We are so excited to introduce you to Dara, Descasio’s new corporate mascot!

Choosing The Right Type of Mascot For Our Brand

A brand mascot is a visual tool for any company to connect their client base. It creates relationships with users and takes a brand name to a whole new level. That’s why when we started this journey, we took it very seriously. We spent a long time, trying to decide what kind of brand mascot we wanted and after months of planning we can proudly introduce to you our brand mascot – Dara.

You’ll be seeing Dara on our website, social media and even at events. Dara’s role is to personify the spirit of Descasio while symbolizing automation and embodying simplicity. Think of Dara as a helpful, friendly face that’s also a visual representation of our corporate personality and culture– a source of pride for our employees and a symbol of trust for our customers. Like Descasio, Dara is versatile and innovative.

What’s Next for Dara?

The Descasio brand strives to be unique, original and inspiring. As a company, we stand for empowerment, inspiration and a strong human connection through technology.

The Descasio brand is relevant to both businesses and individuals, by bringing technology to your doorstep; we also serve large, medium and small companies. We are serious professionals but also down to earth, to better understand who you are and how we can empower you.

Creating Dara was an important process for our rebrand. Sure, our logo is nice to look at, but it’s not the same as a human face. Dara is a reflection of Descasio’s personality and character, she is the face we want to come to mind when you think of Descasio.

This is just the beginning, a stepping-stone into what’s to come. We will see Dara in lots of situations, going on many adventures to adopt technology and create success stories, which we’ll share with everyone. Thanks for joining in for the ride!

Team Descasio

Through the use of specialized software, you can eliminate repetitive tasks from your team’s workload.

As technology continues to advance, mankind is finding more efficient ways to use emerging technology to simplify and eliminate repetitive tasks. One such advancement is the ominously named robotic process automation, which leverages software to make repetitive tasks a thing of the past. While RPA is more common in the enterprise realm, small businesses can also utilize this emergent tech.

What is Robotic Process Automation?

Though its name might evoke images of an uprising of metal and lasers, robotic process automation is anything but that. At its core, RPA is a piece of “robot” software that lets users reduce the number of repetitive tasks they need to do on a computer by mimicking those actions.

From timecard management to data entry, RPA tools eliminate the need for employees to spend their time on computer-based, routine tasks. Instead, employees can focus their energies where they’re actively needed, increasing overall productivity.
How does robotic process automation work?
Since RPA is not powered by artificial intelligence, it needs some level of human interaction to work. It’s after that initial setup that the magic happens.

To get RPA working, a person must first teach it the actions that will be automated on the computer or virtual machine. Whenever an application is opened, a mouse click is initiated, a new task is started, or some other action is taken in an application, an RPA can be taught to do those same actions as a set of programmable rules and instructions. After each step is mapped out, the program can run those manual tasks back, recreating each action with incredible speed and precision.

What are the benefits of Robotic Process Automation?

Along with the reduction in repetitive tasks and the ability to free up employees to be productive in other areas of your business, RPA has some other inherent benefits that any business would find valuable.

Reduced costs

Automation in its many forms is well known for its ability to cut operating costs as a sort of digital workforce. If you no longer need an employee to handle a certain task because of automation, you are spending less money on that task. Similarly, RPA can cut costs that can be due to human error, since the software will handle its functions accurately as long as it was taught correctly.

More engaged employees

Doing repetitive tasks for hours on end can be a mentally and emotionally draining experience. Implementing an RPA robot to handle boring tasks frees up employees to work on more engaging activities that increase their attentiveness, boost morale and, in the case of businesses that regularly deal with the public, provide a better overall customer experience.

Want to find out how Robotics Process Automation can help you reduce your overhead and increase your bottom line? Talk to us today

The fascinating advent of digital transformation represents a seismic shift that will impact companies, business paths, and entire economic structures.

The fascinating advent of digital transformation represents a seismic shift that will impact companies, business paths, and entire economic structures.

The question today is, what digital tools should you start diving into in order to get fully prepared to master this incredibly powerful transformation, hone new skills, and boost your digital swagger? By reading this article on the best digital transformation tools, you will get access to the top 5 best tools you should explore to ride the digital transformation wave in style.

What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is the brand-new utilisation of digital tech to deal with typically complex problems. This series of digital solutions can actually craft whole new types of creative innovation, instead of just serving as an enhancement or an add-on to what already exists. This change represents the integration of immensely complex digital technologies into all the different arenas of a corporation.

The expected result? To ensure there will be crucial changes in terms of how businesses effectively operate and how they can ultimately boost the value they give the end-customer.

Digital transformation can also be seen as a cultural change. Why? Because it will consistently require that all businesses challenge their own perceptions and ideas, putting the status quo to test every single day.

What is the aim of Digital Transformation?
This cultural shape-shifting phenomenon has one goal: to ensure digitized information creates methods that let organizations become more efficient. It’s really all about allowing companies to understand that – in order for them to stay relevant and still have a business in the next 5 years – they need to up the ante, become faster, better, more tech-oriented, and more knowledgeable of the power of data.

What are the biggest challenges facing Digital Transformation?
There are many challenges when it comes to digital transformation. The most important one is what is known as employee pushback. What’s this all about? It’s about understanding human beings like routine and structure and that this type of change will obviously impact that tried-and-tested method. What to do? Businesses should ensure they keep their employees informed of all the different changes that will impact their day-to-day.

Here’s a list of other digital transformation challenges that are sure to take a lot of hours of sleep from some of the world’s most forward-thinking CEOs:

  • Difficulty to find expertise to lead the digital boom.
  • Resistance from top brass (usually more conservative and resilient in their ways)
  • Lack of a budget assigned to digital transformation.
  • Lack of full-blown visibility when it comes to the end user experience.
  • Highly-complexified IT infrastructure that makes it impossible to perform needed changes.
  • Budgetary restrictions that make companies lag behind.

An easy choice
As technology change increases, industries will continue to be forced to change. Corporations that regard and pursue digital transformation in a multi-dimensional way will find greater success than those that don’t.

Ready to find out more?- Sign up to use our proprietary Digital Assessment Tool and assess your company’s digital readiness to transform its business model, operational processes, products and services, and customer experience. Have questions? Contact us

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Our constant quest to offer premium and tailored solutions to serve YOU played a huge role in taking this decision which then evolved into a detailed examination into our company, industry…

“In the last year, Descasio has successfully diversified and scaled its product and service offerings with the goal of broadening our footprint across the continent,” said Dele Nedd, CEO of Descasio. “Our brand identity and website better reflect our market-leading position and clearly demonstrates the comprehensive lifecycle of services we bring to our clients across the continent.”

Descasio, one of the leading providers of technology solutions and digital transformation strategies in West Africa, announced today the launch of its new corporate brand identity. After 10 years in the tech space, these changes come at a time when the company is evolving its product and service offerings and expanding its global reach.

“In the last year, Descasio has successfully diversified and scaled its product and service offerings with the goal of broadening our footprint across the continent,” said Dele Nedd, CEO of Descasio. “Our brand identity and website better reflect our market-leading position and clearly demonstrates the comprehensive lifecycle of services we bring to our clients across the continent.”

The newly redesigned website features easy-to-navigate pages while providing a seamless user experience. The site also better highlights the full suite of services Descasio offers.

“While our name remains the same, our logo, business focus and value proposition have changed significantly to better represent who Descasio is and the innovative and modern technology solutions that we provide to our clients. The time for transformational change is now and we aim to lead in every capacity” commented Gbemi Ajayi, Chief Strategy Officer.

In line with this new direction for Descasio, Chief Innovation Officer, Femi Olugbesan stated “Descasio’s rebranding is not just aesthetics. In addition to the new graphic identity, our first proprietary product to be launched into the market will no doubt change the face of technology on the continent”.

Descasio has grown from a single location office in 2010 to offices and partnerships across the continent today with expansion plans. Currently, the company provides an array of technology-driven solutions, including Digital Transformation, Security Optimisation, Cloud Services Management, Robotics Process Automation, Technology Consulting and Analytics and Reporting.

While these changes come at a time when the world is in recovery mode, post-Covid19, Sales Director, Nehita Fashe pointed out now was the opportune time for the rebrand process to be unveiled “We are distant from the traditional model that began 10 years ago and have taken this opportunity to evolve and improve our approach to market as a whole. Despite how far we’ve come, we remain steadfastly dedicated to innovating at the very edge of sustainability and technology.”

About the logo
The new logo rebrand is rooted in the company’s commitment to ‘Transform Businesses through Technology’. The fonts of the new logo are smooth and steady, which elucidate Descasio brand conception of ‘modern and dynamic’. The deep blue represents ‘Technology’ and the orange circular icon represents ‘the change and transformation that our clients go through when using our services’, the two combined implies Descasio’s spirit of constant exploration and innovation on the way of Technology. Our new look embodies our commitment to innovate every day like it’s Day One.

About Descasio
Descasio is one of Nigeria’s leading B2B technology solutions companies enabling small and medium-sized businesses, enterprise and public sector organisations to expand, digitise, optimise revenue and save costs through the use of digital technology since 2010. Please visit contact us to explore the new website and learn more about the products and services we offer.

Since its inception, First Bank of Nigeria has regarded its people and partnerships central to its long-term success. For more than 125 years, this pioneering Nigerian institution has been steadily pursuing its vision of empowering people by providing the best financial services possible. Now, Microsoft Teams has made it easier for the company to realize that goal with a single platform where thousands of employees across the country can work together simultaneously and efficient.

For an organization of First Bank’s size and prominence, effective communication is one of the most important ingredients of success. Staying connected takes work, especially when teams are dispersed and employees are frequently on the move. “Our department is at one of the head office annexes, and as most of our internal stakeholders are head office departments, we attend quite a number of meetings, explains Folake Ani-Mumuney, Group Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications at First Bank.

Before, bank employees were using a variety of tools, including email, phone, text messages, Office Communicator, and Microsoft Skype for Business to connect and keep the business running smoothly. The multitude of communication streams and solutions would sometimes create inefficiencies and didn’t cover all aspects of effective collaboration, like online document sharing and co-editing. “With Skype, you could have a meeting, but working together as a team, having documents shared in one place and people collaborate on it at the same time was difficult,” says Folasade Ajanaku, Service Delivery Manager at Descasio, a local Microsoft partner retained by First Bank to carry out the implementation.

When the need for a new solution became apparent, First Bank opted for Teams. “Our evaluation showed that Microsoft Teams had the features we desired for overall enhancement of business efficiency, hence the decision to go with it,” explains Akeem Adesina, CIO at First Bank. “The project was part of the strategic initiative leveraging technological advancement to drive and achieve business goals with a productive and conducive workspace for business efficiency and enhanced productivity.”

Communicating with less noise, more productivity
Although most employees were satisfied with Skype for Business as a communication tool, the main challenge was to show the advantages of Teams, creating “stickiness” from day one. To build employees’ confidence in the solution, First Bank adopted a step-by-step approach, starting with the deployment of Teams in the Financial Control department. “When Teams was first introduced in the Bank, there was the usual resistance to change. Adoption has, however, been on a steady rise,” notes Ani-Mumuney.

Although most employees were satisfied with Skype for Business as a communication tool, the main challenge was to show the advantages of Teams, creating “stickiness” from day one. To build employees’ confidence in the solution, First Bank adopted a step-by-step approach, starting with the deployment of Teams in the Financial Control department. “When Teams was first introduced in the Bank, there was the usual resistance to change. Adoption has, however, been on a steady rise,” notes Ani-Mumuney.

In every single department, the new tool created value that extended way beyond essential video conferencing features. In the past, First Bank employees dealt with considerable email noise, slowing down task execution. Now, Teams covers all aspects of holding meetings and sharing documents.

Cultivating staff engagement
With time, the solution has built effective, enterprise-wide staff awareness and engagement through new, better ways of working, according to Ajanaku. “First Bank had each person work on a document separately, and there was one employee who would stay after work to collate each individual’s feedback and work done by everyone on the team.” This way of working devoured time, led to errors, and caused enormous friction. Staff work-life balance also suffered. Teams has changed all this by providing First Bank’s employees with an enhanced mobility and agility that has proved especially invaluable for employees located upcountry, outside metropolitan areas.

Now, employees no longer have to travel to bank headquarters to participate in meetings. Since Teams is compatible with several different operating systems, they can join from anywhere, and work on any device. According to Adesina, the application’s comprehensive sharing and collaboration support led to a significant reduction in the risk, time, and cost of travel for meetings and workshops. “With Teams, there has been over 10 percent reduction in the cost of travel and hotel accommodation for internal meetings, training, and workshops,” he adds.

Building connections beyond corporate walls
Currently, Teams is the main internal collaboration tool within the company. However, several bank departments also use it to streamline external communications, such as the procurement team. “They looked to use Teams for communication with their external vendors. So, we also showed them how to add guests in Teams,” says Ajanaku.

Going further with Teams, First Bank has gained the opportunity to expand its organizational reach and engage a broader audience. The company’s 125th anniversary was the perfect occasion to test the tool’s live streaming capacity. “The Anniversary Lecture by Daron Acemoglu was streamed live to enable staff to watch the events, as they were held during working hours and we were not all able to attend,” explains Ani-Mumuney.

“It was a week-long program, and First Bank had many events scheduled to have its customers, users, and staff who were outside the country join the celebration. The bank used Teams broadcast to stream that event to all of these groups,” adds Ajanaku.

Envisioning an exciting future
By now, First Bank of Nigeria has incorporated Teams into all of its business processes. For Adesina, the results couldn’t have been more spectacular. “Any organization in need of an efficient collaboration tool that can transform work and make employees feel like doing more should consider Microsoft Teams. Our experience with Teams has been simply amazing.”

Looking forward, the bank aims to integrate the solution with third-party applications, further strengthening team cohesion, and empowering every employee to work toward common goals.

At Descasio, we believe that companies shouldn’t have to pay millions of naira to be able to keep up with technology that will help keep them in business. That is why, we offer a number of solutions that are compatible across several industries at competitive prices.

Recognized by top industry analysts and professionals, Descasio’s robust set of products and services are well-suited to improve operational efficiency in any business.

Fidelity Bank makes a change
Fidelity Bank is a full-fledged commercial bank operating in Nigeria, with over 5 million customers who are serviced across its 250 business offices and various other digital banking channels. Focused on select niche corporate banking sectors as well as Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Fidelity Bank is rapidly implementing a digital based retail banking strategy which has resulted in exponential growth in savings deposits over the last Six (6) years, with over 40 percent customer enrollment on the Bank’s flagship mobile/internet banking products.

Challenge
The banking industry is one of the most vibrant, fast-growing sectors in today’s economy. With a burgeoning client list of individuals and businesses, the increased demand for banking services created a surge of new market players. To keep pace with the industry and remain competitive, the team at Fidelity knew they had to act quickly in a continuously changing market.

‘’We realized we faced several key problems, that would hamper the way we did business’’ Michael Ogunlade, team lead, system administration technology. “ Chief among the problems we faced was the fact that we were still processing our work manually. Which meant we operated a basic lift and shift model, which was prone to human error, due to the amount of man hours it took to complete tasks”

With a system that couldn’t keep up with the industry and no room to maneuver, the Fidelity Bank team knew it was time to give modernization a chance.

Solution
To solve their problems, Fidelity Bank searched for a team that would understand the complexity of their business and most importantly bring a swift solution. With a decade’s worth of experience Descasio was able to resolve both questions.

The goal of Descasio was to move in and not simply be a technology partner but to also help Fidelity change the way they worked. The first port of call was for Descasio to begin a full assessment of the systems that were already in place. This was followed up by identifying key areas of concern and finally providing an extensive overview of the entire IT infrastructure and submitting a report and recommendations on the best cloud migration options available. One thing was clear, Microsoft Azure ticked all the right boxes for the project.

The migration process to Microsoft Azure was planned and conducted by Descasio. After performing a thorough review of the systems in place, Descasio opted to migrate Devbank’s data assets through a lift -and – shift technique. This migration process allowed multiple systems to be moved simultaneously and during ongoing operations, without any significant interruption allowing for business continuity.

By the end of the entire process, staff of Dev Bank were able to take control of the system from day one, with minimal training.

Results
Descaiso was able to identify an implementable approach and system for migration. “We saw the effectiveness of Descasio. They were able to gather data quickly and effectively which allowed us to review the cost implications of the Iaas migration approach and properly analyze the RTO and the TCO of the chosen lift and shift approach to cloud migration strategy’’ ’ said Micheal.

With the help of Descasio, Fidelity Bank has been able to maintain their competitive edge and focus on their motto of keeping their word to their customers.

Recognized by top industry analysts and professionals, Descasio’s robust set of products and services are well-suited to improve operational efficiency in any business.

At Descasio, we believe that companies shouldn’t have to pay millions to keep up with technology that will help keep them in business. That is why, we offer a number of technology solutions that are compatible across several industries at competitive prices. Recognized by top industry analysts and professionals, Descasio’s robust set of products and services are well-suited to improve operational efficiency in any business.

DevBank makes a change
The Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) was conceived by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) in collaboration with global development partners to address the major financing challenges facing Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria.

Challenge
As a fast-growing business and a potential target audience of 37 million MSMEs. The team at Devbank knew they could no longer rely on their old enterprise package solution (Veritas Netbackup). “We were constantly looking for ways to improve our ability to backup and store all our data in a safe and secure way”, said Abiodun Ijaware, Head, Information Technology. Several issues came up as DevBank tried to navigate the system they had in place, but two key issues stood out for Devbank;
1. The high costs associated with the platform
2. The cumbersome management levels needed to operate efficiently.
Given all the challenges faced in a fast-paced business environment Devbank knew it was time for change

Solution
Small daily and weekly checks whenever necessary can make all the difference in spotting problems and addressing them before they get out of hand. Stay vigilant, and what will undoubtedly start off alienating and challenging will eventually become simple and second nature. In the long term, your business’s security and health will be all the better for it.

After meeting with several vendors, Devbank settled on Descasio as a technology partner. Descasio was able to show us how moving to Microsoft Azure cloud, would not only solve all the issues we faced but that the system was scalable and flexible at an affordable cost.

The migration process to Microsoft Azure was planned and conducted by Descasio. After performing a thorough review of the systems in place, Descasio opted to migrate Devbank’s data assets through a lift -and – shift technique. This migration process allowed multiple systems to be moved simultaneously and during ongoing operations, without any significant interruption allowing for business continuity.

By the end of the entire process, staff of Dev Bank were able to take control of the system from day one, with minimal training.

Resolution
Having worked with the Descasio team, the Devbank team were able to experience what the industry calls ‘the real deal” when it comes to service delivery. “With Descasio we have been able to easily meet our compliance and regulatory objectives for backup and recovery while also having time to focus on strategic objectives.’’ Said Abiodun.

With the help of Descasio, Devbank has been able to get a swift resolution to the issues that they faced previously. Not only was their overhead significantly reduced but the new Microsoft Azure cloud system allowed them to focus on their core business of investing in Nigerians.

For over a decade, Unity Bank Plc has served individuals, businesses, and the public sector of Nigeria’s economy in the areas of investment, savings, and other retail banking operations, from over 200 locations within the country and with its team of more than 2,000 employees.

In delivering optimal service to its customers, the bank has the obligation to ensure that responses to customer demands are right on time. This, to a large extent, helps to guarantee customer retention and secure word of mouth publicity which has proven to be the best form of advertisement, having the ability to increase customer loyalty by 16 to 24% according to the Wharton School of Business.

The impact of delays in service delivery goes beyond affecting public reputation but can also lead to loss of revenue, which was the case for Unity Bank. “Whenever there is downtime from our datacenter, there is always a major impact on the business group services running on the server. This directly impacts the delivery timelines of our services to our customers and invariably translates to a loss of revenue of over $10,000 per hour when the recovery process is not managed effectively.” said, Ugochukwu Aku, Head, IT Infrastructure, Unity Bank.

Although a lot of manual work was put into managing our applications at every event of downtimes, it wasn’t enough to meet the business objective.
In addition to this, the bank spent a lot of time and money on the procurement of additional hardware to meet the demands for hosting new products and services geared towards catering to the needs of its customers.

The problems encountered by Unity Bank pointed clearly to the need of hosting its core critical application on a cloud-based solution, one that Descasio had the requisite competency for providing.

Unity bank came to learn of this competency when Descasio approached them with an Application Modernization workshop which was set up in collaboration with Microsoft.

“During the online workshop, Descasio showcased the value of having a seamless solution that requires less human input and delivers in a timely fashion. Descasio also showed the flexibility and reliability of hosting our application on Microsoft Azure.”
“We reviewed Descasio’s proposition of migrating our application to Azure alongside other business continuity processes at the time and came to a conclusion that Azure presented more value.” Explained Ugochukwu.

The Result

Since the migration to Microsoft Azure App Services, Unity Bank has been able to meet several of its objectives. Primarily, they have been able to overcome the management burden that previously existed when the app was hosted in their on-premise infrastructure. This has translated to the provision of a more solidified service experience to customers and a huge reduction in losses as a result of downtimes.

Speaking on other benefits of Microsoft Azure app services to the financial institution, Ugochukwu said, “This solution really helped us in having successful app deployments. Unity Bank has also enjoyed easy scalability as they can now develop new applications and scale resources to meet the demands with ease and in no time. Ultimately the solution has helped us to improve our overall business performance at a reduced cost.

“Today, our IT team has more time to focus on other directly related bank projects as most of the previous issues we have had as regards applications sitting on physical infrastructures are now being taken care of.”

Commenting on the bank’s experience with Descasio, Ugochukwu said “Descasio was not picked based on preference or relationship, they were picked by the bank based on competency shown with the deployment of app services. We as an organization ensure to work with competent partners as this directly translates to the quality of service delivered to our client.”

“We have enjoyed great customer experience, an excellent display of product knowledge, and an utterly reliable service delivery from Descasio and will recommend both Descasio and Microsoft to all organizations looking to implement an effective, secure, and reliable IT solution as we have,” he added.