When the recent digital outage occurred at some of the Galaxy Backbone (GBB) customers (upstream providers/users) it raised some dust. But those familiar with the operations of a digital technology service provision knew that GBB is only coming into face-to-face with the reality of the unpredictability of technology. We enjoy enormous benefits from modern digital technology, such as speed of communication which leads to increased productivity, but one big problem organizations such as GBB face is getting its variety of upstream providers/customers to cope with the changing environment of digital technology and to adjust their work processes to integrate new tools—migrating from older tool to new ones. If some upstream customers fail to rapidly adjust, the consequences will be serious, including downtimes and outages.
When such incidents occur, what actions does GBB need to take? Blame the upstream providers? This would not be the professional action to take. The wisest thing to do is to fall back to effective communication to both direct and indirect customers—the public. It is necessary to assess the communication strategy of GBB and found it to be effective and professional. It is also necessary to x-ray the role of GBB in digital service provision to bring home the enormous task it is shouldering.
In line with effective crisis communication strategy, how effective was GBB’s response to the recent outage? The following questions are pertinent:
i. Did GBB acknowledge that there was an issue in the first place?
Yes they did so through a press release. This was the most important factor that prepared the mind of the public that GBB was ready to respond to the issues at hand. Under these kinds of circumstances being honest and transparent is the key to gaining and maintaining customer confidence.
ii. Secondly, I asked did they take responsibility?
The press release was clear about this and GBB did not get involved in any form of blame game with the upstream providers.
iii. Thirdly, what did it promise to do?
Again its press release promised that all hands were on deck to bring a solution to the outage and I noticed they did not promise a magic-wand solution — it was careful in not committing itself to a timeframe. I was busy looking to see whether they apologized or not. And, alas, there it was in the opening paragraph of the press release: “The Management of Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB) regrets the temporary outage of some of its services and the inconvenience being experienced by some of its customers across the country.” Finally, did they give updates? Again the press release affirmed this question positively.
Now let me turn to the role of the GBB in the digitization of Nigeria’s economy. A little bit of historical perspective may be a good starting point. About 15 years ago, the Federal Government, in its wisdom, saw the trends in the development of technology globally and in Nigeria, most especially, and decided to set up an organization that will help in coordinating and consolidating network and communications technology Infrastructure services and operations across government. It was in that light that Galaxy Backbone (GBB) Limited, an organization currently under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, was born.
Nigeria as a nation is undergoing its own fair share of digital transformation, which is currently being led by the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami. The man is very passionate and committed to the development of a Digital Nigeria and ensuring that Nigeria gets listed as one of the leading global economies in the world. GBB, a core organization under the Honourable Minister, is playing a vital role in helping public sector organisations transit into adopting digital technologies that are helping to enhance their operations.
GBB has consistently surmounted different hurdles in its operations, especially while operating in an environment with policies, hierarchical approvals and the different levels involved with moving both systems and manpower from one form of thinking and operations to another. Over the last two years, the organization has raised the bar in ensuring that its customers receive excellent services and are adequately informed and solutions quickly provided when challenges occur. The organization has continued to improve in its operations because of the committed leadership within the organization and the dedication of the highly skilled staff across all levels within the organization.
Now, in the last few days, GBB has experienced outage in some of its services, which adversely impacted on the operations of some organisations on its platform, notably the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). As a customer-centric organization with the interest of the customers at heart, the entire organization swung into action by informing all its customers that have been affected by this, the nature of the outage and the measures being taken to resolve it. It has continued to work with them towards the full resolution of the outage.
Lest we forget, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and Galaxy Backbone are sister agencies under the direct supervision of the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy. Both agencies have consistently collaborated with one another under the great leadership of the Honourable Minister and continue to do so even with the recent service upgrade being reported by NIMC, which has affected some of its services to the public. GBB is at the moment working closely with NIMC to ensure the complete resolution of this.
Finally, as technology services have evolved overtime with digital and cloud services being prevalent, Galaxy Backbone has also evolved in the provision of these services to its customers and stakeholders from across the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government. It is important to note that while Galaxy Backbone has a mandate to provide services across board, not all government establishments are under its network.
Thus we should be more circumspect about who is on GBB platform, lest we are beguiled by the rumour-mongers in our midst.
