IBM team of consultants support three Ghanaian institutions

Accra, March 29, GNA - An international team of consultants from IBM's Corporate Service Corps (CSC) programme, has assisted three Ghanaian institutions to improve efficiency and effectiveness through utilising the latest technologies and business processes. The 11-member team spent a month working on pro bono basis on projects ranging from Information and Technology governance to website management and accounting solutions.

Beneficiary institutions were Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Tema Technical Institute and Tema SOS Children Village. Mr Joe Mensah, Country General Manager, IBM Ghana, said the team's activities were a demonstration of IBM's desire to offer expertise to the benefit of local communities. "IBM Ghana is proud to host the 100th team of the Corporate Service Corps initiative. IBM is committed to supporting the public sector in Ghana to leverage advanced technologies and processes to transform the delivery of services in the country," he said. The team that worked at ECG proposed an IT Governance Model to help standardise IT systems and ensure consistency in management. It assisted ECG with the design of a pilot process for the effective management of incidents such as power cuts and equipment failure and helped to implement a pilot IT Help Desk to provide technical support to the company's staff.

The consultants at Tema Technical Institut e helped to increase the effectiveness of the institute's software and implemented a system for maintaining student and staff information, constructed a website to increase visibility amongst the national and international audiences and developed an e-catalogue system for quick access to administrative files and an automatic system for generating audit reports for institute's accounts department.

The team worked with Tema SOS Children's Village to develop a website to enable it, interact better with current and prospective students, alumni, parents, teachers and members of the public. It also trained the SOS teaching and administrative staff on website management and development of an e-learning platform. Heads of the beneficiary institutions lauded the initiative and praised the team for the work done in the relatively short period of 16 days.

"In just under a month, the IBM consultants enabled ECG accomplish what would have taken us possibly a year to do. These systems will enable us to deliver more cost effective and efficient services to our customers," said Julius Kpekpena, Director of Engineering, Electricity Company of Ghana.

He said ECG would follow up with the IBM recommendations to ensure the provision of a viable service to all.

The CSC is a global IBM initiative designed to provide small businesses, educational institutions and non-profit organisations in growth markets with sophisticated business consulting and skills development to help improve local conditions and foster job creation.