Frank Atube, Seamfix: “not all companies understand the cultural and operational shift that comes with digitization”

Despite the benefits of the technology available today, companies still fail to grasp the importance of innovation.

While companies began to take cybersecurity more seriously in recent years, adopting measures such as VPNs to protect their remote staff, implementing automation to deal with some of the most daunting business processes is still something that many businesses are reluctant to do.

To discuss how adopting innovative technologies can enhance workflows and boost revenues, we sat down with Frank Atube, Chief Operating Officer at Seamfix – a company creating software that empowers businesses on their digital transformation journeys.

Let’s go back to the very beginning of Seamfix. Can you tell us more about your journey?

Seamfix’s journey started 14 years ago in 2007 with dedicated entrepreneurs driven by an immense passion to grow a world-class business through enterprise software development and business process re-engineering.

We began with a vision to enrich the lives of people through technology. This vision is seated in our core such that though our business offerings have evolved over time to suit the world's growing demand for technology, all our efforts and initiative has been geared towards that particular vision.

Several years later, we have grown at a rapid rate to become an innovative technology company with a strategic focus on digital transformation and process automation, we have provided platforms that enable millions of people and businesses to achieve more daily, and we have done this by creating and delivering innovative, excellent, cutting-edge technology solutions that provide value and meet clients’ needs.

As a leading provider of technology solutions, we prioritize value over anything else with solutions that digitally transform the way businesses serve and deliver satisfaction to their customers.

In summary, our journey has been one of growth, innovation, high-quality service delivery, and customer satisfaction.

Can you introduce us to what you do? What are the main challenges you help navigate?

At Seamfix, we help organizations to be more productive, make their customers happy, and boost revenues by automating the complex internal processes they struggle with that hinder their productivity and operational excellence. Over the years, we have gained strength providing solutions to different organizations across multiple sectors, empowering them, helping them to serve their customers better, and leading to overall productivity, customer acquisition, and revenue growth.

Based on our core capabilities and competencies tested and proven over time, the major challenges we help organizations navigate are within the areas of KYC Onboarding, Process Automation, Regulatory Compliance, Data Capture & Harmonization, and Identity Verification. We also intentionally identify specific challenges our customers face in their industries or sectors and create sustainable solutions that are tailored to meet their needs.

Why do you think certain companies still hesitate to digitize various processes?

One of the reasons why companies still hesitate to digitize various processes can be the lack of direction or purpose regarding their digitization need. Once the purpose and need for digitization have been clearly established, and the benefits of such a digitization process outlined, it becomes easier to take actionable steps to digitize existing processes.

Another reason could be the intensity of execution. While digitizing processes requires a carefully thought and planned out strategy, successful digital transformations require twice as much energy and resources in the execution of strategy. Unfortunately, not all companies understand the cultural and operational shift that comes with digitization, this can be overwhelming, hence the hesitation.

How do you think the recent global events affected your field of work?

What the recent global events have done for our field of work is emphasize the need for process automation and digital transformation using technology. Technology has helped businesses and organizations to seamlessly pivot and stay afloat during these times of rapid global changes.

This further validates our existence as an organization helping other organizations to automate their processes as it pushes us to innovate and constantly provide solutions to our evolving customer challenges and needs.

Besides quality customer support solutions, what other technologies do you think can significantly enhance business operations?

Global companies are gradually integrating emerging technologies like “Low-code technologies” to significantly enhance business operations. The essence of the adoption of low code technologies is to ensure organizations are more productive by accelerating their digital transformation process, managing costs, and boosting overall revenue.

In the competitive world of business, this technology equips organizations to up their ante and compete for market domination on an even field as it makes application development and integration easier for such organizations.

Talking about cybersecurity, what would you consider the key tools every company should implement nowadays?

Some cybersecurity tools companies should look at implementing nowadays are:

• 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

• Email Usage Policy

• Anti-Phishing

• Password Policy

• Intrusion Prevention Systems

• Network Access Controls

• Firewalls Protection

What tips would you give to companies looking to strengthen their relationships with their customers?

One of the ways companies can strengthen their relationships with their customers is to build trust and loyalty by delivering high-quality services and experiences such that their customers will always return for business. A lot of organizations might be offering the same services to the customers but a differentiating factor would always be the unique experiences customers can enjoy while interacting with an organization’s products and services.

Another way companies can strengthen their relationships with their customers is to focus on continuous improvement and always seek out customers’ feedback with respect to the products or services they offer. What this does is show the customers that they are appreciated and their best interests are always considered.

What other aspects of our daily lives do you hope to see automated or enhanced by technology in the upcoming years?

In the coming years, I see the way of working is more enhanced by technology, and also, the “qualification” for work fit will be refined in the coming years. The latter is part of the reasons we have started innovating on a new global concept – CARE, from our UK office.

Would you like to share what’s next for Seamfix?

Seamfix is currently in the growth and expansion phase. We are being quite intentional about expanding to the business to increase the customers and market we can reach, hence the reason for our recent expansion to the UK, UAE, and Uganda.

In terms of what is new and exciting for us, we are working on a global product (yet to be launched) solving a unique problem across multiple geographies. We are excited about this product and believe it will give us the reach and impact we desire as a company and help us contribute to some of our strategic 2030 goals which are; delivering value to 1Billion end customers & empowering over 10,000 organizations.

We are getting closer and aim to launch on or before Q4 2022.