About ControlPoint Advisory
We design and build software and operating systems for organisations that have outgrown spreadsheets, group chats and paper registers.
Why this exists
ControlPoint Advisory started from a pattern seen over and over again in Nigerian schools, churches and small businesses: capable organisations held together by one person, a WhatsApp group and a spreadsheet nobody else fully understands. It works until the person is unavailable, the file is overwritten, or the business grows past what one memory can hold.
The software offered to these organisations is usually built for somewhere else — for fast networks, expensive phones and processes that do not match how work is actually done here. So it gets bought, half-adopted and quietly abandoned, and the organisation concludes that software does not work for them.
We build the other kind: systems designed around the real process, for the real devices and the real network, delivered in phases small enough that you never have to bet the whole budget on a promise.
What we do
ControlPoint Advisory works across three areas. App building — custom internal systems for the process that costs your organisation the most time or money. Website development — fast, findable public sites that turn visitors into real enquiries. Advisory — scoping, second opinions and reviews of projects that are already underway.
Each one has its own page explaining how the work runs, what is included, what is deliberately excluded and what it costs: app building, website development, and advisory.
Alongside client work we run our own products: a school operating system, a church administration system and a business management system, each built out of repeated patterns we saw in client projects. ControlPoint Intelligence, our reporting and insight layer, is in development.
How we work
Discovery before design
We write down how your process actually works — including the exceptions and the workarounds — before anyone draws a screen. Most failed systems fail here, because they were built for the tidy version of the process that only exists in the manual.
Phases, not one big bang
Small phases scoped honestly, with a real decision point between each one. You keep the ability to stop after any phase, and you keep everything delivered up to that point.
Built for the conditions here
Mid-range phones, mobile data, intermittent connectivity. If a system loses half-entered work when the network drops, it has failed regardless of its feature list. We test on the devices your staff actually carry.
You own it
Your code and your data live in accounts you control, and you can export everything at any time. We do not use lock-in as a retention strategy.
Plain answers
Including when the answer is that you do not need software yet. Several engagements have ended with a recommendation to fix a process or buy an existing product instead. That is a good outcome.
What clients get out of it
One version of the numbers
Businesses running on separated records get a single place that answers "how are we doing" without a reconciliation exercise first.
Knowledge out of one person's head
Pricing rules, procedures and records move into a system, so the business is no longer capped by how fast one person can answer messages.
Being findable
Organisations whose only shopfront was a social feed get a permanent, searchable home on a domain they own.
Enquiries that start further along
Prices, availability and scope are answered on the page, so conversations begin at the decision rather than at "how much is it?"
These are described in detail, project by project, in our case studies.
Work we have shipped
- Calisonic
A multi-branch business running on separate records per branch, with no single view of revenue, stock or branch performance. We built an executive dashboard that pulls every branch into one screen.
- Onyii Nwa Imo
A wholesale and retail business quoting two different price levels by hand over WhatsApp. We built a platform where retail and wholesale pricing is handled by the system, with a catalogue and order tracking.
- Neclinks Nigeria Limited
A furniture retailer whose entire shopfront was a set of social media posts. We built a retail website with bestsellers, stock status, order tracking and WhatsApp ordering.
Who we work with
Schools, churches and small to mid-sized businesses — mostly organisations of between five and two hundred people, where one person currently holds the whole process in their head and everyone knows that is a risk. We also work with founders building a first product, and with organisations that have inherited a system nobody fully understands.
We are a poor fit for organisations that want a system built exactly to a specification they have already written without discussion, or that need a supplier who will agree with every request. We will argue with you when we think you are about to waste money.
Where we are
ControlPoint Advisory operates from Nigeria and works with clients remotely across West Africa and beyond. Our public writing lives on the blog, where we publish what we have learned from the builds — including the parts that did not go to plan.
How to reach us
Email hello@controlpointadvisory.org, message us on WhatsApp, or use the contact page. A first conversation is free and there is no pitch deck.
Want to talk it through?
Bring the process you want fixed. We will tell you what it would take and what you could do without.
Book a consultation