We’re thrilled to announce that Ope Okupe has been awarded the Resco Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for January 2023 – January 2024.
The Resco MVP Award is an annual award that recognizes individuals actively sharing their technology, business, and industry knowledge with the Resco community and/or leaders inside their organization.
All of us at Resco recognize and appreciate Ope’s outstanding contributions. And today, we’d like to introduce him and his work to you.
Ope, congratulations on this recognition! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
Thank you. It is an honor to have been considered and to receive this recognition.
I am the founder of Necessidad, leading a small but highly effective team. Necessidad is a Resco & Salesforce partner. My journey into people systems (such as CRM, HR Management software, etc.) began many years ago at university, where I studied Computer Science and Business Administration and, subsequently, an MSc in Business Systems Analysis & Design.
I started my career building HR management systems in London, U.K. After seven years, I decided to switch to CRM (Salesforce). I have now been implementing Salesforce for over a decade. I came across Resco in 2019 and was pleasantly impressed with its functionalities and offline capability.
Outside of work, I play basketball, and I have a keen passion and appreciation for jazz music – I also play the tenor saxophone and a bit of piano.
In what areas do you consider yourself to be an expert? Besides basketball and music?
We (Necessidad), myself included, are experts at implementing Resco and Salesforce, particularly within the non-profit sector, although our client base consists of both non-profit and for-profit organizations.
Our approach places our customers and prospects at the center – we recognize and value their journey. We see ourselves as the collaborative guides to help usher them towards achieving their goals by understanding their needs, making them feel understood, and offering the best pragmatic Salesforce/Resco services to meet those needs.
I’d like to say that we are experts at understanding and serving our customers and their needs, as attested by the CEO of LewishamLocal. It is a non-profit organization we engaged with to rapidly deploy a Covid response hub system during the peak of the Covid pandemic, which stated in its review that: “Necessidad worked hard to understand our requirements without rushing into a solution.”
Do you have a standout Resco project that you’ve worked on?
Yes, our flagship Resco project was the School Feeding Program application we implemented for Mary’s Meals. You can see a video of the details on the Resco YouTube channel.
We worked with a fantastic team at Mary’s Meals, and we are proud to have been able to help them achieve significant strides toward their goal, with a reach of about 1.7 million children. Before our engagement, Mary’s Meals had disparate means of capturing data from spreadsheets to pen & paper.
Thanks to our help, they now have a harmonized process, significantly improved digital means of capturing data offline and syncing back to Salesforce, transparency due to the better reporting capabilities to make critical decisions, and the ability to scale effectively and efficiently to other countries.
You work mainly with Salesforce customers. How do you see Resco’s unique place in this ecosystem?
I believe Resco is in a unique space within the Salesforce ecosystem. Not many applications offer the full offline capability Resco offers Salesforce users. Resco can attain strategic advantages within the Salesforce ecosystem and become a significant partner with Salesforce, especially in the Salesforce.org space.
You became a Resco MVP by being a leader inside your organization, promoting Resco solutions and working on multiple projects hands-on, and presenting at our conference. What would you recommend to other Resco professionals looking to become MVPs?
I have been told that I can be obsessed with solving problems in general. This trait is particularly apparent when implementing Resco projects, and I believe it is a key – but not the singular – factor.
The others are my willingness to learn and be corrected, continuous improvement, diligence, perseverance, and treating others with respect.
You attended resco.NEXT in Lisbon. Necessidad Consulting was even one of the finalists in the Resco Business Impact Award. What were your biggest takeaways, and what did you like the most?
resco.NEXT in Lisbon will be one of the defining memories of 2022. The indelible impression I was left with is that there is a strong bond within the Resco family itself. I was also inspired by the network of partners and the context of each of their different implementations.
Thank you for the interview, Ope. Is there anything else you’d like to share with the community?
You are welcome. It has been a pleasure. I will be happy to connect on LinkedIn with your audience or anyone who would like to know more about myself and what we do.
Become the next Resco MVP
Resco MVPs are recognized as experts in the community. This helps them with career building and increases business opportunities for the organization they represent.
On top of that, Resco MVPs enjoy a range of direct benefits from Resco, such as exposure in our marketing channels, free entrance to resco.NEXT, priority access to market development funds and co-marketing possibilities, and more.
If you know someone or consider yourself a worthy candidate for the Resco MVP award, please send an email to partners@resco.net with the subject line “Resco MVP nomination.”
We are looking forward to recognizing more exceptional Resco experts and influencers!