Lady Mgbemene identifies major production challenges in Nigeria

  Lady Dr. Ifyugo Mgbemene is the chief executive officer (CEO), Leo ela International Limited, producers of beauty touch cosmetics; perfumes and beauty hair products. In this chat with CHINYERE IKEANYI, the Lady entrepreneur identifies major challenges facing production in Nigeria, among other contemporary business issues. Excerpt:

What motivated you into entrepreneurship?

My father was a successful business man from Onitsha. They call them Omata. And is over 25 years; my father has been my mentor. Naturally and within me, I loved to be a producer. If you were there when I celebrated my 25 years anniversary, my friends who came around confirmed it that I used to say it during our university days that I would liketo be a producer, own my own company, but friends were saying they would like to work in oil companies and I told them that I will be my own oil company. I never knew that in life I would have something to do with Oil Company. Among all my friends, I was the one that has something to do with Oil Company, yet my own boss. Another motivation is that right from time, I like to be an independent person, and my daddy trained me that way from my growing up. So, I always like to do things by myself.

How long have you been in this production line?

I registered my company 25 years ago as a business name before I went for the National youth service and my father, who is late now, knew what I can do. So, when I started, he encouraged me and his encouragement boosted my morale. But aside that, becoming an entrepreneur is in me because I like to work for myself and do something by myself with my hand. For instance, I can paint; my mother is an artiste and a teacher. So, I was raised by a teacher. I have the combination of being born and brought up in Onitsha. So, the first thing I saw while growing up was business; how to make money. That is what we know Anambra and Onitsha for. I grew up and what my mind was telling me was’ go and make money’. So, I went to school because my mother was brought up in Enugu and she taught us the importance and value of education. And from my daddy, he taught us how to do business.

Can you tell us what it takes to be a successful business woman?

It takes a lot of things to be a successful business woman. Success doesn’t come easily. Like when I was in the university and I was telling my friends I will own a company and today, God has answered my prayer. Part of business success is hard work and anyone working with me that is not hardworking, I drop the person because you can’t meet my target and you can’t help me to move forward. I keep only friends who are ready to move with me to success. Those that are only interested to consume and are not ready to sacrifice and allow business to grow to maturity I don’t involve them in my personal and business lives. It is like you eat up the yam that would fill your yam barn tomorrow. Most great business people started both their life and business small. I started small and grew with time. When I started my business and I told my friends, it looked funny, even my husband didn’t believe me that I can make it. It was my daddy that believed in me, though I lost him. He was a fighter, a man of timber and caliber, and that made his kinsmen that to title him, Okoro kan nze. He was a politician too. The fact is that Igbo believe that when you plant a corn, you have to allow it germinate, and then nurture it till harvest season. In the same way, that is how entrepreneurship works. That is what the Igbo are known for; though the process may take you years. This is what helped me in business. I didn’t steal money, or take bank loan. I started small till this level I am today. Till tomorrow, I still work in my factory. My children and my relations living with me then were going to the factory to work ; even the smallest boy in my house will be carrying cartons because that is the way to make it in life, work. There is no easy way to make it. So, anybody that knows what he is doing in business shouldn’t spend his capital. Obi Cubana said it that people should go and work hard. Be strategic in business, minimise profit to maximise it. In business, you must know when to move, study your environment. Produce what people will buy and come back to ask for it. I made sure that whatever we are producing for the public must be in order. It took us years, and our products have NAFDAC registration numbers and we are not hiding. We have our market strategy, we treat our agents or distributors well and sometimes we grant them credit facility and after two weeks they pay back. The major challenge is epileptic power supply, employees who want you to pay them huge salaries; they don’t consider factory overhead expenses. Some of them want to be boss and they don’t know when you started.

What has been your experience since you started producing Beauty touch in Nigeria business environment?

When I started production, I started small until I grew to the level of attending exhibitions. I have been on world exhibition the first time it was held in Nigeria in 2004 and it was published in BusinessDay Newspaper with the caption, ‘Lady Cosmetics dazzles Obasanjo’. It was also aired on Television. There was another one published with the caption, ‘Kanu Cosmetics is lion in the market place’. I have been moving. I also go to R&D, Research and Development, and I have been upgrading my machines to suit the modern way of producing beauty products. However, to be an entrepreneur in Nigeria is easy and at the same time difficult. But I advise anybody to start small. As I tell you now, there is machine in my factor yI can handle. But the major production challenges in Nigeria are poor power supply and cost of transportation and employees’ attitude. Sometimes my husband would help me convey my goods from area of purchase to my factory. Even my children do help my business online; they order things when I asked them to do so, sometimes from abroad.

How do you source your materials?

Some of the materials we use for my production, I source them from US and Korea because I have a big factory machines I import from Korea for making hair attachment. I started making hair attachment since 2005. I produce tablet soap which they call Kanu soap. We were formerly called Kanu Cosmetics before we changed to Beauty Touch. Since I left University, I have been working. I worked in Pharmacy department in General Hospital, Jigawa. I have won state award in Jigawa, automatic employment in 1996. But I didn’t want to go back to hospital; then I had registered my company. I had also lectured physiology, pharmacology and drug supply in School of Health Technology, Jigawa State when I got married and resigned officially and relocated to Lagos in 1997 and I started producing some products and that was how I got my money. I didn’t take any loan from any bank; I got some contracts to produce for some companies like Johnson Wax in 1999. Then in 2004 or 2005 or thereabout, I won another contract against Gongoni Company in Port Harcourt and that was in millions. God was kind to me and my business. I didn’t involve family money. I received prayer from Rev. Father Osigwe of blessed memory and Rev. Father Idibe of blessed memory. They were my mentors and spiritual fathers. My grandmother also blessed me before she died.

Since the COVID-19 that affected global business transaction, and cost of product is increasing on daily basis, how are you coping in terms of standards and others?

Though it has not been easy with production process especially since the advent of COVID-19, but that has not made me to reduce standard of our production or change cost. Reason being that I work in my factory; before COVID-19 broke out, I went to New York in 2015, I bought some new automatic machines. As I knew, before COVID-19, we had started producing sanitizer for companies and friends. We didn’t know that pandemic would break out. As in production, if you know what you are doing, you will be able to navigate. For instance, when the price of plastic increased with chemical also increased, but since we are in a competitive market, I didn’t want to drop in standard. So, what I did was to maintain the standard and added increased cost just little. My strategy has always been little profit, with rate of turnover will sustain your customer. You don’t drive away your customers with high prices.

What do you think government should do to curtail inflow of fake products from some of the Asian countries?

Government is trying. We are the governments. When you go abroad, businesses are owned by individuals and they pay tax. Our government is working. When they came to my factory, they gave me the standard I must meet in production before they gave me NAFDAC registration number, it took years. They really did their work. It was stressful, but you must do it well. Why I said they are working is that even in abroad, there are still fake products. Even here in Nigeria, many people produce fake. So, for us to be free from it, those producing fake have to stop it first.

What do you think government should do to curtail inflow of fake products from some of the Asian countries?

Government is trying. We are the governments. When you go abroad, businesses are owned by individuals and they pay tax. Our government is working. When they came to my factory, they gave me the standard I must meet in production before they gave me NAFDAC registration number, it took years. They really did their work. It was stressful, but you must do it well. Why I said they working is that even in abroad there are still fake product. Even here in Nigeria many people produce fake. So for us to be free from it, those producing fake have to stop it first.

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