Govt should reduce exchange rate to support interior businesses in Nigeria -Abdulwakeel Idowu

ABDULWAKEEL OLUWATOSIN IDOWU is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Meridien View Nigeria, an interior decorating company. In this brief interview with ISAAC NGUMAH, Idowu talks about the business, challenges and what the government should do to improve the business in the country. Excerpt:

Can we meet you?

The CEO of Meridien View Nigeria, we deal on home interior and exterior designs, we design and we implement including even electrical design and plumbing what we really don’t do much is building constructions but when it comes to office and home refurbishment we are good to go and we have been on this business for the past eight years.

Can you tell us about your refurbishment at competitive prices?

Very competitive, we use both local and foreign materials for our productions.

How do you see the future of interior businesses in Nigeria?

It is really growing because more people are going into property development so property development is growing definitely interior and exterior designs will also grow too.

What and what do you think government can do to support interior businesses in Nigeria?

In terms of accessibility of materials in terms of finishing materials and also reduce exchange rate, they need to reduce the exchange rate, because we find it very challenging with customers who want to put down their money.

What can you say on the competition aspects in the industry?

Most people are now coming into interior design’s and it is a man know man and mostly most people that don’t know this job they collect more than we that know the technicalities, delivery aspects of the job and at the end of the day they will still bring it back to people like us so it makes the business very competitive, giving it out to people that are not really specialized on the business.

What are your challenges in the industry?

We have diverse materials in the markets now depends on what you want, what we do in Meridien view Nigeria is quality, we compromise quality.

What are your areas of specializations?

We do a lot of things; we do pop, furniture, tiling; we do everything excluding building constructions.

What is your focus in the industry?

My focus is to target multinational companies in the next five years.

Tell us about your prospect in the business

We give glory to God but we are coming up little by little.

Do you have expansion in the business?

We have a branch in Ilorin and Abuja and Port Harcourt

Can you tell us about innovation, growth and strategy in the business?

I will put everything together because we are growing day by day, we also travel out for training with many companies overseas then we brought that idea into Nigeria to implement it, our company is going places in the next few years.

What have been your experiences with clients and customers?

You cannot rule out that one, we have the good the bad and the ugly customers but majorly when your products are good definitely they will call you back but some will not call based on your deliverable and financial budgetary aspects.

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