Victor Banjo, director of Executive Education at Lagos Business School and former Chief People Officer at Green Africa, has urged Nigerian companies to rethink outsourcing as a strategic enabler rather than a quick route to cutting costs.
According to him, outsourcing staff is no longer about saving money but about building capacity, preserving culture, and driving long-term competitiveness, and therefore must be treated as a lever for resilience and growth.
He noted this during a forum organised by Peakware Group, a technology consulting company themed ‘Beyond Cost: Evaluating the Strategic Value of Talent Outsourcing – Opportunities and Challenges’.
During the discussion, human resource (HR) executives including Gbemi Adebayo, technology leader and founder of Peakware group, emphasised governance, partner alignment, and culture fit as critical to sustaining competitiveness in a fast-changing economy.
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Banjo, with over two decades’ experience across aviation, banking and FMCG, cautioned against excessive reliance on outsourcing staff. “Excessive outsourcing was one of the factors that led to Boeing’s production delays and safety issues. Be careful not to outsource what makes your people and culture unique,” he warned.
He cited the Lagos Business School model, where cleaners and security staff are retained in-house to preserve culture and service standards.
As Banjo said, “Outsourcing should enable strategic capability building, not just short-term fixes and can be a strategic tool for efficiency, flexibility and competitiveness.
“The success depends on selecting the right partners, setting fair expectations, and balancing outsourcing with internal capacity building”, he said.
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Chinasa Oriaku, Peakware’s Head of Operations, said outsourcing had evolved beyond a transactional function. “For too long, outsourcing has been narrowly defined by one word – cost. While cost efficiency remains important, the world of work has evolved. Today, outsourcing offers agility, innovation, scalability, and access to world-class talent,” she said.
The conference sought to challenge perceptions of outsourcing as merely administrative. HR executives highlighted how multinationals had successfully outsourced advertising and distribution to specialists in order to focus on core advantage, while urging Nigerian firms to apply similar discipline.
During the panel session titled ‘Outsourcing Talent Acquisition: Success Factors and Pitfalls’, Timipiri Odu, HR director at MRS Holdings Limited, said clarity about core roles was essential. “The first question to ask is, who are the people you are outsourcing? For us, cost has never been the main factor, it’s about doing what you are best at and outsourcing the rest,” she said, warning that brand-facing roles should never be handed over.
Stanley Eluwa, HR and corporate services director at Promasidor, agreed, stressing culture alignment. “If partners don’t understand your culture, they will bring in the wrong people, and the brand suffers,” he said. Both executives highlighted the risks of poor vendor compliance, especially with pensions and taxes, and the morale issues that arise when outsourced staff work alongside permanent employees with fewer benefits.
Patricia Aderibigbe, HR director at the Africa Finance Corporation, described outsourcing as a boardroom-level decision. Drawing on her experience in Europe, she said many large-scale projects failed because they were cost-driven. “When you outsource the job, you do not outsource your accountability. If the people don’t align with your culture, your brand will suffer,” she warned.
Aderibigbe also projected that artificial intelligence would reshape outsourcing. “AI will not simply take jobs; it will become our colleague. Leaders must ensure partners adopt technology to stay competitive. If you don’t, you risk becoming a dinosaur,” she said.
