Boundless Magazine Volume 6

Volume 6

Business

Promoting A Positive Service Culture

Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur Where We Are With Asthma in Nigeria?

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Steps to Make Your Strategic Plan Really Strategic

Power of MarketCreating Innovation Women in Technology: Closing the gender gap

Queen The Pharmacy Mrs. Bukky George

Contents

How Well Did We Do, Last Year?

Technology & Innovation

Editorial

Strategy & Operations

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The Saga of the Nigerian Business Woman

5 Ways You Might Be Bleeding as a Business

Lessons from a Serial Entrepreneur

The Power of MarketCreating Innovation

Women In Technology: Closing The Gap

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12

16

20

Economy

People & Organisation

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What would it cost the Nigerian woman to add US$38 billion annually to our GDP; her home?

Health

Promoting A Positive Service Culture

Cover Story

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40

The Pharmacy Queen

Where We Are With Asthma in Nigeria

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Sports

Nigerian Women Making Great Strides In Sports

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Events

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Volume 6 Publisher/ Editor-in-Chief Marie-Therese Phido

Editorial Board Chairman Osten Olorunsola

Junior Editor

Vice Chairman

Ruona Phido

Catherine Bickersteth

Visual Designer

Members

Adewale Jinadu

Gbayode Somuyiwa Jacklyn Awobayikun Usen Udoh Stella Ojekwe Ronke Onadeko Marie-Therese Phido

Photo graphy

Address

Ifeoluwa Sopeju

Adverts/ Commercial

Bobo Iso

Cover Photo Credit

No. 18B, Onikepo Akande Street, Off Admiralty Way, Lekki Phase 1 Lagos, Nigeria

Bobo Iso

Boundless is a thematic magazine inspired by our motto... Businesses are Boundless.

Our Bi-monthly editions have a variety of captivating themes laced with articles focused on trending business and general interest issues. www.boundless.ng

Marie-Therese Phido mariephido Marie Phido Marie-Therese Phido

EDITORIAL

Editorial

T

he theme for this edition of BOUNDLESS is Women In Business. In commemoration of the International Women’s Day, this edition is dedicated to honour women who have done exceptionally well and have broken the status quo in their various fields.

Right now is a great and important time in history to do everything possible to help forge a more gender-balanced world.

Women in Business in Nigeria have come a very long way and have proven that impossible is just a word.

This is exemplified by our cover story, Mrs Bukky George, CEO/Founder, HealthPlus who shared her journey, her fears, her mistakes made since she started HealthPlus and Casabella, over 20 years ago and how she has managed to turn her business into a multimillion dollar nationwide conglomerate.

This edition also covers other interesting informative articles written by seasoned experts in various fields of the economy.

Genevieve Mbama in her article “Women In Technology - Closing The Gap Through A Combination Of Deliberation Actions In Policies & Resource Deployment” gave a synopsis of the need for deliberate policy frameworks, funding and investment support in order to bridge the gap of women occupying roles in the Information Technology sector.

Oye Atilade in her articled titled “The Saga of the Nigerian Business Woman” wrote on the plight Nigerian women face in business and how they are either unpaid, underpaid or underrepresented in their various fields.

Titi Adewusi, a woman in business, highlighted 5 ways a small business can be bleeding or losing out due to staff fraud.

Ronke Adewunmi shared secrets and lessons that she has learnt over the years as a successful entrepreneur and ways in which business owners/entrepreneurs can leverage on these tips in order to be successful.

John Andah, covered the record breaking and trail blazing feats Nigerian women have accomplished over the years in sports, especially in comparison to their male counterparts.

Ebunoluwa Bolodeoku provided insights on the importance of customer service culture and how it allows businesses have a competitive advantage in their various industries.

I hope you find this edition on women interesting. I appreciate you taking time to read this edition. Happy International Women’s Day to all the women striving to be more. We celebrate you now and always.

You can also access the magazine on www. boundless.ng. mphido@boundless.ng

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

The Saga of the Nigerian

Business Woman

By Oye Atilade BSc, MSc, MBA, PMP

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Business is work and work is done for cash or kind. Because we tend to define business as work for cash, we do not consider the work done in the home as business. Yet we pay our support staff for the work they do in the home. But parents, mostly mothers, grandmothers, and aunts, do the same and more. They cook, clean, and drive the kids, and sometimes dad, to work. They do the work of several support staff and they do not get paid. In fact, it is expected of them and they may not be appreciated for all they do.

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ork done in the home or outside the home either for cash or not is business. In fact, business in the home has important ramifications and should be considered the most important business of all as it is raising children who will become the next generation whose decisions and actions affect the direction of the country and the lives of its citizens for generations to come. In this part of the world, more women tend to mind the business at home either solely or in addition to having some business outside the home. The work inside the home should be counted as part of the informal economy and be appreciated for its import.

Maybe then we will begin to appreciate women more whether they are in business in the home or outside the home.

Business outside the home (or from the home as the case may be), ranges from micro, to small, to medium, and finally to large sized corporations. Statistics show that from micro to large, the number of women in business tends to shrink from being more than men to being much less at the corporate level. Women in micro businesses tend to do business to augment family incomes and take care of their families.

Women in small businesses includes women who have grown their micro businesses as well as young educated women also augmenting their income and/or following their passion. Women in medium businesses also tend to be women who have grown their business or on a lesser scale, have bought their business. Women running large corporations or in top positions tend to be few and far between worldwide and tend to have grown through the ranks to the top or inherited the business. Hardly do we see women who grow their business themselves to large sized corporations.

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

...women are natural born achievers.

Women are more caring, inclusive and good at multitasking.

They are already in business in the home.

They are already in the business of taking care of others.

They are already in the business of making things happen. So it follows that they will excel in business outside the home.

But at the end of the day, women in business are just people handling their business. Why do we even have to talk about women in business? Why don’t we talk about men in business? We talk about women in business especially because women in business tend to be treated differently from men in business. They are even treated differently from women in business inside the home.

Photo Credit: Pexels

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The men, and sometimes women, treat them negatively and sometimes as inferior. God Himself created men and women to have dominion over the earth and to subdue it, to be fruitful and to multiply. He never said, let us make a woman so man will feel better about himself. So what went wrong?

Blame women. Blame the mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters that raise men.

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From when they are born, girls are taught to take care of things and get things done. They are taught to be independent but not show it. They are taught to have an opinion but not say it. They are taught to act well but not better. While boys on the other hand are cuddled.

The girls and women around them tend to do everything for them so they don’t learn how to take care of themselves. They don’t learn how to do things on their own. They don’t learn how to solve problems, and take charge and achieve things.

So men don’t learn how to be the men God created them to be. And this is why men feel inferior. Women do better because they have been trained. Men need to make women inferior because they do not know how to be equal to them and are intimidated by them. If boys are raised to do more for themselves, achieve for themselves, and work with girls as equals, when they become men, they will treat women with the love and respect they deserve.

So women are natural born achievers. Women are more caring, inclusive and good at multitasking. They are already in business in the home. They are already in the business of taking care of others. They are already in the business of making things happen. So it follows that they will excel in business outside the home.

But like in the home, they are faced with challenges outside the home. From not being taken seriously, to being ignored, women face a

lot of challenges in business that men do not.

Like men women get into business because they want to, because they have to and because they are forced to. Women want to follow their passions just like men.

Women want to be able to provide for their families just like men. And women sometimes have to take care of their families just like men.

Some women even have multiple businesses. Women would like to augment their family’s income, or have some economic dependence, or have more time for themselves and their families, although this is a misconception as statistics show that starting a new business tends to take a lot of time.

Some women have to start a business because their husband lost his job, his business failed, he is unable to work or he has died. More older women who are not ready to retire are going into business as it gets harder to

...women in business tend to be treated differently but women should not allow this to deter them and be ready to stand up for themselves. They should stick to their values and there will be those who respect and admire them for that, including men.

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

find paid employment due to ageism. Some do it to give back to society.

But some women in business compete with other women.

This is the negative side of women in business. Men seem to support each other because they intrinsically know that if one succeeds they all succeed, and they also realize that if they help one today, he will help them tomorrow. This is something women need to learn. Yes women in business tend to be treated differently but women should not allow this to deter them and be ready to stand up for themselves. They should stick to their values and there will be those who respect and admire them for that, including men.

The motivations, methods and outcomes of going into business vary but we find that some businesses are more male-dominated like engineering while others are more female-dominated like trade. But profitable industries attract both men and women. For example, we see more men going into beauty and cosmetics, entertainment and events as these industries boom and the barriers to entry drop.

In a country like Nigeria where the ratio of men to women is about 50:50 with

Photo Credit: Pexels

an overwhelmingly youthful population, the country will benefit from having more women in business to increase the national income.

In an ideal Nigeria, both men and women will be equal partners, men won’t be intimidated by educated and successful women, and both will work together to build the best life for their families, where everyone, including the children, will be happy, fulfilled and thrive. It isn’t fair when only one partner gets all they want and the other is deprived. This leads to unhappiness, depression, abuse, broken homes and worse. Men and women can sit down and discuss honestly what they want out of life and how to get it. This does not necessarily mean that the women should be in business. It totally depends on what she wants but they should support each other inside and outside the home.

If both parents are happy and fulfilled, the children will be happy and excel, and grow up to raise children who excel and the cycle will continue. This will lead to better health and greater wellbeing in our homes, communities, societies and country. Indeed it will be a fearfully and wonderfully made man that supports his woman to be all that she wants to be.

This article was written with input from my wonderful community of family and friends, young and older, male and female, local and abroad, retired, employed, in business and one student. I am grateful for their time and contribution and I believe it has made for a great article.

Oye Atilade is a Total Value Consultant. She has over 20 years experience in Technology, Health, Finance and Retail, across Nigeria, the UK and the US. She holds a BSc from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria; an MSc from the London School of Economics, UK; and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA. Email: oatilade@ gmail.com; Twitter: @oyeatilade, @ arabalelimited; Mobile: +234 (0) 816 082 0196.

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STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

5 Photo Credit:Pexels

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Ways You Might Be Bleeding as a Business

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

By Titi Adewusi

I

have a friend who is an entrepreneur - she makes and sell clothes.

For economies of scale, she buys her materials in bundles.

One day, she decided to take inventory and realised that someone had cut 5yards from each bundle. After, her reconciliation, she was amazed as to how much loss she had incurred.

There is a wonderful fun place in Ikeja that I loved to take my children to during the weekends.

I usually insist on my receipt/ tickets. I was given four tickets for 4 children. It was only on closer look that I realised that it was the same ticket, but they gave me in quadruples – the customer copy, the accounts copy, the book copy, etc. Wow. This means that the staff goes home with 75% the sales while the owner of the business gets 25%. The business owner who made all the investments, who pays

the salaries, takes care of the overheads gets only 25% of sales.

Alas, I wasn’t too surprised when I went back months later and the business had closed down.

As a business, have you done an assessment of your operations to identify where you could be losing money and what controls you need to put in place to safeguard your revenues?

Let me share 5 ways in which your business might be bleeding due to staff fraud.

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1 2 3 Photo Credit: Pexels

Fake POS transaction With Nigeria becoming increasing cashless there are lots of payment being made

by POS machine. Your staff might be remitting to you both copies (customer and merchandiser) of the transaction as two separate transactions. Or in some cases, they submit failed transaction as approved transaction. This can go on for a while without your knowledge if you do not do daily reconciliation of sales to POS transaction and bank statement.

Imposter POS transaction Some companies have lost money because they found out that all the POS transaction was paid through POS machines that were brought in by the staff.

For small businesses that go for exhibition and hire new staff for this, this can happen to you. Its important to also check the POS machines used as well as ensure that all staff used (temp or permanent) are vetted and relevant information on them is obtained – address, next of kin and guarantor

Inventory Swap This happens when staff bring in their own items to sell to customers. So sales is happening but its just not the business owner sales. And when the owner does a reconciliation/stock count he/she find their stock complete. It is important to put in relevant control to restrict movement of items in your premises as well as ensure all sales are are accurately recorded.

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

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Staff and Vendor Dealings This typically happens when your staff and vendor are either under supplying items, supplying sub standard items or overinflating the cost of items supplied.

Under supply happens when the Vendor supplies only 4 items, but the staff records it as 6 – so they share the monetary difference. Sub standard items are when instead of buying pipes worth N1000 they buy a cheaper version that is N500 and present it as N1000. As a business owner, identifying ethical vendors is key and doing constant market surveys to ensure you are getting the best prices is critical.

Faulty Scale Trick This happens mainly in the food industry where you are selling items that haven’t not been measured and pre-packed.

Staff under sell to customers. Each time a customer come, they intentional under sell the quantity, they eventually create an excess that they sell and keep the proceeds. The simple solution is to as much as possible prep measure and pack items for sale.

Sales is very important to a business, but it is also critical that you plug up the various holes that can negatively impact your business and its long term. Don’t wait till your business is fully established, start.

Titi Adewusi is the co-founder of 9ijakids a start up edutech company that develops fun educational games for children. She had worked with KPMG one of the Big 4 Consulting Company for over 10 years before beginning her entrepreneurial journey with The Place Restaurant as the Chief Operating Office.

She helped to grow The Place Restaurant to a household name from 1 outlet to over 13 outlets before leaving to start her 9ijakids. She is also the Chairperson of Bethesda Child Support Agency an NGO that provides free education for vulnerable children in poor communities.

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STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

Lessons from a

Serial Entrepreneur

By Ronke Odewumi

Photo Credit: Pexels

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I am a serial entrepreneur. I have put my hands to various opportunities, from starting and running an online clothing store, to starting an online lottery company, to writing, publishing and selling a book, to running a Christmas decoration service, and a career and business advisory consultancy; all in addition to a day job. Many of these business ventures have succeeded while some I have had to learn from and then exit. Many of the things I have learnt in my entrepreneurial journey, I wish I had read of them or someone had told me before I learnt them the hard way.

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

Cost Management As an entrepreneur, your driving force in addition to providing valuable service to your customers or clients is profitability.

In order to be profitable your products or services must be sold at a price that exceeds the cost of creating them. Sounds simple right? Still, young entrepreneurs continue to make the mistake of taking their eyes off their costs (fixed and recurring costs).

When you take your eyes off your costs and they grow, you are forced to push up your prices to maintain your profitability; then you risk losing your fragile customer base to your competitors who are offering the same, similar or replacement product or service.

In a competitive market, you will be unable to push up your price to match your costs so you will simply lose profitability as your cost increases and you develop cashflow problems which then threaten the continuity of your business.

What is important to your customer? What does your customer consider value? If you don’t know, ask your target customers.

You need to focus your costs more on activities that add value to your customer; if its not value adding to your customer, keep the cost as low as is possible without endangering the business.

For example, say you are a manufacturer of affordable shoes and your target market are young people between the ages of 18 and 25 years. Value for that age group is likely to be trendy, affordable shoes that offer some comfort; therefore, money spent on trend forecast, trend analysis and low-cost production material would enable you to service your target market efficiently.

Durable but expensive packaging for the shoes would add no value to your customer and so money spent on this would simply raise your costs without improving revenue or profit.

Put a structure in place

So the first lesson I learnt as an entrepreneur is this – keep an eye on your cost. How do you keep an eye on cost you wonder, how do you decide what to spend I have always been a fan of order and on and what not to spend on? structure so this particular lesson is one I have never had to suffer the effect of, however I have watched start-ups I have advised (who didn’t listen) suffer the negative effect of not putting a structure in For me the secret to keeping your costs place and it can be hard to recover from a down is value chain – this is the second structure-less start. lesson.

Value Chain

Value chain strategy basically requires you to recognise what adds value to your customer in every step of your production process/service delivery.

Imagine you are building a house, and you just decide to lay the foundation as you like, then you continue to build up without any thought for where the doors and windows will go, drainage, bedrooms,

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electricity, the flow of traffic… you just build as you go. You will not end up with a house, you will end with a folly.

You need a plan and a structure in mind no matter how simple. So, when you want to start your business, write a business plan and write a plan for the first year of operation, broken down into monthly actions. A lot of young entrepreneurs are so fired up by their business ideas they can’t sit down to write a business plan and that is a problem. A business plan helps you scrutinise your idea logically, to answer questions like - how will you fund it, where will you base it, how will you operate it, what resources do you have, what are the gaps … if you are not able to answer or find answers to these questions, you are already headed for deep waters. Put a structure in place.

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The Customer is King

Photo Credit: Pexels

Another lesson I have learnt is that the customer is king. You have probably heard this before and think this only means good customer service but it is a lot more than good customer service.

As an entrepreneur you need to constantly walk in your customer’s shoes; you must proactively anticipate what your customers desire and factor these into your service or product. I have learnt to listen to the customer in detail, I take copious notes when I have conversations with my customers, I ask questions, I play back my understanding; I work hard to ensure I understand my customer’s needs then I go ahead and fulfil it.

If I need clarifications, I will return for them.

Your customer might not know what they want but if you understand their problems you can proffer a solution and when you have solutions that work, you become the brand everybody wants.

Your customer is king, research your customers, listen to your customers, know

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

them, proffer solutions to their problems, fulfil their needs, treat them right and they will return again and again.

Photo Credit: Pexels

Under promise over deliver Sometimes in the excitement of pleasing a customer, you make the mistake of over promising which then throws you into a stressful situation of trying to deliver what you have promised. If you don’t succeed and under deliver, you have probably lost that customer despite the stress you have gone through. Customers who receive service less than what they expected rarely return.

Perhaps you are not the one over promising, the customer has come to you with set expectations, you as an entrepreneur must then manage your customer’s expectations – be clear on what you can deliver and what you cannot. If you then end up over delivering, super! You have a return customer.

Don’t be the tailor that promises to sew 10 outfits in 2 days but delivers 2 outfits in 10 days… this kind of behaviour impacts your brand negatively and loses you the current customer and referral customers, you will be surprised how much business you can gain or lose by word of mouth.

Starting and running a business is hard work, very hard work. Being an entrepreneur has been glamourized more than it deserves, it is a hard, lonely path and is not paved with gold especially in the first few years. Think of your business as a child, it will have teething problems, it will cry, it will annoy and frustrate you but with gentle loving care, with good diet, with attention, it will grow big, strong and powerful and make you very proud…

I salute your courage on this journey.

Finally, persevere but have an exit plan.

This last advice sounds counterintuitive, how can you persevere and also have a getaway plan? I’ll tell you how – say you are starting an online business and you need to buy the domain name for your business idea, pay for a 2-year plan not a 10-year plan; at the end of the two years, you will get the chance to renew for 10 years or walk away. Persevere but have an exit plan.

Ronke Odewumi is a chartered accountant and management consultant. She also provides advice to start ups and budding entrepreneurs. Ronke lives in the UK with her husband and children.

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The Power of MarketCreating

Innovation

By Clayton M. Christensen; Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon

C

ontrary to the conventional wisdom that a society must “fix” itself—its infrastructure, courts, legislatures, financial markets, and so on—before innovation and growth can take root, we believe that innovation is the process by which a society develops.

Innovation funds our infrastructure, cultivates our institutions, and mitigates corruption. When a country’s prosperity stalls out despite a lot of activity within its borders, that country might not have a development problem. It might have an innovation problem.

Photo Credit: Pexels

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Market-creating innovations, in particular, provide a strong economic foundation. They share several characteristics. First, they offer many people access to a product or service that was

previously unaffordable or otherwise unattainable—if it existed at all.

That can have a profound impact on economic development for the region in question as well as on wealth generation for the innovator and entrepreneur.

Second, market-creating innovations leverage business models and value chains that focus on profitability before growth. They often do this by borrowing existing technology and inserting it into a different business model. When Kenneth Nnebue inadvertently launched Nollywood, he not only gave millions of Africans access to locally made video content but also inserted existing technology (VHS tapes and recorders) into a business model (straight to video) that many would have scoffed at.

Nnebue understood that although straight to video might have been merely a face-saving tactic in Hollywood, it was the right strategy

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

When a country’s prosperity stalls out despite a lot of activity within its borders, that country might not have a development problem.

It might have an innovation problem. for Nigeria. If he had tried to copy Hollywood and build theaters, his efforts might well have floundered.

Third, market-creating innovations are generated by and for a local market—or at the very least, they are designed with a local market in mind. This means that innovators must do the arduous work of understanding the ins and outs of that market and making a product simple and affordable enough for it. They might make use of low wages in the region, but market-creating innovations are not fundamentally about taking advantage of low wages to make a profit. In fact, over time—as an innovation spreads throughout a market—wages increase. This is in contrast to the race-to-the-bottom phenomenon, wherein low wages are deliberately exploited, often for export.

The increase in wages brings us to the fourth characteristic: Market-creating innovations generate local jobs, which fuel the local economy. These jobs arise specifically to serve the local market; they cannot easily be outsourced to other countries.

They might include, for example, positions in design, advertising,

marketing, sales, and distribution.

They often pay better than global jobs, such as low-wage manufacturing work and work sourcing raw materials, which are more readily moved from one region to another. Nigerians may not have manufactured VHS tapes or recorders, but recall that today Nollywood employs more than one million people in the country. And their jobs, unlike many created in Nigeria in decades past, are not at risk of leaving.

Finally, market-creating innovations can be scaled up. In fact, because they make a product simple and affordable, bringing it within many people’s reach, scaling up is a fundamental part of the process.

As Nollywood spread across the continent and to Africans in the diaspora, it created more jobs, supported infrastructure development, and helped Nigeria develop its fledgling institutions.

Thus the potential impact of market-creating innovations is enormous for companies and countries alike.

Let’s turn now to two more marketcreating innovations, exploring how the various characteristics have played out in each.

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Bringing MarketCreating Innovations to Life How should companies think about creating new markets in frontier economies? We have identified five guiding principles.

1. Every nation has within it the potential for extraordinary growth.

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Innovators must first understand that despite what traditional market analysis might tell them, significant opportunities exist in frontier markets. These do not (and should not) resemble opportunities in developed markets, which differ in their fundamental makeup. Richard Leftley saw that although Africa was home to 16% of the world’s population, it accounted for less than 2% of the global insurance market—and those

Photo Credit: Pexels

lopsided figures signaled that a vast market could be opened precisely because of the continent’s nonconsumption of insurance.

2. Most existing products have the potential to create new growth markets if we make them more affordable.

Narayana Health is a chain of multispecialty hospitals in India, with seven world-class heart centers, 19 primary care facilities, and more than 6,000 beds. Devi Prasad Shetty, who once served as Mother Teresa’s personal physician, founded NH in 2000, when India was one of the very poorest countries in the world. He focused on improving the process by which care is delivered and as a result democratized access to highly complicated and expensive procedures.

In the United States, open heart surgery can run as much as $150,000—more than most Indians make in a lifetime. Given the cost, almost no one in India who needed heart surgery actually got it. Shetty saw an opportunity to create a new market for cardiac care. Today NH performs open heart surgeries for $1,000 to $2,000, with mortality and infection rates comparable with those in the United States. By increasing the

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

utilization of its most expensive resources— personnel (especially surgeons) and medical equipment—it drastically reduced the cost of operations. It uses tiered pricing, whereby wealthier patients can pay more to get certain services, such as a private room.

But the quality of care is standard across all patients.

NH has expanded over the years and now provides quality care in more than 30 additional specialties, including oncology, neurology, orthopedics, and gastroenterology. The organization is worth some $1 billion, serves nearly 2 million Indians a year, directly employs more than 14,000 people, and has trained thousands of workers who are now employed at other facilities in India and abroad. And while major hospitals in the United States struggle to make a profit, NH made more than $20 million in fiscal 2017–2018.

3. A market-creating innovation is more than just a product or a service.

It is a system that often generates new infrastructure, regulations, and jobs for people who make, distribute, market, sell, and service the offering. One of the clearest illustrations of this point is Mo Ibrahim’s Celtel (now part of Bharti Airtel), which democratized telecommunications in Africa and paved the way for an entirely new digital economy that now supports some 4 million jobs. Celtel did not simply create an inexpensive mobile phone; it built a whole system that includes cell towers, installed and maintained by engineers; scratch cards containing prepaid calling minutes, sold in informal shops; advertising, created by artists and graphic designers; contracts, drawn up by lawyers; new projects, financed by bankers; and customer support staff. By 2020 the industry is expected to support more than 4.5 million jobs, provide $20.5 billion in taxes, and add more than $214 billion to African economies.

As Nollywood spread across the continent and to Africans in the diaspora, it created more jobs, supported infrastructure development, and helped Nigeria develop its fledgling institutions.

Thus the potential impact of marketcreating innovations is enormous for companies and countries alike.

4. Obstacles can be mitigated through innovation; innovation doesn’t have to wait for their elimination.

The essentials of development and prosperity can be pulled in by marketcreating innovations, as we have seen. When such innovations take root, infrastructure improves, institutions strengthen, and corruption is tempered. And once a new market becomes profitable to the various stakeholders in the economy, including investors, entrepreneurs, customers, and the government, they are often incentivized to help maintain those resources. The process occurs over time; it is not a single event.

5. When innovations target nonconsumption, scaling them up becomes inexpensive.

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Once an opportunity is identified and a business model is conceived to make a product or service available to a large population of nonconsumers, achieving scale is relatively cheap. The first step is recognizing an area of nonconsumption.

If you try to exploit existing opportunities in frontier markets—many of which are already crowded—and hope to get scale up that way, you may find yourself chasing a mirage. Think about how easily Safaricom, the company behind the innovative mobilemoney product M-PESA, grew its operations after creating a market for consumers who were unbanked. In less than a decade more than 20 million Kenyans adopted M-PESA. Contrast that with how much it might have cost Safaricom, and how much longer it would have taken, to exploit the conventional banking system—buildings, branches, accounts, staff, regulations, and so on—to achieve the same scale. term strategy and readiness for an economy beyond oil. For a country as dependent on oil as Nigeria, it would be interesting to simulate a month without earnings from sales of crude oil, and play out the impact on running government at the federal, state and local government levels; as well as impact on the private sector.

While there is an unending argument about oil being a blessing or a curse to Nigeria; we should perhaps focus on how to make oil the catalyst to fund the foundation we require for a future economy beyond oil and avoid the current behaviour of spending it all.

The future will come, whether we are ready or not, better to be ready.

Conclusion The key to cracking frontier economies lies not in exploiting existing markets, although that may lead to some success. It lies in creating new markets that serve the billions of nonconsumers unable to find a product

or service to help them solve an important problem.

The process by which those markets are created, even in the least likely of circumstances, is what investors and entrepreneurs need to understand. Our research suggests that this is the critical missing link. Once we focus more effort on that, immense opportunity will ensue, and inclusive, sustainable development will follow. It is precisely through innovations that generate or connect to new markets that societies can create jobs, pay taxes, and build their infrastructure and institutions. The quality that sets market-creating innovators apart—the ability to identify possibilities where there seem to be no customers—is the reason their work represents such enormous opportunity.

“It’s difficult to run a ruler over things you can’t see,” Mic. “It’s difficult to run a ruler over things you can’t see,” MicroEnsure’s Richard Leftley says. “But when you strip away the layers of conventional thinking about what’s not possible and start to reimagine what is, you can begin to create something really powerful. And that, in turn, has the potential to change the world.”

Clayton M. Christensen is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and a coauthor of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty (HarperCollins, 2019).

Efosa Ojomo leads the global prosperity research at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation and is a coauthor of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty (HarperCollins, 2019).

Karen Dillon is a former editor of Harvard Business Review and a coauthor of The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty(HarperCollins, 2019).

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Six Steps to Make Your STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

Strategic Plan Really Strategic

By Graham Kenny 26

W

hy is it that when a group of managers gets together for a strategic planning session they often emerge with a document that’s devoid of “strategy”, and often not even a plan?

I have one such document in front of me as I write this. It starts with a “vision” statement, moves on to “strategic themes” (six in all) and culminates in 28 “strategic goals.” The latter is a list of actions interspersed with a sprinkling of desired results, all utterly useless in terms of strategy. It’s more like a dog chasing its tail. As the managing partner of a client law firm recently explained to me: “Before we adopted your approach we lacked the keys to effective strategic planning. It was seat-of-the-pants stuff. I would spontaneously go about saying how about we do this/how about we do that. I was buried in the enterprise.”

Photo Credit: Pexels

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

This problem is the lack of an effective “method” — a systematic or established procedure to undertake something, step by step. But methods can be learned.

I’ll let you in on the six-step technique I have developed over many years, working with clients and in teaching my public seminars on strategic planning.

Recognize your dependencies (Your key stakeholders) Step one is to recognize your dependencies, i.e. your key stakeholders. You may think that this will be easy. And in a small business, like a convenience store, it initially is: customers, employees, suppliers, and owners. But then you become aware that some of the employees are also owners, and the complexity grows.

The trick is to identify stakeholder roles. The same group of stakeholders can occupy more than one role.

Take the example of a dairy cooperative I worked with recently. It was a national distributor of milk and other dairy products and in it, farmers occupied two roles. We described these as: farmers-as-shareholders and farmers-as-suppliers.

Its other key stakeholders were distributors; customers-

retail; customers-industrial/ food service; consumers; and employees. Once you get the knotty key-stakeholder problem sorted out you can move on — but not too fast.

Identify your ‘target customer’ An essential second step, and one that I’ve been guilty of not stressing enough with clients, comes with the word “target.” It’s vitally important to identify your “target customer” before moving forward. Take, for example, the international accounting firm KPMG. Its target customers aren’t mums and dads lodging their annual tax returns, or small businesses

Photo Credit: Pexels

that need help with their accounts. That work falls on the shoulders of the suburban accountant. Nor is KPMG’s target mid-size firms with limited budgets. That’s for so called “second-tier” accounting firms. No, KPMG targets large corporates and big government.

Isolating the target customer has massive implications, including in other stakeholder groups.

For example, KPMG only hires staff who are qualified to offer services for large corporate and big government customers. Your strategic plan can’t be all things to all customers. So, take your time here to clearly define your target customer.

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STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

Work out what your organization wants from each key stakeholder group

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The third step requires you to work out what your organization wants from each key stakeholder group for your organization to prosper.

For some managers, this seems initially like putting the cart before the horse.

The reason? They’re so used to thinking operationally rather than strategically that putting “self” first seems like heresy. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the stakeholder “employees.”

Take the case of a recent client of mine, an architectural firm.

The HR team and senior management would bend over backwards to identify what would satisfy staff. But they placed little attention on, and certainly failed to measure, the return volley.

That is, what the organization wanted from employees.

Once it adopted the six-step method, these outcomes were identified as “reducing employee turnover and increasing productivity and innovation.” Metrics were developed to monitor these, and targets were set before moving on.

Photo Credit: Pexels

Identify what these stakeholder groups want from you The fourth step is to identify what these stakeholder groups want from you. These are the key decision-making criteria that stakeholders use when interacting with your business. For example, these might include the factors influencing the decision to purchase from you (customers), work for you (employees), supply to you (suppliers) or invest in you (shareholders).

It’s essential that you know how each stakeholder group thinks about these — that you focus on their point of view, not your own. This can come from a variety of sources including: in-depth interviews of stakeholders, listening to stakeholder stories about their experience with you and the competition, feedback via your complaint and suggestion systems, focus groups and even casual conversations with stakeholders. It can even involve immersing yourself in the stakeholder experience by going through it, e.g. the senior executives of an airline might travel at the back of

STRATEGY & OPERATIONS

Strategy design

the plane to get a feel for what economy passengers experience.

For example, at a manufacturer of specialized air conditioners for computer rooms, “customer service,” as you’d expect, meant “handling enquiries and dealing with complaints.”

But research showed that “customer service” had additional dimensions in the minds of their customers, namely “technical support pre- and post-sale.” Getting to grips with the full extent of the customers’ expectations led to insight which drove the company’s strategy.

Strategy design, your fifth step, involves deciding what your organization’s positions will be on the identified strategic factors for each key stakeholder group. This is shaped by the objectives you’ve set for your organization and the knowledge you’ve gleaned about your stakeholders’ current and future needs on strategic factors. This is where “focus” again delivers in spades. I’ve assisted a rural bank which decided that its target customer was “commercial family farms.” This ruled out large corporate farms and hobby farms. It then built strategy based on these customers’ opinions. It went further to co-create with farmers its positions on product range, customer service, and price to drive revenue and profitability. Stakeholders can be great strategists. Tap them in designing strategy.

manufacturer of specialized air conditioners, that ramping up technical support preand post-sale will drive more revenue. Be prepared to adjust. View your strategy as being locked in an intimate tango with your key stakeholders. This dynamic perspective encourages openness, innovation and a preparedness to change.

Organizations which practice this system-design approach to strategic planning turn out to be gob-smackingly great.

Toyota and McDonald’s are two that I deal with that fall into that category. They’re stakeholder-focused, nostone-unturned companies that defy expectations in their ability to pull together a diverse population of employees to produce amazing results. You can too — if you become systematic in your approach.

Continuous improvement The sixth step is continuous improvement. Recognize that no matter what you decide, there is no certainty in the result once you embark on implementation via an action plan and scorecard.

You can’t be sure, for instance, in the case of the

Graham Kenny is managing director of Strategic Factors, a Sydney-based consultancy that specializes in strategic planning and performance measurement, and president of Reinvent Australia, an organization that focuses on the nation’s future development

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Women in Technology TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

Closing the Gap Through a Combination of Deliberation Actions in Policies & Resource Deployment 30

By Genevieve Mbama

A government survey conducted in Nigeria in 2013, found that less than 8% of professional, management or technological positions are held by Nigerian women. To narrow the gap requires a private and public concerted effort through deliberate policy frameworks, funding/investment support, competency center for skills development more women will have their careers within the ICT circle.

S

ometime in 2016 I was in conversation with a former CIO of one of the leading Banks in Nigeria, who had just left the Bank to launch his entrepreneurial venture

and our discourse centered on position of women in Information Technology sphere generally, specifically Nigeria. The genesis of this conversation was a post he made a week before on his Facebook page where he posted pictures of former members of his team and

the entire 30- member team were all male; no single lady! I has asked him why he did not deem it fit to have a single lady in his team; I also shared observations I made in the course of my consultative engagements with Technology Departments

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

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Photo Credit: Pexels

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

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in different organizations in Nigeria where I noted over 80% did not have any female in the management team, while less than 5 % have women in the executive team. Personally, I found myself in the same situation because at that time, in my Line of Business across EMEA comprising Digital Technology Consultants & Solution Specialists; we were 4 ladies out of 30 Directors, the rest were male. So, I could relate.

hence it is wrong to assume women are incapable of effectively handling crisis driven jobs; and secondly but most importantly; in the current digital world, the role of the CIO has expanded to include innovation and IT-Business alignment, the two of which connect to what women are great at--Insight, Creativity and Problem Solving-- hence any IT organization, that ignores ladies, impose limitations on their capacity to innovate!

I summed it up by asserting that the Technology Industry in Nigeria is pretty “masculine”, basically implying that it is significantly male- dominated both in paid employment and the entrepreneurial world.

Expectedly he agreed with me and went on to give his perspective. He had explained that the reason he did not recruit ladies in his team, was because of the rigour of the work, which was mostly because managing Technology platform in any organization involves a good doze of crisis management, very long hours of work and in many instances, duty calls at unholy hours. Succinctly put, he believes women should be involved in “Soft” work, rather than the “Hard” work. How chauvinistic!

Unfortunately, I had to admit to him that somehow much fewer women than men are pursuing careers in technology; hence more needs to be done to motivate, encourage and support younger ladies to get into the technology sphere. The reality today, is that the situation is still the same, but the good news is that an increasing number of women are embracing the technology world and striving to find their game.

They are taking a lead in creating new tech ideas,

I simply objected, reminding him that first, women are naturally gifted to multi-task because of the role mother nature bestowed on us,

The good news is that increasing number of women are embracing the technology

designing and developing solution, initiating and implementing decisions that are changing the dynamics and direction of the Information Technology sector though the gap remains wide. Industry watchers say the ratio of men compared to that of women in the sector tilts around 80-20%. But the gaps are expected to close gradually as an increasing number of females are enrolling for tech and innovation courses; and a greater number of the femalegender are increasingly finding it reasonable to make career choices within the knowledge industry.

Despite this, the odds are not in favor of women in information technology world in Nigeria, not a few have held their turf and taking bold steps in various endeavors across the Technology value chain from Policy Making to Skills development & Acquisition, Software Development & Engineering, Tech Consulting, Tech Entrepreneurship & Venturing, Tech Sales & Business Development, Corporate Management and so on. They have contributed immensely to the growth and development of the technology industry in Nigeria.

Here are a few of them.

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

700 personal computers to secondary schools in the first phase of School Access Programme (SAP) while about 193 tertiary institutions in the country had internet access in the Tertiary Institution Access Programme (TIAP) and 146 communities had access to Community Communication Centers deployed around the country.

Late Florence Seriki

Computer Systems Entrepreneur/Manufacturer Though she is late, she is remembered for her dexterity and courage as the first Nigerian Woman to dare where men held sway when she founded Omatek, Nigeria’s first indigenous computer assembly and manufacturing company established in 1987. Mrs. Florence Seriki won a good number of laurels, in recognition of her contributions to the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Nigeria and Africa at large. She won the Young Entrepreneurship Award of the Nigerian American Chamber of Commerce in 1992 and also a recipient of Member of the Federal Republic (MFR) during Umaru Musa Yar’adua administration.

In addition, she has been on the vanguard of promoting ICT innovations in Nigeria as she midwifed the establishment of Idea Hub Yaba, Lagos & Innovation centers in major cities of Former Minister of ICT & Former Nigeria .

MD, Accenture (Technology Policy Maker, Consultant & She is currently the Lead Entrepreneur) General Partner for TLcom Capital, a venture capital firm As pioneer head of the based in Nairobi, Lagos and country’s communication London that has for about technology (ComTech) 20 years been investing ministry, she set a new pace in stakeholders engagement in telecom, media and and brought into the ministry technology (TMT) companies including start-ups in Europe, and advance thinking in Israel and Sub-Saharan Africa policy and action formation (SSA). once unknown.

Omobola Johnson

Under her watch, Nigeria launched and consolidated her entry into the satellite communication industry with NigComSat-IR, to complement the series of fibre connectivity, backbone infrastructure initiatives designed to deepen broadband penetration in Nigeria.

The ministry under her watch also deployed more than

Omobola has always been in the vanguard of promoting ICT innovations in Nigeria.

She midwifed the establishment of Idea Hub Yaba, Lagos & Innovation centers in major cities of Nigeria.

Photo Credit: Google

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TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

Funke Okpeke ICT Infrastructure Guru and Entrepreneur

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Not many saw her coming, when she left her lucrative employ as the first female Chief Technical Officer of MTN Nigeria and within a short while, she assembled a team of investors, financiers and technical partners to build MainOne a communications infrastructure services and data management company with footprint across West Africa as the Founder and CEO. The company that is redefining connectivity beyond Nigeria and the ECOWAS region.

Funke was inspired by the passion to address the problem of low internet connectivity and high cost of high grade IT Infrastructure. Few years ago, in partnership with

foreign OEM providers of IT Infrastructure, MainOne built a Tier-4 Datacenter, primed to provide ICT backbone in area of IT system Hosting services, Network Solutions & disaster recovery centers to corporates in Nigeria.

She is the founder of Pearls Africa Youth Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organization aimed at educating young girls in under-served areas in Nigeria with technology skills.

Hence, MainOne is envisioned to close the connectivity and IT Infrastructure gaps in the sub-region, and is steadily making huge financial and human capital investment towards this purpose and with steady growth turns to become one of Africa’s leading communications services and network solutions providers.

On November 1 2018, AjayiAkinfolarin was named one of ten CNN Heroes of the year. Later that month she was listed as one of BBC’s 100 Women.

Inspired by the wide gender gap in technology industry that she discovered during the course of her career as a Tech Consultant, she decided to help close that gap and encourage more women in her field, by establishing her own non-profit organization; Pearls Africa Youth Foundation. A NonGovernmental Organization that assists girls in developing technology skills through various programs including; GirlsCoding, G.C Mentors, GirlsInSTEM and Empowered Hands.

Since 2012, the organization has trained over 400 young women to code

Abisoye AjayiAkinfolarin Nigerian Women and Girls Advocate Social Tech Entrepreneur

Photo Credit: Google

TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION

CONCLUSION According to one study, by 2020 there would be about 1.4 million computer science related jobs. Much of that will be handled by men. In addition, A government survey conducted in Nigeria in 2013, found that less than 8% of professional, management or technological positions are held by Nigerian women. To close the gap and encourage the female gender requires a private and public concerted effort through deliberate policy frameworks, funding/investment support, competency center for skills development more women will have their careers within the ICT circle.

Genevieve Mbama is a Digital Technology & Innovation Solution Specialist; Economic Inclusion Advocate, Blogger and Writer. She holds a B.Sc Economics & Statistics, from the University of Benin and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management.

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PEOPLE & ORGANISATIONS

36

Promoting A Positive Service Culture

By Ebunoluwa Bolodeoku

I

Ebunoluwa Bolodeoku is a Strategy and Operations expert. She holds a B.Sc Economics from the University of Lagos and an M.Sc Finance & Management from the Cranfield School of Management, United Kingdom. ebolodeoku@gmail.com

t’s been said by many that you can only provide good service when you have an understanding of and have experienced good service. I dare say that it goes even further to being able to differentiate between good service and bad service. After all, if you have never experienced good service, what will the standard for evaluating if the service you are receiving is good or bad, what will be the basis for comparison? The experience of consumers and general feedback in Nigeria, across all sectors is that we there is still a lot of work to be done regarding defining service standards/ expectation, understanding what good service is, providing good service, expecting good service and generally promoting a service culture.

Businesses provide service to their customers in one form or the other; directly or indirectly. Service businesses are different from businesses that manufacture or produce an end product. Pure service businesses primarily sell services e.g. banks, airlines, hairdressers, law firms, consulting firms etc., as any transfer of a physical product

PEOPLE & ORGANISATIONS

is an accompaniment to the service being rendered by these businesses. Businesses that manufacture end products while not being pure service businesses also have to provide service as it relates to consumers of the sales and/or use of their products. In essence, service is integral to the running of any business – pure service or not.

beliefs, and a core value for employees to rally around.

The lack of a service culture is traceable to the non-definition of service standards/expectations for businesses, sectors and industries. We all agree that what gets measured gets done! For every business – pure service or not, there is a need to conduct a deepdive into what the business A service culture is in stands for define the service existence and being standards which will require promoted when every and what will the elements activity is completed with the of good service look like. customer in mind, regardless In a fast food restaurant of whether they’re directly those elements could impacted by the task at be – pleasantly greeting hand or not. Employees of or welcoming a customer organizations’ with a distinct before providing a service, or defined service culture, complimenting customers put people first, prioritize from time to time, ensuring quality, and always maintain a a customer does not spend high level of integrity. Service more than a maximum of culture can also be said to X minutes on the queue be a state of mind, a set of before being served etc.

The definition of service standards/expectations and elements of good service is relatable and an essential part of any business’s service delivery framework.

The model below by Arizona State University highlights the process of forming service standards/ expectations. Following the definition of the standards/ expectations, there is a need to take deliberate steps at identifying behaviors’ within the business which will be examples to be used as models what service standards/expectations are acceptable. Best-in-class processes, and ongoing communication facilitate the application of these standards/expectations with campaigns to all that are involved in service delivery.

Define

Communicate

Forming Service Standards Apply

Identify

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Providing excellent service can be a competitive advantage, so the key question is not how to improve service performance, but how to create a culture of continuous service improvement with an unwavering focus on customer experience.

To successfully – and sustainably – differentiate based on service, improving customer experience must be the responsibility of the entire organization, not only a customer service department. Businesses have to create an environment to motivate, support and recognise employees for consistently taking action to create value for customers and colleagues. A service culture also creates a better place to work. This engages and motivates employees to improve performance and helps organizations’ attract and retain superior talent.

A service culture can only be promoted if driven by leadership…the top down direction of creating and

promoting a service culture cannot be over emphasized.

Business leaders must “walk the talk” in promoting a service culture by being service leaders who get out to the frontline, as required, as this goes a long way to model behaviors’ across the business.

I believe service earns a higher premium.

Ron Kaufman

Sustainability of a service culture is deeply rooted in the ongoing gathering, analysis and reporting on service performance indicators for each of the service elements / areas that have been defined based on the service standards/ expectations set for the business. The results of the analysis become useful tools for future planning and improvement.

Every strong culture will have some customs and activities, which reinforce what is acceptable, admirable and important to the Group.

These become enduring customs and any business that is serious about promoting a service culture should create strong customs to constantly reinforce the importance of providing excellent service.

• At Raffles Hotel, the daily “line-up” briefing is not to remind waiters about what’s on the menu.

PEOPLE & ORGANISATIONS

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Photo Credit: Pexels

It’s a daily ritual to reinforce SERVICE as the main ingredient of their success.

• At Singapore Airlines, the “round-up” with cabin crew before each flight is not to remind them where the plane is going.

It’s a carefully scripted, participatory ritual requiring every member to offer a SERVICE tip and commit themselves to fulfill it.

• At World of Sports, a brass bell hangs near the cash register. A colorful sign invites customers delighted with the service they received to “Ring the Bell!” and express their satisfaction. Every time that bell rings, this customer-involving ritual reinforces the staff’s passionate commitment to SERVICE.

can reinforce culture with customs: “Service Hall of Fame”, “Staff of the Month”, “Service Provider of the Week”, “CEO Dinner with Our Service Award Winners”. It is created, named, and built by repeating it again and again.

To promote a positive service culture, an organization should create better customs to promote and reinforce SERVICE.

There are many suggestions of ways that a business

www.upyourservice.com www.ronkaufman.com

COVER STORY

The Pharmacy Queen 40

Mrs. O.A. (Bukky) George, FPSN Founder & CEO, HealthPlus Limited

We spoke to the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HealthPlus Limited and Casabella, Bukky George, where she shared with us her journey, challenges and inspiration in building HealthPlus from scratch, since its incorporation in 1996 into the fastest growing pharmaceutical chain in West Africa with over 90 retails outlets in 11 states and employing over 750 Nigerians.

Photo Credit: Bobo Iso

COVER STORY

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COVER STORY

We all know Bukky George as a well accomplished business woman, please tell us a bit more about yourself and what makes you the person you have become?

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Bukky George is the Founder & CEO of HealthPlus Limited.

The company has two retail concepts, HealthPlus Pharmacy and CasaBella Beauty. HealthPlus is the fastest growing pharmacy chain in West Africa.

CasaBella is a one-stop retail chain for beauty and grooming solutions. Over the past 20 years, the company has grown to about 90 retail outlets in 11 states. We have become a household name in Nigeria and beyond, employing over 750 Nigerians.

I like to say that I am a product of my childhood and upbringing, a product of my passion for learning, a product of my quest for excellence and a product of the favour and grace of God.

As the 9th of 33 children, I learnt to be resilient, resourceful, determined and became a problem solver. That must have been the beginning of when my personal mantra was honed...

To every problem, there is a solution. I learnt to use my hands and brains. I am creative, organized and detailed. It has been said that I am a perfectionist, that I have an eagle eye. Growing up, we had little money but we were rich in joy, love and laughter.

These attributes have served me well as I navigated the mountains and valleys of entrepreneurship in Nigeria over the past 20 years; becoming one of the youngest Fellows of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, nicknamed the Queen Of Retail, a multiaward winner for excellence in entrepreneurship, healthcare and community service; including Winner Harvard Business School Association of Nigeria 2015 Leadership Awards for the

Entrepreneurship Category; Winner 2015 Access Bank W Entrepreneur of the Year, Finalist Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2015 and Finalist in the Business Woman of the Year Category of the CNBC 2014.

Today, I provide strategic leadership for the HealthPlus Group as we work towards achieving our vision to be Africa’s #1 for pharmacy, wellness and beauty. A bit on family life, I am married with four wonderful and talented children.

HealthPlus is Nigeria’s first integrative pharmacy, what inspired you to venture into unknown terrains?

A few reasons. First was the disconnect between the theory and practice of community pharmacy at the time. The pharmacy landscape was proliferated by numerous unlicensed drugstores operating alongside relatively few licensed pharmacies. Among

I am a product of my childhood and upbringing, a product of my passion for learning, a product of my quest for excellence and a product of the favour and grace of God.

COVER STORY

the licensed pharmacy operators, operating standards and service quality varied significantly.

The distribution channels from manufacturers and importers of medicines to the end users, members of the public, were and are still chaotic. As a pharmacist, passionate about my profession, I wanted to contribute my quota to healthcare delivery in Nigeria. I wanted to contribute my quota to increasing the life expectancy of Nigerians from the embarrassing indices. Today, statistics from the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria show that only 190 out of 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria have registered pharmacies. This is despite the progress made by pharmacists, Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN), National Agency for Food & Drug Administration & Control (NAFDAC) over the past two decades.

Our niche, which is integrative pharmacy, emphasises the better healthcare outcomes when one combines allopathic medicines and natural remedies. It was Godinspired because as at that time, it was an unknown combo in the pharmacy space. Today, natural

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Photo Credit: Bobo Iso

I provide strategic leadership for the HealthPlus Group as we work towards achieving our vision to be Africa’s #1 for pharmacy, wellness and beauty.

COVER STORY

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Photo Credit: Bobo Iso

COVER STORY

remedies is our third largest category after prescription only medicines and over-thecounter medicines.

did you overcome them?

If no, what propelled you to be fearless?

I interned at the Lagos State HealthPlus opened its first University Teaching Hospital branch in 1999, exactly (LUTH) and shared a corner twenty years ago! It was with another intern who an 18sqm retail space in relocated from Greece with Ikeja GRA; a quiet, upperhis wife and four children. middle suburb of Lagos.

He was much older than I HealthPlus quickly became and was a devoted Christian. the pharmacy store of choice. Every time I asked him My refusal to compromise professional and personal on the integrity of our questions, he never gave supply chain, on pharmacist me the answers. Instead, he training and on customer would always tell me to listen experience saw our brand to my spirit, my inner man. I become a household name, found this frustrating at first with customers travelling but over the course of the from all over the country to year, I did learn to tune my purchase medicines and ears to the promptings of other healthcare products. the Holy Spirit. In the course Family obligations saw me of my career as a medical move temporarily to the representative, working in United Kingdom in 2001, two multinationals, I became while HealthPlus continued more confident with my operations. I took the decision making. I did pray opportunity to immerse about my next move. I also myself in retail best practices, introspected, evaluating my working for the iconic John Bell & Croyden Pharmacy and Lloyds, one of United Kingdom’s leading pharmacy chains. I returned to Nigeria in 2014, armed with renewed entrepreneurial vision and determination to scale my business. We would open 70 stores in 11 years and launched CasaBella, a onestop-shop for beauty and grooming products in 2010.

Did you have any fears and or reservations when setting up HealthPlus and CasaBella? If yes, how

strengths and weaknesses.

I knew my chosen career would be community pharmacy.

Self-awareness is a key attribute everyone must develop. As a result of all I have shared, I approached community pharmacy with great confidence knowing that God will provide all I needed. When family and friends tried to dissuade me from quitting my job, I was unmoved. I was so certain of my choice. You could say I was fearless. By the time CasaBella Beauty was birthed in 2010, I was older and wiser. Where there fears along the way? Most definitely yes! Anything that does not stretch you, that does not make you quiver and self-doubt will probably not lead you in the path of fulfilling your full potential. I had real fears around raising funds, getting the right people, expanding our store footprints while maintaining our standards. My personal mantra is that “To every problem, there is a solution” This mantra, my faith, my support system of family and friends, my mentors, great books and trade shows, etc

Today, natural remedies is our third largest category after prescription only medicines and over-thecounter medicines.

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COVER STORY

gave me the confidence and audacity to carry on.

What challenges did you face in setting up HealthPlus and how have you managed to build it into one of the leading pharmacy chains in Nigeria and West Africa at large?

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I always say that challenges are meant to be overcome. It takes grit and grace (smiles).

In the beginning of HealthPlus, challenges included finding a suitable location to establish the pharmacy. I lived at Ogba GRA at the time and would drive around the environs.

Nothing popped up. As you may know, pharmacy is a highly regulated profession and operating within the rules can pose some hurdles.

For example; our regulations stipulate that the minimum size of a pharmacy must be 30 square meters and it must be located at least 200 meters away from another registered pharmacy. I recall young pharmacists felt older colleagues established the regulations to “slow them down�. The fact was that these rules are to discourage unhealthy competition.

Similar rules exist in developed and developing countries.

Back to how we set up our first pharmacy. I was driving through the Ikeja GRA neighborhood when I spotted a strip mall. My

heart quickened and I knew this was the one. The rest is history. Today, we have a robust site selection criterion for increasing the chances of success of our retail locations. Once you find a location; shopfitting and shopfitting accessories, retail technology and support, retail talent, planogram development, appropriate display aids, instore branding and signage production, all posed challenges. The reason is that the retail industry was and is still relatively rudimentary in Nigeria.

Staffing challenges was the first I observed in the early days. The availability of intelligent, highly skilled,

I always say that challenges are meant to be overcome.

It takes grit and grace.

motivated, proactive, enthusiastic people with right attitude was and still remains a challenge. As the business grew, my workload increased tremendously. It became crystal clear I had to get the right people on board, train and develop them and delegate to them.

In this process, we engaged HR consultants to overhaul our Human Resources structure and function, while developing world class policies and procedures.

A more appropriate organisation thus emerged.

Today, we have a robust structure, undergirded by sound, contemporary policies and processes. I am very proud of our people, from the c-suite to the heads of departments, middle managers and officers. It has taken blood, sweat and tears to find these gems in the Nigerian talent pool. I am proud of the team we have been able to build.

At a stage, we needed to permanently differentiate the HealthPlus brand from competition. Nigeria at the time, had more advertising companies and little or no brand development companies. I reached out to several organisations but their proposals did not hit my sweet spot, they did not resonate with me, the brand or the industry. Most of them just did not understand the concept of brand development. It was a real challenge.

COVER STORY

I look forward to a time when the government will set up a health fund at single digit interest rates to accelerate the growth of the healthcare industry.

In frustration, I called Brand Union in South Africa. Brand Union is the company most Nigerian commercial banks used for their brand development. I requested for their minimum fee. This ran into hundreds of thousands of dollars. I then looked around the Nigerian space and asked myself a simple question: which brand do

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Photo Credit: Bobo Iso

I love? Which brand can I relate to? “Chicken Republic� popped into my mind. I was introduced to the founder who would later become my mentor and director. He led me to the brilliant mind

that developed his brand.

We engaged this brand development consultant who facilitated a retreat which led to the development of a robust brand strategy and manual. This is the origin of

COVER STORY

the vibrant HealthPlus look and feel you have all come to know. It was so ahead of its time that it has served us for a decade. We are just about to carry out another brand refresh. Our slogan was Love life! Feel great! A year later, Boots Pharmacy UK changed its slogan to Feel Good! It felt great to be in good company! The brand

development terrain has since evolved with players like my good friend, Chizor Malize, aka the Branding Queen.

When I shared my growth challenges with a comrade in entrepreneurship, I was advised to sign up for the owner-manager program at the Lagos Business School.

This was my best decision of 2005. I became equipped with the business and people skills required to navigate the entrepreneurship landmines.

I have later attended other programs including the owner-president program at the Harvard Business School and the Women On Boards Africa Program at the IE Business School, Madrid.

Shrinkage arising from damages, expired items and theft is an ever-present reality in retail. Robust internal controls, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, incentivised security guards, CCTV, regular stock taking and spot checks are some solutions.

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Access to affordable finance was and is still a challenge.

How can businesses, especially healthcare service providers survive with loans at interest rate of 25% or more? I look forward to a time when the government will set up a health fund at single digit interest rates to accelerate the growth of the healthcare industry. This will boost universal healthcare coverage and increase our life expectancy.

Photo Credit: Bobo Iso

We invested in a new ERP which powers sales on the shop floor, accounts, inventory management, human resources management, customer relationship management and e-commerce.

Technology enhances our

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efficiency, productivity and profitability.

As we scaled up, we have and are still making use of the expertise of consultants in different areas of the business.

As you know, HealthPlus started out as a ‘mom and pop’ business. Maintaining our standards with growth was and is still a big challenge. As we grew, it was important to institute policies and procedures that will structure and standardise the business. This entailed ensuring there are Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in place for all key activities.

Audit then carries out constant compliance checks.

Training and retraining, a sound performance management system and rewards are some solutions to dealing with the challenge of maintaining standards.

Today, we are taking steps to institutionalise the business so that it outlives me.

What sets HealthPlus apart from other pharmacies in Nigeria?

By protecting the strict integrity of our supply chain, adopting UK pharmacy regulatory standards to self regulate, and creating a retail concept synonymous with pharmaceutical expertise and exceptional customer service are some of our unique selling points. HealthPlus provides its consumers with safe, affordable and convenient access to medicines and related healthcare products.

We are the largest employer of pharmacists in Nigeria.

Delivering a modern, professional in-store experience, similar to major retailers like Boots and Clicks, HealthPlus is differentiated in the market in three ways. First, it is an integrative healthcare retailer, selling strictly medicines and healthcare products. Our main competitors often double as supermarkets. Second, HealthPlus guarantees the presence of a qualified, knowledgeable pharmacist in-store at all times. This is required by law but not commonly complied with.

We provide health screening service and advice in each store ranging from weight management programs to healthy heart checks.

Operating as a complementary but distinctly separate offering, typically located side-by-side with HealthPlus is CasaBella Beauty which offers the same convenient access to trusted, high-quality beauty and grooming lines without compromising the HealthPlus brand. Similarly, CasaBella stores are staffed by trained beauty advisers.

What or who inspires you and what will you say has been your secret to success in business?

I am inspired by Sam Walton, the Founder of Walmart. He is the retailer of retailers. I am inspired by Kirit Palet (MBE), Founder of Day Lewis Pharmacy UK. Kirit of blessed memory took me under his wings, opened his doors for me unselfishly and I saw the future of HealthPlus in his organisation. Because of his generosity, I approach this future with great confidence. I am an all-time fan of Richard Branson, for his entrepreneurial and fun spirit.

HealthPlus guarantees the presence of a qualified, knowledgeable pharmacist instore at all times.

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In Nigeria, the audacity of Alhaji Aliko Dangote inspires me to reach beyond my comfort zone. In healthcare, I am inspired by my great friend, Clare Omatseye of JNC International, who is one of the leading lights in our sector and beyond.

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Great books inspire me.

Over the years, I have been propelled by; Good To Great by Jim Collins and E-myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. I am an ardent believer in the book called Traction by Gino Wickman.

Other great books are; What The CEO Wants You To Know by Ram Charan and Lessons From Private Equity Any Company Can Use by Orit Gadiesh and Hugh MacArthur. I have a massive collection of best sellers on diverse topics.

warehouse & logistics, business development, human resources, internal audit, IT, marketing & communication, corporate transformation, projects, facilities and admin services, security and legal. The front-end of both brands are however distinct. While HealthPlus is conservative and clinical though warm and empathetic, CasaBella is expressive and fun. There was always the debate of merging our pharmacy and beauty brands, like Boots, but I was never convinced about

My secret to success includes my drive, problem-solving skills, tenacity, optimism, focus, integrity, resilience, professional networking, sense of humor, ability to celebrate successes and learn from failures and being able to “move on� after setbacks.

How does CasaBella and HealthPlus brand intersect?

CasaBella and HealthPlus are both retail brands that make use of the same backend, from retail operations, finance, procurement & category management,

Photo Credit: Bobo Iso

this. The World Congress of Pharmacy took me to Buenos Aires a couple of years ago and I saw Farmacity Pharmacy and Get The Look, two brands owned by the same Group. Any residual doubts about merging our brands evaporated!

How do you deal with competition?

It starts with providing products and services that are unique and solve problems. Then we try to be the best at what we do.

COVER STORY

Identify our target market and communicate with them. Give extraordinary customer service. Ensure effective management and efficient processes. Get the right people into the right seats and of course, have adequate funding. These are how we stay ahead of competitions.

How did you cope with the economic recession in the past 4 years?

I am a die-hard optimist and constantly thinking of solutions. Let’s just say it took the great relationships we have with our stakeholders to navigate those difficult times. A major achievement was also the successful completion of our equity capital raise.

What advice do you have for upcoming entrepreneurs, especially those that are women?

Beyond the nuggets in all I have shared so far, my advice to all entrepreneurs is to develop and execute sound strategies for winning in their spaces, learn to build high-performing teams, commit to personal development, develop and nurture relationships, employ technology, live as balanced a life as you can, learn to move on after disappointments and celebrate your successes.

I am a die-hard optimist and constantly thinking of solutions.

business. I cannot ignore the disadvantages some women face in our society.

In the last decade however, females have had abundant empowerment opportunities.

While there is room for more support especially in underserved areas, let’s focus on competence!

What would have done differently?

I would have become a guru in finance management.

You know, we healthcare professionals struggle in this department. I would have also embraced technology and digital marketing earlier.

51 With the benefit of hindsight, when you look at your journey as a woman in business – is there anything you would have done differently or changed especially as it relates to HealthPlus & CasaBella?

Personally, I do not see the gender issue in business.

This is perhaps because I began my career in sales, with the pharmaceutical multinationals and was often the representative of the month. It was never about my gender but about my ability to deliver results.

Competence is therefore the key issue in running a

Interview by Ruona Phido Ruona is a Business Analyst and a Communications, Media and Society graduate from the University of Leicester. rphido@boundless.ng

ECONOMY

How Well Did We Do, Last Year?

By Uddin Ifeanyi

Photo Credit: Pexels

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Unfortunately, over the years, the federal government’s guidance on the economy’s outlook has diverged from eventual outcomes in ways that have turned the former into an exercise in creative writing. The eventual outcome, as in the numbers for last year’s budget, is not so much stranger than fiction. But undiluted magical realism.

H

ow well did the Nigerian economy do last year? Ahead of the (now-postponed) general elections this month, there might be some value to finding answers to this question; and, hopefully, enough compensation for dredging

through numbers on the economy’s output performance recently, put out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). In terms, too, of the discourse around the economy’s optimal growth and development route/ pace, a sense of how well we’ve fared to date is useful. At 1.93 per cent annual growth, the economy’s performance last year was nowhere near the guidance put out by

ECONOMY

official estimates. Although it is far better than the 0.83 per cent recorded in 2017. The 2018 growth number is, however, far closer to numbers put out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). How does this matter?

The further actual performance is from official estimates, the more unbelievable (and useless) the latter are. Unfortunately, over the years, the federal government’s guidance on the economy’s outlook has diverged from eventual outcomes in ways that have turned the former into an exercise in creative writing.

The eventual outcome, as in the numbers for last year’s budget, is not so much stranger than fiction. But undiluted magical realism.

Nonetheless, the disaggregated output numbers for last year tell a useful story. The 2.83 per cent growth rate recorded in the three months to end-December is particularly loud. It not just speaks to the possibility of stronger domestic output performance in the near-term, it’s the strongest shift that the economy has put in since the April to June 2017 period. Just as important, the economy’s growth base in the final quarter of 2018 is the broadest in almost three years.

Over the last three years, of the economy’s 46 activity sectors measured by the NBS, growth has usually fallen (quarter-on-quarter) in at least 10 sectors. Much of the sub-2 per cent growth since the economy emerged from its last recession have, thus, been due to a handful of economic sectors carrying the growth burden.

In the October-December 2018 period, however, only seven of these quarters saw growth come in below their performance in the previous quarter. Thus, on an annual basis, crop production (accounting for 22.61 per cent of the economy’s size); telecommunications (9.46 per cent); crude petroleum and natural gas (8.60 per cent); food, beverage and tobacco (4.15 per cent); construction (3.73 per cent); and professional, scientific and technical services (3.64 per cent), all turned in growth.

Important sectors all. And big contributors to

domestic output. The telecommunications sector, especially, turned in decent growth last year (11.33 per cent), after a dismal performance in 2017. Given how poorly average revenue per user on voice calls have performed, the hope is that the sector’s pivot to data as a revenue source is complete and sustainable over the medium-term.

The investment in 5G networks that will eventually support the internet of things will both test the sectors capacity over the medium-term, while opening strong revenue sources for successful telcos.

Growth in crop production was middling last year. At 2.26 per cent, it was the slowest

There are bigger worries even then.

Whether the preferred measure is nominal or real output growth, neither has kept pace with the needs of the economy — especially the needs of a young, rapidly growing population.

And this is the nub of our development challenge.

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ECONOMY

54 in 30 years. Now, this is not just the biggest contributor to gross domestic product, it is the biggest employer of labour in the economy.

Within the context, then, of the Buhari administration’s insistence that the sector accounted for more informal jobs in 2018 than the official bean crunchers captured, this soft growth number can only mean one thing. A rain-fed, subsistence sector of the economy has reached the frontiers of its production possibilities. Without rootand-branch reforms to the sector, falling productivity will become an even bigger threat to income inequality and social cohesion.

…for three years running, the trade sector has contracted.

Not surprising giving how much the last recession, and the central bank’s failure to address rising domestic prices have hurt disposable incomes — especially at the famed bottom of the pyramid.

Photo Credit: Pexels

ECONOMY

55 The numbers for trade also matter. As proxy for household spending, a recovery in output growth in the trade sector should foreshadow stronger consumer sentiments. Alas, for three years running, the trade sector has contracted.

Not surprising giving how much the last recession, and the central bank’s failure to address rising domestic prices have hurt disposable incomes — especially at the famed bottom of the pyramid. Without improvements in consumer spending, businesses will continue to flounder. By how much this year? Not nearly as much as has been suggested by the percentage increase

in the minimum wage. And if households, even at the lower end of the pyramid, elect first to fix their balance sheets ahead of spending, then, not by much. In addition to which, there is always the inflation bogey to worry about.

pressures that we’ve become familiar with, and under which the larger number of our compatriots chafe, will remain unrelenting. All of which create additional pressure to re-examine from first principles the domestic opposition to the market as a solution to our problems.

There are bigger worries even then. Whether the preferred measure is nominal or real output growth, neither has kept pace with the needs of the economy — especially the needs of a young, rapidly growing population.

And this is the nub of our development challenge. For as long as our population Uddin Ifeanyi, journalist manqué continues to grow faster and retired civil servant, can be than domestic output, the reached @IfeanyiUddin

ECONOMY

Photo Credit: Pexels

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What would it cost the Nigerian woman to add US$38 billion annually to our GDP; her home?

By Mayowa Amoo

W

omen are at the heart of the smooth functioning of the globe. At the most basic level, they have multiple identities as unique individuals, professionals/entrepreneurs, wives, mothers and also carers. It is unrealistic especially for the woman to view work and family as separate worlds. They both overlap and interact. This piece, through the eyes of a man, examines the overlapping challenges faced by women at home, at work and in the society at large and how all stakeholders can help to make their lives easier and more successful in our common interest.

The “constraints” faced by ladies in their pursuit of economic and financial autonomy (or career), are classified and discussed here under three headers namely domestic work, child and family care and professional barriers. As will be observed, government and private sector employers have major roles to play in alleviating the burdens of women in careers in Nigeria.

This writer recognises that women are not a homogenous group and they do not all want the same thing at the same time. Their attitudes, character and personalities are different and therefore not every matter in this piece will find peace within every woman or indeed man.

As further foundation to this article, if a woman is married, she needs to have a-priori chosen a morally supportive husband. That must be gotten right. In addition, even if the home is dual income, the husband should be secure enough to encourage his wife to wholly keep her earned income – so as to achieve a sense of autonomous financial security that all ladies crave. Ever heard: “My money is my money while his money is our money.”? Now, the conversation around home and career economics of womanhood for the interest of all stakeholders begins.

ECONOMY

The biggest argument against domestic work is that, depending on the author, her approach and underlying assumptions, Nigeria potentially loses up to 10% of its GDP as opportunity cost of encumbering ladies with domestic duties. Domestic work done by women (unpaid) is deemed a subsidy for the rest of the economy and a time tax on women throughout their lives.

After all, we all depend on our wives’ and mothers’ domestic work.

To address the above, men and women need to invest in things that make life simpler and

The biggest argument against domestic work is that, depending on the author, her approach and underlying assumptions, Nigeria potentially loses up to 10% of its GDP as opportunity cost of encumbering ladies with domestic duties.

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ECONOMY

easier – pay for a full time nanny, housekeeper, order groceries online, hire a cook, etc.

Despite its benefits, informal support, especially that which is procured from rural areas perpetuates social inequality especially against young girls who should be in school up to as far as they wish. It is high time government deepened and extended its conditional transfer programme to target young girls and encourage them to enrol in and complete school. I digress.

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Children should also apply themselves fully to home chores and view this as a way of further strengthening the family and preparing them for their own future independent family/career lives. Boys and girls should be brought to task in that regard. Working mothers should not have to choose

Photo Credit: Pexels

between childcare for instance and pursuit of a successful career. Nigerian companies should support both. That should be the start of the much touted corporate social responsibility –

safeguarding and promoting the lives of the future generations.

It need not be overemphasised that it is at home in families that future

Working mothers should not have to choose between childcare for instance and pursuit of a successful career.

Nigerian companies should support both.

That should be the start of the much touted corporate social responsibility – safeguarding and promoting the lives of the future generations.

ECONOMY

workers are born, their skills are nurtured and their health maintained. Leaders at home, at work and in government at all levels must align our thinking and develop cradle-to-grave, full life cycle initiatives that support the creation and promotion of families – the vital socioeconomic unit required for national progress.

In the professional world, women need supportive bosses as well as access to role models that will give practical advice on how to make successful life (not just career) journeys. Most times, men hold the position of power and they can help, so women need to reach out, while being careful of sexual harassment and exploitation.

Most couples work full time and spend little quality time together let alone with their children. Employers must deliberately and consciously admit that the prevailing work arrangement and culture today needs to

Photo Credit: Pexels

change. The cost of resisting change is being borne by families through burnout, depression and arguably suicide. Employers also lose great staff. Flexible working hours and provision of onsite child care could be a competitive advantage that cements employee loyalty.

Employers do not have to do so many things. A focus on few, high impact interventions would do.

For instance, women could resume and close work at 9:30am and 3:30pm respectively while men maintain the status quo.

Men should be allowed to opt for similar arrangement if they choose to. Women and men could also voluntarily consider having a discontinuous or “staggered” career.

Women who find themselves in hostile employer environments can choose to become “Boss Madams” by opting out and pursuing

entrepreneurial careers.

Nigeria could become the female entrepreneurial capital of the world where ladies have well rounded lives anchored on viable personal choice. Government policies could thus target women-owned businesses for affirmative action such as contract awards and access to finance. Launching a business together can also help husband and wife achieve integrated familywork lives.

Overall, in order to assist women make their additional multi-billion dollar GDP contribution, we all need to change - spouses, employers, employees and government – we need to shift our minds to begin to view child care and elderly care as a private responsibility in public interest. Home management in its broadest form is not in any way inferior to career work – corporate leaders must believe this and espouse it. Accommodation of family in work life is a key feature of positive economic, labour and social policy. Men need the most encouragement to voluntarily engage at home especially in child and general family care.

It will be a very long journey but it has already started with the very first steps. We can do this!

Mayowa Amoo is an investment banker based in Lagos.

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HEALTH

Where We Are With Asthma in Nigeria

By Dr. Adeola Mariam Toye

Photo Credit: Google

T

here is no country in the world which is devoid of asthma. The World Health Survey (WHS) on asthma, championed by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the global burden of asthma in adults to be 4.3%. The incidence of this disease exceeds 300 million people in the world. However, the prevalence of this condition tends to vary from country to country. The burden of asthma is of public health concern because the disease is a major cause of infirmity, depletes scarce health resources, and reduces the quality of life of affected individuals. This burden is even more profound in developing countries like Nigeria, where health costs are largely borne by the individual patient. In Nigeria, we live and breathe in asthma

HEALTH

triggers. It is a nation of closely built houses in the cities, generator fumes, bush burning and factory pollution. All of these spell danger or even death for those suffering from asthma.

Poor information about the condition contributes to its debilitating effects.

The majority of those living with asthma are children.

There are several studies highlighting the burden of asthma in children in Nigeria, with a prevalence ranging from 5.1% to 14.3%. As their health decisions are often made by the adults around them, there is a need to educate the public on how to prevent an attack and ensure that they lead normal lives. This article is going to provide some insight on the predominant causes of asthma and the steps that should be taken in order to control/prevent this disease.

Identify and Avoid Triggers There are certain asthma triggers which a lot of Nigerians are not aware of. Asthma triggers bring on the feeling of the throat tightening and a suffocating sense of breathlessness.

They include smoke, cold air, some types of food, or even emotions. It may be necessary to keep a food diary to pick out allergies.

Rugs and pets give off lots of fluff that may be invisible but cause severe allergic

reactions. Pollen is a risk in areas with lots of flowers and other plants.

causing severe breathing difficulties. Many lives have also been lost due to this as care is sought only when it Perhaps the greatest culprit is is too late. Some even keep dust! It is everywhere. On the it a secret and as such the roads, in our homes. It sticks people around them don’t to all surfaces including bags, know to get help on time. clothes, beddings, curtains etc. Regular house cleaning Non-compliance can help mitigate this effect.

Also wearing a mask or Inaccurate and irregular covering the nose and mouth use of inhalers and with a clean handkerchief in other medication cause areas with poor air quality is complications and a advisable. Avoiding direct reduction in quality of exposure to cold air from life. Doctors, nurses and air conditioners and ceiling other health care workers fans have also yielded less thus have to ensure the frequency of attacks. patient can demonstrate the correct use of an inhaler to Stigma achieve effective treatment.

In addition, some people Another main cause of stop using inhalers and concern with asthma in other medications after the Nigeria is stigma. It is symptoms stop, without first baffling how much energy confirming with the doctor. is poured into demonizing The high cost of inhalers is every disease. This leads another factor that prevents to shame and denial. Thus some patients from using asthma is viewed as a curse, them regularly. Most are a punishment for sins instead imported and poor families of a condition that can be who are at higher risk of prevented and treated. being exposed to allergens Those who need inhalers can’t afford them. are told not to use it thereby Poorly Developed Health System Poor access to care, payment before healthcare delivery

Regular house cleaning can help mitigate this effect. Also wearing a mask or covering the nose and mouth with a clean handkerchief in areas with poor air quality is advisable.

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HEALTH

be amplified to tackle this problem before it is too late. The Olusosun landfill in Ojota, Lagos emitted smoke and other noxious fumes in recent times. This finds its way into cars even with all the windows wound up.

Until one leaves that part of the road, one literally finds it difficult to breathe. Now, imagine the magnified effect of being in traffic, or actually living in that area.

In Conclusion

Photo Credit: Google

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are among plagues crippling the Nigerian health sector.

A patient with an acute exacerbation of asthma simply doesn’t have the time!

They often require treatment within minutes.

Oxygen, nebulizers to deliver medication to open up the airway and provides urgent relief, are part of the emergency care offered to patients. Sadly however, these seemingly simple interventions are not available in many hospitals and primary health care centres across the country.

Those who do have, require a down payment which the relatives may not have at that point in time. This leads to needless loss of life. The absence of universal health coverage is a setback to ensuring quality and timely health care delivery.

Port Harcourt Soot and other Pollutants Environmental pollution is one of the greatest challenges to mitigating asthma. For months, the quality of health in Port Harcourt, a city located in the oil-rich southern state of Rivers has been embattled by black soot in its atmosphere. This is not unrelated to hydrocarbon from poorly regulated crude refining. Residents report that it envelopes them, being heavy in the air and sticking to every surface including their throats. This has grossly worsened the health status of people with respiratory conditions like asthma and of course leading to the emergence of new cases.

Without mincing words, this is a disaster waiting to happen. All efforts need to

Generator fumes, firewood smoke, and all other forms of pollution need to be curbed.

Children who already suffer from the condition should not stay around triggers like dust, rugs or pets who have fur. More awareness needs to be created on the prevention and medical care for asthma.

Together, we can reduce the burden of asthma drastically in Nigeria.

Dr. Adeola Mariam Toye MBBS (Lagos) Is a physician, writer and entrepreneur with an ardent focus on global health, innovation and liberal arts. She is Co-founder at Hellocare NG, a health tech company changing the face of healthcare delivery in Nigeria .

Founder at OumissaInspire, a social enterprise for books, health, tech and design. CEO, KhamisLifestyle, a bookstore and literary advocacy company. She speaks French and Spanish with increasing proficiency.

ECONOMY

SPORTS

Nigerian Women Making Great Strides In Sports

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omen have played a huge part in Nigeria’s rise to prominence in the world of sports.

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Although male boxer Nojim Maiyegun won the country’s first medal (bronze) at the Olympics in Tokyo 1964, it was at the 1996 edition in Atlanta that Africa’s most populous nation made a giant stride in the biggest sporting event in the world. Chioma Ajunwa, a policewoman, made history by winning Nigeria’s first individual gold medal that year in the United States, a feat she achieved in long jump.

Till date, Nigeria has not bettered its exploits of winning six medals (two gold, one silver and three bronze medals) at a single Olympics. Four of these medals were won by the country’s women with Mary Onyali and Falilat Ogunkoya finishing in the medal range of the 100 and 400 metres events respectively.

Before then, the quartet of Onyali, Faith Idehen, Christy Opara and Beatrice Utondo had won bronze in athletics relay event in Barcelona 1992 Olympics, and the country’s senior women’s football team Falcons – now known as Super Falcons – had occupied the position of Africa’s best.

And in table tennis, 44-year-old former African champion Olufunke Oshonaike is working towards becoming the first female athlete to participate in seven Olympics as Nigerian sporting women keep going great guns.

Many believe that the heroics of the aforementioned athletes, among other sporting legends, fuelled the rise of the likes of Blessing Okagbare-Ighoteguonor, Tobi Amusan, Odunayo Adekuoroye, Asisat Oshoala and not forgetting the country’s historic Bobsled and Skeleton team.

Oshoala has on three occasions been named Africa’s best player by the Confederation of African Football (Caf), and she is arguably the richest among African female players; while Okagbare has since taken over from Onyali as she holds the current African record in 200m with her run of 22.04 seconds in 2018.

Nigerian sprint hurdler Amusan, 21, is one of her country’s bright prospects in the track and field event. And come Tokyo 2020, the Commonwealth and African champion is confident that she is in the right fettle to clinch another Olympic gold for Nigeria.

Amusan, after surprising many by winning the 100m hurdles at the Brazzaville African Games in 2015, said, according to the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF), that she was determined

Photo Credit: Google

SPORTS

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to silence those who thought she was not good enough to win the race.

“People were saying I couldn’t make it to the finals, but I thought, ‘No problem’.

In the first round I had the fastest time and a PB (personal best) of 13.11 (an African U20 record). Then, in the finals, I ran 13.15 and I won. It was a huge victory for me. I realised then that I had the talent in the hurdles, so I took it really seriously,” IAAF quoted her as saying.

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The Ogun-born athlete started 2018 on a winning note by making the final of the 60m hurdles after beating reigning world champion Sally Pearson in the semi-finals of the World Indoor Championships. And at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Tobi surprised Jamaica’s 2015 world champion, Danielle Williams, to win the 100m hurdles with a season best of 12.68 secs, three seconds short of the Games record of 12.65 secs.

But the athlete had some setbacks, which she said made her stronger.

“I would talk about the World U20 Championships in Bydgoszcz. I went in with the fastest time, but had trail leg problems and went from first to fifth in the final. That got me really heart-broken. I felt like I should quit hurdling after that one race,” she told IAAF. “I was so emotionally

and mentally drained. Going into the competition I had the expectation of, ‘You’re winning this’. And then everything switched around in 12 seconds. That’s one of the lows.

But those disappointments have made me really strong.

Every time I step on the track, and in training, I look back and think, ‘None of those girls who beat me then [at World U20s] will ever defeat me again’.”

Another Nigerian woman, doing great things in wrestling, is Adekuoroye.

She claimed her second Commonwealth gold medal at Gold Coast 2018. The freestyle wrestler, 24, has represented the country in major sporting events over the years, bagging her first gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, and in 2016, she won a silver medal at the World Wrestling Championships.

Also in 2018, Nigeria‘s Bobsled and Skeleton team, otherwise known as Ice blazers, made up of Ngozi Onwumere, Akuoma Omeoga, Seun Adigun and Simi Adeagbo made history by flying Nigeria’s flag at the winter Olympics for the first time. No African team, male or female, had done so.

And in football, Nigeria lifted the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations for a record ninth time after edging out a stubborn Bafana Bafana of

South Africa 4-3 on penalties in December, 2018. The Super Falcons, who had qualified for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup in France by reaching the final of last year’s tournament in Ghana, retained the trophy for the third time on the bounce. Only Equatorial Guinea have prevented the Nigerian women from making it smooth sailing in their dominance of African football.

Nigeria’s female basketball team, D’Tigress, were not left out of the country’s impressive outings last year. They may not have won the 2018 FIBA World Cup, but they achieved a remarkable feat after plying through a forest of adversity.

Competing in Group B, Otis Hughley’s ladies got the better of Turkey 74-68; overcame Argentina 75-70; and edged out Greece 57-56 in a nail-biting contest.

No African team had won a group game at the basketball showpiece before the last edition in Tenerife, Spain.

John Andah is a sports journalist and Senior Assistant Editor with Concise News Global.

Events

ko o k n i y

By Iro

President Buhari inaugurates NSIA-LUTH

Cancer Treatment Center

Picture Credits: ??

Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, President, Federal Republic of Nigeria at the inauguration of the health facility.

Picture Credits: Buhari New Media Centre

resident Muhammadu Buhari recently inaugurated the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) advanced Cancer treatment centre in Lagos, with a pledge to ensure that facilities for the prevention, early diagnosis and treatment of cancer are available to many more Nigerians.

Araba, President Buhari announced that the model will be replicated across the country to bring quality, first-class healthcare services to cancer patients in Nigeria. ‘ ‘We are aware that up to 40% of funds spent by Nigerians on medical tourism is attributable to patients seeking treatment for cancer. Despite having an increasing number of citizens suffering from cancer, we until now, had only two working radiotherapy machines in the country.

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At the inauguration ceremony of the state-of-the-art Centre in LUTH, Idi

EVENTS

Access Lagos City

Marathon 2019

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he The 2019 marathon which is the 4th one being held was aimed at advancing Nigerians blossoming drive for health and fitness. The marathon, which has had Access Bank as title sponsor since 2016, is one of the bank’s initiatives to showcase Lagos to the world, boost businesses and encourage fitness and healthy fun for individuals and their families.

Apart from the annual thrills and excitement, this year’s

edition was symbolic as it was a direct pointer to the ongoing merger of Access Bank and Diamond Bank.

There were over 100,000 runners, 3,000 volunteers, partners and members of staff, 20 professional athletes who worked together to pull off the biggest marathon in Nigeria this year. Also outstanding was the presence of the GMD/ CEO of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe and the GMD/CEO of Diamond Bank, Uzoma Dozie throughout the event, encouraging and awarding the participants.

The race which attracted over 40,000 athletes from around the world was dominated by Ethiopian runners (Sintayehu Legese and Ethiopian runner came first in the male category and their first three in the female category were also Ethiopian, with Dinke Meserate topping that category). The winners (1st, 2nd and 3rd) were given $50,000. $40,000 and $30,000 respectively. The marathon which started at the National Stadium, Surulere and ended at Eko Atlantic was graced by dignitaries like the Governor of Lagos state (Gov. Akinwunmi Ambode), the Minister of Sports (Solomon Dalung), Minister of Information (Lai Mohammed), British High Commissioner to Nigeria, President of the NFF, Chief of Army staff, amongst others.

First Lady of Lagos State,Mrs Bolanle Ambode; Governor of Lagos State, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode; Winner of the female marathon, Dinke Meseret and the other two finallists; MD/ CEO of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe; Federal Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung; CEO of Diamond Bank, Uzoma Dozie Picture Credits: Access Bank

EVENTS

Moët & Chandon and Filmhouse Media present the 1st annual Film Gala in Nigeria

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he inaugural edition of The Film Gala, hosted by Osas IghodaroAjibade, 2010 Miss Black USA Pageant winner and acclaimed actress, and

by Toni Tones, singer, songwriter and actress, at the Wings Tower, Victoria Island, Lagos and presented

A-list celebrities at the event

by Filmhouse Cinemas, in partnership with Moët & Chandon, was held on the Saturday, January 26th, 2019. Filmhouse Cinemas, the premiere movie/film platform in Nigeria and Moët & Chandon, the official champagne of the Golden Globes, collaborated to bring to the forefront of the Nigerian film industry bodies

of work that are breaking the norm in contemporary Nigerian cinema. The theme of the night was “Married To The Arts.”

It was indeed a night of glitz and glamour as A-list celebrities, actors and enthusiasts who attended the event were adorned in looks that reflected the theme.

Picture Credits: Bella Naija

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EVENTS

Transcorp Hotels Plc sends forth Valentine Ozigbo and welcomes Owen Omogiafo

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he Transcorp Hotels Plc, the hospitality subsidiary of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp) and owners of the award-winning Transcorp Hilton Abuja and the iconic Transcorp Hotels Calabar hosted a farewell/welcome dinner in honour of its immediate past Managing Director/ CEO, Valentine Ozigbo who has been elevated to the role of the President/ CEO of Transcorp Plc and Owen Omogiafo the current MD/CEO of Transcorp Hotels Plc. The event held in Abuja also saw the outgoing and incoming General Managers of Transcorp Hilton Abuja, Etienne Gailliez and Kevin Brett celebrated.

The Chairman of Transcorp Hotels Plc, Emmanuel Nnorom in his remarks appreciated Ozigbo for maintaining and deploying a high-level of corporate governance and for driving positive transformation in Transcorp Hilton Abuja and Transcorp Hotels Calabar.

Executive Director of Transcorp Plc, Chris Ezeafulukwe; President/ CEO of Transcorp Plc, Valentine Ozigbo; MD/CEO of Transcorp Hotels Plc, Owen Omogiafo; Chairman of Transcorp Hotels Plc, Emmanuel Nnorom pose with the Transcorp Logo at the event.

A cross section of invited guests at the event

Music Artiste, Phyno, performing at the event Picture Credits: Transcorp Plc

EVENTS

Social Media In Week 2019 Retrospect

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A view of #AfricaNXT today where creatives working in art, food and fashion were celebrated.

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he annual Social Media Week held from 4th-8th of February 2019 at the Landmark Event Center Victoria Island. Social Media Week Lagos is a week long conference that provides the ideas, trends, insights and inspiration to help people and businesses understand how to achieve more in a hyper-connected world. The event featured a central stage for keynotes and panels, multiple rooms for workshops, masterclasses and presentations.

The event kickstarted with the grand opening of Africa NXT, a marketplace that featured a plethora of vendors and activities, including a place to sip coffee, a beer stand, pop up massages and fashion boutiques.

Offline Wellness Studio at #SMWLagos lead by Kemi Bawa-Allah engages us in daily meditation challenges and Yoga.

Picture Credits: Social Media Week