By 
By Oluwaseun Ajayi
Absence of indigenous data analysis tools and products has meant that Nigeria does not practically exist in the global and fast evolving data analysis industry.
Data is the new oil and is the magnet for the global digital economy.
According to Michael Olafusi, CEO of UrBizEdge Limited, a registered Microsoft Excel consulting and enterprise solutions firm in Nigeria, one of the challenges Nigeria is facing in the data analysis market is funding of the evolution metrics including skill development.
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This has not allowed room for development in the industry, said Olafusi to IT Edge News in Lagos. UrBizEdge also offers services that include financial modelling, business intelligence, and data analysis
Olafusi, a data analyst expert, said that funding indigenous data analysis tools and products in the Nigeria data space has been a factor hindering the development of data market in Nigeria. He said the data analysis tools currently and commonly used in the country are built by foreigners which mostly suit their market system.
“We are missing in the data platform space because we do not have any indigenous products in our space All the tools in our country are developed abroad. Having our own experts to building our own products will be great and preferably suitable for our data market,” said Olafusi.
He added: “the data market space is dominated by big companies who are not looking forward to make profits yet, rather, they want to catch up market sight. For any Nigerian company to build a platform that will match their capability and become something other people will want to use, it must have to be heavily funded and maybe not make profits for like the next four or five years.
“Unfortunately, our market system does not encourage that. Because our market system is not the one where people go to the stock market and raise money and not worry about tax, GCU, and not worry about an investor to get his money back instantly like other foreign countries. That is why Tesla, iTechArt, InData Labs, ScienceSoft, Xplenty, IBM are doing so well amognst other big companies.”
According to one report, the industry that uses data analytics the most in Nigeria is the finance industry. But other industries are rapidly leveraging the skills of data analysts to optimise service delivery and improve corporate profits. They include business intelligence, transportation, entertainment, healthcare, retail, and telecommunications.
According to PayScale, a leading salary portal in Nigeria managed by myJobMag, data analysts are becoming a regular feature of high-income earning careers based on a survey conducted in July 2018.
