Post by Trade Coach on Jun 5, 2018 15:54:44 GMT 1
Nigeria's challenging business environment has left many manufacturing firms barely operating at optimal capacity while quite a few have closed shop. Managing Director, The Thy Global Investment Limited, Mr. Ismail AbdulAzeez says that chief executives who want to succeed must bring toughness and robust creativity to the board in this interview.
How were you able to retain your good talents on export/import business and training?
Talent management and training people on various export management is an easy job for me. It has to do more with the institution. You should have a process and if it is a system driven institution like The Thy Global Investment Limited, it is a lot easier. We do not wait until we have hundreds of trainees on our hands before acting. You can actually call the meltdown a calamity because when you see huge organisations being swept away, definitely history is being re-written because of that. And the issue of human capital conservation comes to the fore, because at the end of the day, the company is not really the four walls but the quality of the people and how you have managed to put a process in place that will guarantee them the long haul.
In our company, we look at talent management differently, it is a holistic thing. This is because if we do not have our personnel pulling off the strategic decisions of the business, it is going to be an uphill task to achieve a result.
The starting point is training and here we do not just focus on the technical issues, we also look at behavioural issues. We look at the issue of affordability, suitability and getting sync between the goals of the organisation and goals of aspiring exporters. So right from the outset, we manage to marry as much as possible, the vision of the company with the vision of the would-be exporter. This is not to say that we record 100 per cent success, but I would say that to a very large extent, we are proud to say that we have more than 15 years of training experience in our organisation.
That means you take manpower management very seriously?
Yes, and even more because we are talking about talent management in a difficult period. It is a lot easier to manage organisations in a boom era; when you have economic boom and the sectors are doing very well. You can remember that between 2003 and 2006, the entire world went through a boom period. Even the prices of commodities went haywire and of course, Nigeria benefited from that because of the high price of crude.
Such a time, you do not really need a rocket science to manage an individual or organisation. But you will need strong managers with perfect export knowledge because of a time like this; we are in a valley and many things are being upturned because of the situation in the market. The former CEO of Ford, Mr. Henry Coker said that when the bullet sounds, it is the workers that are first out of the window, and that happens in a crisis period such as where we are now.
But in The Thy Global Investment Limited, that is not the situation. We are very much concerned that it takes a long period to put together a lot of ideas, training and development into our clients, so making sure we empower our students with the best international best practices in the export business is the best answer.
Then the issue of exportation of commodities from Nigeria is a serious one because you do not just pick the next available commodity on the street and expect that they will deliver the kind of result that will be acceptable by the other party.
Those we trained are integrated and encouraged into a workable scheme because all they learn from us plays a critical role in their business life. So it is a win-win situation.
How exactly were you able to survive the meltdown?
I read recently that during the World Economic Forum that took place in Davos, Switzerland, the emphasis was on the planet, environment and profit. In other words, profit is a short term goal. Therefore, if everything we put in is basically seeking for profit, which is only short term, we will end up sacrificing the long term benefits, which go beyond profits. Of course there is a need for us to sustain our performance by having profit to back up our vision, but the long run is not about profit. The long run is about our positioning; what position do we intend to occupy? How do we get people trained and empowered, people who because of how our company has positively impacted on their export business will continue to reference our company to get to such a position? Someone says when you build up the people, they build up the society. And that has been our goal. We are not just looking at short term position of missing out on a few numbers of the profitability, but we are looking at the long term. As long as we can still check our milestones to assure ourselves that we are on the right track, we will continue to do that.
Many entrepreneurs have complained that it is very difficult to do business in Nigeria. What do you think should be a CEO's most valuable quality to be able to survive the environment?
A very famous Brazilian coach was defining who a coach was and I tell you a coach and a CEO are two sides of the same coin. He said that a coach was defined as someone who was already fired or someone who was about to be fired. That sums up the position of a CEO.
Even Steve Jobs, who was instrumental in saving Apple was fired, although he was rehired. In the Nigerian context, the key talent a CEO should bring to the table is not just one thing but basically you need resilience.
Resilience means there must have been preparation before result can come in. A CEO does not just perform, the ground does not just jump upwards because you are a CEO. You need a lot of preparation, mental and intellectual, looking at the big picture and ensuring that there is clear understanding of the environment in which you operate. Considering the key challenges we go through in Nigeria, definitely, the majority of CEOs in the first world will not be able to manage any organisation in Nigeria successfully, because the basic fundamentals are lacking. But we still try to plough through chaotic situations. But that does not mean that we do not need a fast improvement in the decadence situation we find ourselves operating. However, the most important thing is that you need resilience and you need to understand your client because at the end of the day, you work for them
What is it that needs to be done?
Let us priotise non-oil exportation because it will provide the bedrock for our foreign exchange earnings and economic success. China spent close to 20 years providing infrastructure before they could boldly come to the rest of the world and invite them to come to China. Everyone is migrating to China because the infrastructure is there, but in Nigeria, we do not have infrastructure. And the principle of money says that money will always be attracted to the environment that gives it the highest return.
Is it true that Nigerian CEOs overreach themselves in their lifestyles?
There are CEOs and there are CEOs. For instance, you cannot compare the CEO of a huge organisation like First Bank with the CEO of DN Meyer. CEOs are in different categories and because we run a capitalist economy, there is also a need for CEO to be the face of the organisation he runs. And naturally, a CEO cannot be bigger than his organisation; he is just the face of his organisation.
In a capitalist country, you have to look at what goes on in developed economies where CEOs, sometimes earn record breaking bonuses that even get the shareholders envious.
We have CEOs whose pay packets and bonuses are tied to their performance and the performance of the company's shares in the capital market. So if fortune smiles at them, what stops them from making millions of dollars in double digits by the end of the year?
That is also possible in Nigeria, but I can tell you that the economic sense any observer can make is that a CEO cannot earn more than what the company earns. So there must be a direct correlation between any of the CEOs and the overall deliverables.
How were you able to retain your good talents on export/import business and training?
Talent management and training people on various export management is an easy job for me. It has to do more with the institution. You should have a process and if it is a system driven institution like The Thy Global Investment Limited, it is a lot easier. We do not wait until we have hundreds of trainees on our hands before acting. You can actually call the meltdown a calamity because when you see huge organisations being swept away, definitely history is being re-written because of that. And the issue of human capital conservation comes to the fore, because at the end of the day, the company is not really the four walls but the quality of the people and how you have managed to put a process in place that will guarantee them the long haul.
In our company, we look at talent management differently, it is a holistic thing. This is because if we do not have our personnel pulling off the strategic decisions of the business, it is going to be an uphill task to achieve a result.
The starting point is training and here we do not just focus on the technical issues, we also look at behavioural issues. We look at the issue of affordability, suitability and getting sync between the goals of the organisation and goals of aspiring exporters. So right from the outset, we manage to marry as much as possible, the vision of the company with the vision of the would-be exporter. This is not to say that we record 100 per cent success, but I would say that to a very large extent, we are proud to say that we have more than 15 years of training experience in our organisation.
That means you take manpower management very seriously?
Yes, and even more because we are talking about talent management in a difficult period. It is a lot easier to manage organisations in a boom era; when you have economic boom and the sectors are doing very well. You can remember that between 2003 and 2006, the entire world went through a boom period. Even the prices of commodities went haywire and of course, Nigeria benefited from that because of the high price of crude.
Such a time, you do not really need a rocket science to manage an individual or organisation. But you will need strong managers with perfect export knowledge because of a time like this; we are in a valley and many things are being upturned because of the situation in the market. The former CEO of Ford, Mr. Henry Coker said that when the bullet sounds, it is the workers that are first out of the window, and that happens in a crisis period such as where we are now.
But in The Thy Global Investment Limited, that is not the situation. We are very much concerned that it takes a long period to put together a lot of ideas, training and development into our clients, so making sure we empower our students with the best international best practices in the export business is the best answer.
Then the issue of exportation of commodities from Nigeria is a serious one because you do not just pick the next available commodity on the street and expect that they will deliver the kind of result that will be acceptable by the other party.
Those we trained are integrated and encouraged into a workable scheme because all they learn from us plays a critical role in their business life. So it is a win-win situation.
How exactly were you able to survive the meltdown?
I read recently that during the World Economic Forum that took place in Davos, Switzerland, the emphasis was on the planet, environment and profit. In other words, profit is a short term goal. Therefore, if everything we put in is basically seeking for profit, which is only short term, we will end up sacrificing the long term benefits, which go beyond profits. Of course there is a need for us to sustain our performance by having profit to back up our vision, but the long run is not about profit. The long run is about our positioning; what position do we intend to occupy? How do we get people trained and empowered, people who because of how our company has positively impacted on their export business will continue to reference our company to get to such a position? Someone says when you build up the people, they build up the society. And that has been our goal. We are not just looking at short term position of missing out on a few numbers of the profitability, but we are looking at the long term. As long as we can still check our milestones to assure ourselves that we are on the right track, we will continue to do that.
Many entrepreneurs have complained that it is very difficult to do business in Nigeria. What do you think should be a CEO's most valuable quality to be able to survive the environment?
A very famous Brazilian coach was defining who a coach was and I tell you a coach and a CEO are two sides of the same coin. He said that a coach was defined as someone who was already fired or someone who was about to be fired. That sums up the position of a CEO.
Even Steve Jobs, who was instrumental in saving Apple was fired, although he was rehired. In the Nigerian context, the key talent a CEO should bring to the table is not just one thing but basically you need resilience.
Resilience means there must have been preparation before result can come in. A CEO does not just perform, the ground does not just jump upwards because you are a CEO. You need a lot of preparation, mental and intellectual, looking at the big picture and ensuring that there is clear understanding of the environment in which you operate. Considering the key challenges we go through in Nigeria, definitely, the majority of CEOs in the first world will not be able to manage any organisation in Nigeria successfully, because the basic fundamentals are lacking. But we still try to plough through chaotic situations. But that does not mean that we do not need a fast improvement in the decadence situation we find ourselves operating. However, the most important thing is that you need resilience and you need to understand your client because at the end of the day, you work for them
What is it that needs to be done?
Let us priotise non-oil exportation because it will provide the bedrock for our foreign exchange earnings and economic success. China spent close to 20 years providing infrastructure before they could boldly come to the rest of the world and invite them to come to China. Everyone is migrating to China because the infrastructure is there, but in Nigeria, we do not have infrastructure. And the principle of money says that money will always be attracted to the environment that gives it the highest return.
Is it true that Nigerian CEOs overreach themselves in their lifestyles?
There are CEOs and there are CEOs. For instance, you cannot compare the CEO of a huge organisation like First Bank with the CEO of DN Meyer. CEOs are in different categories and because we run a capitalist economy, there is also a need for CEO to be the face of the organisation he runs. And naturally, a CEO cannot be bigger than his organisation; he is just the face of his organisation.
In a capitalist country, you have to look at what goes on in developed economies where CEOs, sometimes earn record breaking bonuses that even get the shareholders envious.
We have CEOs whose pay packets and bonuses are tied to their performance and the performance of the company's shares in the capital market. So if fortune smiles at them, what stops them from making millions of dollars in double digits by the end of the year?
That is also possible in Nigeria, but I can tell you that the economic sense any observer can make is that a CEO cannot earn more than what the company earns. So there must be a direct correlation between any of the CEOs and the overall deliverables.
