First off, Happy New Year!!!
When the clock struck 12:00 AM on the 1st of January 2021, the next sound that followed was a unanimous sigh of relief that 2020 was finally behind us. In truth, 2020 was quite a year! From climate change to the pandemic to worldwide protests, the year could not have rushed by faster for most people.
The coronavirus pandemic was and still is the biggest news worldwide. The virus, popularly known as COVID-19 — although was discovered in 2019 — shook the entire world in 2020. During the early stages, the world actually seemed to stop… with the new behaviour pattern that prompted people to keep a distance from each other, restricted movements, lockdowns, and the devastating news of deaths worldwide. On a global scale, the economy wasn’t looking good and businesses were plummeting by the minute.
As if by a stroke of luck, technology came to the rescue, bringing people together virtually, encouraging remote work and online collaboration; even robots taking over from humans to do tasks that would usually require physical contact — like transporting and delivering supplies.
Here in Nigeria, the story was the same. The coronavirus hit us halfway through the first quarter of the year and thus began our struggle with the global monster. Confirmed cases saw a huge spike in the earlier year and a nationwide lockdown of almost 3 months. Like other future-forward companies worldwide, we shut the physical doors to our offices and embraced remote work.
Even with the coronavirus on a rampage and still the biggest news in the country, there was a myriad of other events that shook the nation to its core — events like the nationwide #ENDSARS protest that had its own devastating results. In this article, we will be highlighting how we were able to scale as Seamfix: a people and a software development company.
2020: A year like no other
As we officially commence 2021, we feel proud and blessed when we look back at the journey of 2020; a year like no other! There were challenges, cheers, and times of reflection, all of which shaped us in disruptive but necessary ways.
Here are some of our notable achievements in 2020
Business Expansion
With growth as our watchword and a conscious refusal to allow the devastating events happening around us pull us down, we extended our business operations beyond Nigeria to Uganda, making us a multinational company — and be rest assured plans are underway to spread our branches even more in the coming years.
ISO Certifications
Still on our strive for growth, we put all the right things in place and were issued two ISO compliance certifications; ISO 27701 (privacy information management system) and ISO 27001 (information security management system). Seamfix is now the first organization in Nigeria and second in Africa to get the ISO 27701 (privacy information management system).
Awards and Recognitions
We believe that no matter how crazy things get, there is no excuse to relent on doing the best work and being the best version of you. Someone is always watching, even in the midst of a pandemic. During the course of the year, Seamfix was awarded ‘Software Development Company of the Year’ and ‘Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year’ by the Nigeria Technology Awards (NITA).
In addition, we received five recognitions from notable tech communities, ten media features, and because of dedication to knowledge development, we had over 30 published and featured articles.
Work, Work, Work and Impact
*Before the pandemic hit Nigeria* we captured and verified over 100 million biometric identities and digitized over 700 thousand documents across diverse sectors and industries in Africa using our data capture solution BioRegistra, and transcript digitization and processing solution, iTranscript. We also delivered solutions to help eliminate ghost workers for over 13 state governments.
In fostering our commitment to people and society, we exercised our Corporate Social Responsibility and delivered on two initiatives to foster seamless learning through the provision of educational tools to students, and promoting technology innovation through hackathon challenges for students, graduates, and national youth corp members.
2021: A year of great milestones
A big milestone for us and the rest of the world this year would be the end of the coronavirus pandemic; a happier year where we can hug our families, friends and colleagues without the fear of getting infected. The vaccine is a light at the end of a tunnel that we hope would restore life for all to a reasonable balance.
Looking forward to the nearest future as a company, we envision a year of great experiences, expansion, growth, and excitement; pandemic or not. Seamfix will always prioritize value over everything else with solutions that are poised to digitally transform the way businesses serve their customers so that they can continually deliver satisfaction to end-users this year and beyond.
Besides working hard, we will surely be entering into and adopting new technologies, markets, and products. We also have been successful in riding the technology wave that has been blown at us over the past years and we completely trust that we will continue to perform our very best.
One area our clients and customers should look forward to this year is a substantial improvement in the user experience and onboarding journey of our solutions. This we will do while carrying on our trait of providing maximum value and quality commitment.
Finally, the year 2020 was indeed a unique year and like other companies and even the society at large, we all encountered challenges and concerns beyond our control. If we’ve learned one thing as Seamfix, it is this; As a company, it isn’t just about delivering our product, it is about believing in our products and services, and ensuring value creation and satisfaction relentlessly.
Cheers to an amazing 2021!!!
One last question: If 2020, were a book what do you suggest the title would be?
