Forem: Tobe Obiakor

Starting my MBA

Tobe Obiakor — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 19:09:09 +0000

After many years of working as a software developer, I started building my own product. Given my career trajectory, you might have guessed what kind of product it is: an HRIS (Human Resources Information System).

After struggling to sell it and seeing some of my colleagues struggle with sales, I took the advice of my friend Tim to enroll for an MBA at Rome Business School. I wanted to sell my product. My former boss will say that if you build the best software in the world and cannot sell it, it will end up on your laptop.

With the goal of becoming a salesperson (or business leader), I enrolled for the one-year executive program, and it has been nothing short of eye-opening.

The pre-masters training, which is a set of four short courses with an assessment at the end of each, prepares you with the soft skills needed for the MBA. These courses: Time Management, Basic Accounting, Quantitative Analysis, and Speed Reading are the foundation upon which the MBA will be built.

The program I opted for is the online version because after working remotely for the past 3 years, I cannot afford to spend my weekends in Lagos traffic.

Last week, we officially started our classes. On Saturday, we started with Global Marketing Management. This seven-hour session, though long with breaks in between, helped us understand the difference between domestic, international, and global marketing and see the big picture of a product's movement from the local to the global scene.

Sunday was a four-hour marathon in Geo-Economy and Geo-Politics for Business. This was so interesting that we could not go for breaks! We had two breakout sessions with case studies that helped us understand how geopolitical stand-offs and natural issues between world powers could affect the global economy. We also looked at different trade routes and organizations and how they affect trades and supply across the globe.

I may end up pivoting from tech to business. I would keep my fingers crossed for now. I promised my career advisor Ejiro that I would write more. This is me trying to keep that promise.

Deploying Strapi on Render free plan

Tobe Obiakor — Thu, 04 May 2023 09:09:51 +0000

This post assumes that you have already installed the Strapi backend on your local machine. If you have not, you can do that by following the instructions on the link below.
Install strapi and create new project
After installation, create a new user and create your collections.
In your command line navigate to the root folder and initialize git and push to remote origin. If you do not know how to go about it, you can do so following the instruction below.
Adding locally hosted code to GitHub
login to render and click on the new button

Select Web Service.
Connect to your GitHub or GitLab Account. and click on the connect button beside the repo you selected

Enter a unique name for your web service

Change the start command from yarn start to yarn develop. this is to enable you create collection on the production environment

Leave every other thing as is and click on create Web Service.

The deployment starts

Select Environment from the left navigation pane and click on the Add Secret File button

enter the file name as .env, click on the eye icon

copy the content of the .env file in your root folder on local and paste it in the textarea.
change the value of DATABASE_FILENAME to /data/strapi.db from .tmp/data.db
click on done

Click on the save changes button.
Click on Events on the left navigation pane to monitor your deployment.

Select the deployment by clicking on the deploy text.
the log should display like this when the deployment is done.

visit your url/admin to access the strapi backend deployed

How Leave Planning and Management increases Employee productivity

Tobe Obiakor — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 05:50:23 +0000

All work and no play makes Jack dull. The same can be said of employees who are so engrossed in work that they do not take out time to rest. The resultant effect is a burned out employee who become distraught with work and starts making mistakes that they ordinarily would not make. Sunday evening becomes a time of huge scare because work resumes on Monday.
While goal getting and target achievement are topics that awash our screens on social media, little or no emphasis has been put on resting as a means of getting the best of an employee who is in fact a human being.
I have friends who are in their twenties and early thirties and have developed a high blood pressure because the work from week to week, month to month and year to year without applying for vacation or resting. They are commended in their organizations as exemplary staff but the inverse of this is a deterioration of their health without their knowledge. It is when their body shuts down and they are forced to visit the hospital that they discover their health challenges that they now have to manage as a result of not taking a rest.
Organizations should encourage leave planning and leave utilization by staff. Staff should plan their leave at the beginning of the fiscal year and rewarded for a 100% leave utilization at the end of the fiscal year.
Some of the effects of vacationing are

You return refreshed and re-energised
Your brain that has been stuck in a routine makes connection between different ideas.
Taking a step back from work and vacationing in a different environment helps you see things from a broader view point.
A proper vacation helps us reset and remotivate.
You boost your performance. HR data of 125,000 US employees found that high performing employees took an average of 19 vacation days, compared to individuals with lower marks who took only 14.

How can HR managers effectively track leave planning and employee leave utilization? A leave management system.
A good leave management system should have the following main features;

Leave planning.
Self service for employee leave application.
Leave approval workflow.
Leave utilization report - visuals and excel.
Notifications.

Are you struggling with managing tired and unmotivated staff? HCMatrix is a web based Human Capital management system helps HRs manage employees leave life cycle and allows employees to apply for leave and view their leave utilization. Visit https://hcmatrix.com for more information.

Work fatigue in Lagos

Tobe Obiakor — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 08:33:27 +0000

Every young person is expected to have something doing, no matter how small. In Nigeria its like a cycle; you are trained through school and are expected to start working after school to support your parents and younger siblings and if you lose the family's breadwinner you are expected to fend for yourself.

A lot of us are thrust in to the harsh reality of life without being prepared for it. As a student you cannot wait to finish your schooling and start life on your own, have your own place, your own car and enjoy life. A few are lucky to live out their dreams, many more are faced with the opposite. Many get jobs after plenty aptitude tests and interviews and have to commute to work daily.

The Lagos metropolitan is divided into the Mainland and Island axis. As simple as this may sound it is quite complex. Anyplace located after the three bridges (Eko bridge, Carter bridge and Third mainland bridge) is seen as Island and anyplace that you do not have to cross any of these bridges to get to, is seen as Mainland. Most businesses are either located or headquartered In Ikoyi, Victoria Island or Lekki, a few are located in the Yaba or Ikeja Area of the metropolis.

The Irony of this is that most of the workers of these businesses cannot afford to live close to their work place and have to travel to the aforementioned locations daily. The cost of living around your work place is most of the times higher than your gross pay before tax and other deductions except for a few from well to do families who come from the family house or whose rent is paid by their rich parents.

People have to leave their home as early as 4am and get home as late as 11pm as the teeming population of the city ensures that the road is clogged with cars and buses. The fact that most buses and cars are in bad shapes ensures that the commute is joy sapping. From the occasional quarreling over the cost of commuting with the conductors, to the heat experienced in the over saturated buses, to the uncomfortable seating arrangement added to the unrealistic pressure from work is a perfect recipe for being stressed out. Some days you wake up early and feel like not going to work but when you remember the bills you have to pay at the end of the month, you have no choice but to drag yourself to work.

What about the weekend you may ask? well the weekend is taken by your engagements in church and your side hustles. Being that We are an overtly religious people and that most persons who are struggling grow close to God, the exchange of your spare time for God's blessings is an arrangement most of the working class go into. Being that the salary is very minute there is every need to "double your hustle". Many young persons go to the market, buy goods at a cheap rate or import from China and sell it on social media. Lots of these activities are done at the weekend and before you say "jack", Its Monday. At a point you grow tired of your job but cannot leave, as your bills are like piled up rocks before you, watching you continue the endless cycle.