ATM.”

With a target of installing 1000 ATM machines in 24 months, the CEO’s idea is to become an ATM hub and get banks out of ATM engagement thus limiting them to cash management. Currently, CWG has about three banks subscribing to this system.

On telecoms infrastructure

Mr Adeyipo believes telecommunications infrastructure business is one section CWG has done very well in so far.

“We provide IT infrastructure management to the three biggest telecoms in Nigeria today. We have over 200 resources with different skillsets sitting with these various organisations delivering superb services that they’ve paid for.”

The expansion question

On expansion within Africa, he maintains that spreading into other parts of Africa would be a focal point going forward.

“We acknowledge the need to expand beyond our current operations,” Mr Adewale Adeyipo admits.

“To do that is to work with strategic organisations and (forge) partnerships with organisations like ourselves to expand the scope of our delivery.”

He further explained that CWG’s track record of success in Nigeria can be replicated elsewhere in Africa and in the future, a major part of the company’s revenue will be expected to come from offshores.

As meter providers

On meter business, he says it has been a very successful one for the company as it got its license as a meter asset provider and also as a meter service provider.

“If I go by the current engagement that we have with some of this distribution companies, we might be looking at deploying over 200 to 500,000 metres before the end of Q3 2019. And we could have double that deployment from Q4 to Q1 2020.”

Collaborating that point on how smart metering works, Dan Bas explained that customers won’t need a token to recharge anymore.

“Once you pay, you receive your volume of electricity immediately,” he says.

He also explained that the smart meters will enable users switch off their meters from the comfort of their phones. This means you can switch off your meter from anywhere with the help of an app developed for the purpose. Thus, the metering business is one business CWG is taking very seriously.

Going forward

The question now is, what is the strategy going forward? What’s going to change? What’s going to be done differently? Mr Adeyipo doesn’t think much will change on the surface.

“The strategy is not far from what you’ve always known us to do,” he says. “We’re not completely getting away from everything we do in the past. The only thing that might be changing is, how we curate that segment where the various entities in CWG can function on their own and the same time also be able to align with the overall vision of the group.”

The Acting CEO of the biggest ICT solutions Company in Nigeria certainly sounded like a man who has figured out the company he now leads and is very prepared for the challenges ahead. One can only wish him a productive reign as he sets off to achieve his administration’s objective.