He
is a graduate of University of Lagos, a native of Delta state but brought up in
Lagos state. He oversees Open Stages Incentives Ltd; Ron Oseji is married with
a boy and a girl. He spoke recently on the essence of entrepreneurship and many
more.
What line of
business are you into as an entrepreneur?
We
are into two broad lines of business; we are into ICT where we offer solutions
in the geographic information technology sector, we are also into business
management aspect of things where we offer solutions in training, management
and so on.
How long have
you been an entrepreneur?
Well,
actually about five years now. Yes I worked for the start-up first, we started
to build the business, it grew and has just started to strive.
What really
motivated you into this line of business?
Truthfully,
at some point, I noticed that there were a lot of people looking for work, and
the jobs were not just there. So at that point, I just knew that I had to
create something for myself instead of joining the bandwagon of people that
were looking for jobs not available. When
I came to that realization, I started to build competencies that will help me
run a business; which was one of the reason I joined the start-up to learn how
to run a business well. Another reason why I am an entrepreneur is because
looking through history, I have discovered that entrepreneurship is a greatest
source of social change; it offers the opportunity to build capacity and to
create employment, so when I looked at all that, I said to myself that I want
to be that person responsible for creating social change, building capacity and
creating employment for our country. Against this back drop, I decided to take
up entrepreneurship actively.
In Nigeria, a
lot of people are into the type of business you do. What really distinguishes
you from others?
I
will say wisdom is my unique selling point. In the area of geographic
information technology, one of the things we have decided to do is to make sure
that the technology is affordable and also reliable. The fact that it is
affordable does not mean it will not be reliable. So we have invested a lot of
time, resources, research and development. Our kind of research and development
is to internalize our resources and leverage on indigenous technology. We want
our people and brains here to come up with things that can help to deliver
10-key solutions that are affordable, yet reliable. That is actually a unique
selling point to us to match international standard. So in the area of
management solutions, we do not compromise on value, even in the saying that we
have to be diligent in all things. It does not matter if the clients are paying
us very little or huge amount of money, we have never compromised and will at
any point compromise on our value. And we have an excellent customer service which
is one area we pride ourselves because we take our customers very seriously. We
don’t play with them, so these are the things that really set us apart from the
rest.
Talking about
customers, what is the relationship between you and your customers?
One
of the things we have been able to build, is inter-personal relationship with
our customers, and we pride ourselves as a company that is interested in
building a very cordial business relationship, which is something we take very
seriously. Many of our customers, we want to keep them happy; that is why we
are interested in this line of business in sustaining the relationship. We also
want to continue doing business under a very good atmosphere. Most of the time
we have a very good relationship with our customers and we take them very
seriously.
Have you ever
had any experience with a customer not being satisfied with a service rendered
at any point?
Yes,
definitely. That scenario will always come up now and then, but what we do is
to try everything we can to manage the situation the best we can, and you
should also know it is a learning process in business, so as we progress, we
learn certain things. One of the things we have learnt now is to have policy on
a particular business transaction so that everyone is well-informed right from
the beginning and to know the terms and conditions of offering such business.
So, I will basically say it is open right from the beginning; that way both
partners will have clear understanding of what is required. Even at that, we
have had customers come back to say they are having issues and not satisfied
with the quality of services offered. Despite that, we actually have a policy
that if a customer complains, there will be a refund or something that will
help to leverage the effect of whatever those complaints might be. Every day,
we strive to meet our customer’s need, so it is definitely getting better every
day.
What is the
relationship with your employees?
Simply
team-work, because you can’t do the job alone, you need other people to help
you to achieve your set goals and corporate objective. We recognize that every
team member has to be recognized. And one of the things we have been able to
put in place is the staff-of-the-month award programme. There are good working
conditions for our staff.
Have you ever
had any experience with a staff leaving when his/her service is most needed?
Yes,
I have had some staff leave most unexpectedly, but it is interesting to know
that most of them have left under cordial conditions. In fact, the kind of
relationship we have been able to build with the staff is that when they are
looking at other prospects, they always let me know of the arrangement. So a
lot of times, it does not really come as a shock when they are about to leave.
I have had opportunity to employ someone I know I was under paying because of
his qualification and the working agreement was mutual, and I let him know from
the start that I can’t afford to pay much for his services and he accepted. So
while he was working with us, I knew he was also looking elsewhere; when the
opportunity came, he told me, and I gave him my blessing and he left. It will
interest you to know that after he left, today we still work together on
contract basis. I have also had some staff I was not quite satisfied with their
services, and they decided to leave; it will not make any difference.
What are those
policies of government affecting your business?
Licensing;
for you to get a license for a service you render, most of the licenses are quite
expensive. We are currently trying to get a license now for one of the services
that we offer and it has been extremely difficult, all the documentations
involved are expensive. For not having that license, we have not been able to
move forward in rendering those services and we have been on this for almost a
year now. Imagine the amount of revenue we are losing for not being able to
render that service for a year now, which is a major hindrance. Then taxation,
in other countries, you hear something like 5-year tax holidays for some
businesses, but we don’t have such luxury here in Nigeria. In applying for your
tax clearance, the process is tedious, even in some cases if you have not made
any profit; you are still expected to pay tax. Another one is business premises
registration which is close to N10,000 or so, development levy and all sorts.
It can be so discouraging, which is why you must have strong will in that
business. If really our government is interested in empowering entrepreneurs, I
believe there will be some kind of incentives for new businesses. Maybe, give
them opportunity to go and try, then the tax policies will come up later. So,
those are some of the policies that are a bit difficult for us to deal with.
How about the
policies that are helping your business to move forward?
The
key one is government initiative in youth enterprise programme in Nigeria; it
was an initiative that was developed to help small businesses; either those
that were about to start or those that just started to expand their operations.
That is one of the initiatives that have really helped us. It was like business
a plan competition that was held in 2011, and when I emerged as the winner,
which really helped me reshape the way I do business now because winning that
award, some incentives came with it. I had an opportunity to go for training at
the Enterprise Development Centre. Through the training, I have been able to
establish certain business relationships, enter into mentorship programmes;
that have helped me to establish some other businesses. That particular
government initiative really helped me in the way I do business now and give my
business a huge amount of credibility.
Who are your
mentors?
One
of the people I look up to is Fela Durotoye, even though I don’t have a
personal relationship with him, but I follow this works and read about him.
Another person is Aliko Dangote, he is the first African man listed on Forbes
among the billionaires in the world. These are some of the people that are my
role models in business.
Have you ever
had any regret since you started?
I
would not call them regrets, but of course there have been tough times I have
wondered how and why I was going through all these? What am I going to do next?
But I have learnt that there are other things attached to running a business;
such as consistency, which at some point will turn things around. That is one
of the benefits of reading books and learning from other entrepreneurs, where
you will find out that some successful people today have also passed through
that stage. I have read a lot about some people within and outside the country
who have gone through tough times and gotten to where they are today through sheer
dint of hard work and perseverance. One key thing is for you to be diligent and
consistent in what you are doing. Before long, things will start to turn
around. During those tough times, I still push; continue to do things I have to
do. Winning the business competition and things gradually turned around, it was
because I was consistent in what I was doing. It was just like opportunity
meeting preparedness, when the opportunity came, I was actually prepared.
Where are you
taking your organization to, five years time?
We
are still playing on the local scene now, in five years from now we want to be
known globally. We have already started taking steps in that direction. We are
establishing international partnership; we don’t want to limit ourselves in Nigeria
alone, but to do that anywhere in the world. So in five years, we hope to have
achieved that. In terms of staffing, we see our company reaching a staff
strength of over 200 spread across the globe. Basically, we are looking at
building a global brand; we want to be able to say we are generating a superior
service that will make a substantial impact in the Nigerian environment,
creating employment, building capacity etc. That is where we hope to see
ourselves in five years time and beyond.
Advice to
upcoming entrepreneurs
One
is for you to acquire knowledge in the area of the business you want to go for,
learn on how to be an entrepreneur and to run a successful business. The first
focus should not be on how to make profit, some people think when they have
money they can run a business, but it is the other way round.
- CHRISTIAN OZURUIGBO
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