A Nigerian answer to Google apps

Small and medium-scale businesses need a sophisticated intranetsoftware with a good sales and customer relations manager to help them identifyand target their best clients, manage marketing campaigns, optimiseinformation sharing by multiple employees, and provide employees with theinformation needed to understand clients needs, amongst other things.

Set of tools

"Precurio is a set of tools, productivity and communicationtools for small businesses. It helps you create an intranet, so that means youhave your employee directory, task manager, contact manager, you just have alot of little documents management tools that organisations would need, webundled everything at the same time as one and at the time called it an intranet suite, thatis what Precurio is," says Shola in defining what Precurio in effect is.

In explaining the difference between Precurio and Google appsfor businesses, Mr Akinlade pointed out that Google apps is an online platform,during Precurio is offline, which means you download it and run it on your ownserver, in this way running it locally. "Precurio has more collaboration tools thanGoogle apps, and Google apps is primarily email, document creation and somesimple parts", he explained furthermore.

"We are on different path and different market, however our straightway aimis to get on the Google apps marketplace as there are close to 30 millionbusinesses online, so that companies that use Google apps already can leverageon Google apps and Precurio which is an offline collaboration tool," he concluded.

As normal with any upcoming business, funding was a majorchallenge, taking into consideration that they are young people as so then.

Being Nigerians and a Nigerian company do have its owndisadvantage the duo said, adding that losing about two customers whom thoughloved their product said they couldn't do business with any Nigerians. Somereact to the GMT + 1 time zone difference. But some others express theirhappiness at the venture of the duo, letting out that they watch Nigerianmovies; they even ask to know the meaning of phrases they encounter inNollywood movies they have watched.