African HR software gap drives our expansion push, CEO says

Nigerian companies are still running complex payroll and workforce systems on foreign-built software that fails to match local realities, creating inefficiencies that have fuelled the rise of homegrown alternatives, according to Xceed365HR’s chief executive officer and co-founder, Chuma Chukwujama.

For decades, firms with hundreds or thousands of employees have relied on global HR platforms designed for Europe and North America, forcing Nigerian businesses to bolt on manual processes to handle tax compliance, pension remittances, and fragmented banking systems.

“Processes often begin in software but end manually,” Chukwujama said, describing a gap that has persisted across industries.

That mismatch is now underpinning the firm’s growth strategy as it pushes its flagship product, Xceed365HR, across Africa. The cloud-native platform, first launched in 2015, was built specifically for large enterprises navigating multi-jurisdiction payroll, shifting regulations, and complex workforce structures.

Chukwujama, who began his career in the late 1990s helping banks digitise operations, said years of building bespoke systems for telecoms, schools and corporates revealed recurring bottlenecks: compliance challenges, poor scalability and disconnected workflows. Those insights led to a pivot from custom software to a unified HR product.

Today, Xceed365HR is used by some of Nigeria’s largest financial institutions and corporations, providing end-to-end workforce management from recruitment to salary disbursement.

The platform is now evolving into an artificial intelligence-driven system designed to support decision-making, rather than simply automate processes.

The company is betting that demand for locally tailored enterprise software will grow as Africa’s workforce expands.

By 2050, one in four working-age people globally will be African, yet much of the software managing that labour force remains designed for other markets.

“Global providers have largely treated Africa as an afterthought,” Chukwujama said, pointing to gaps in handling multiple currencies, regulatory volatility and weak integration with local financial systems.

Unlike broad-based HR platforms that cater to small startups and large firms alike, Xceed365HR targets organisations with at least 500 employees—where payroll complexity and compliance risks intensify. The company says its pricing also undercuts global competitors while offering deeper localisation.

As African enterprises scale, Chukwujama sees a shift underway: from adapting foreign systems to building infrastructure designed for the continent from the ground up.

Wasiu Alli

Wasiu Alli is a business, economics cum data journalist with strong expertise covering macro trends, capital markets, government policies, corporate earnings and comparative economics analysis. Alli turns raw data into trends that not only tells compelling stories but nudges investors to make valued and informed decisions. He’s an alumnus of Lagos State University and trained at Lagos Business School. He formerly heads the Companies and Markets desk at BusinessDay where he writes and supervises the production of well researched articles on earnings updates, corporate sectoral comparisons, market intelligence as well as interviews with C-suite executives.