MGV News   Italy: Government Goes After Lazy Public Sector Workers Morocco: Ex-Guantanamo Detainee Sentenced For Terrorism India: First Lunar Probe Lands, Sends Back Images New Zealand: Maori Party Will Support New Govt. For Indigenous Rights Guarantees Puerto Rico: Bahamas' Atlantis Resort's Low Occupancy Cited for Massive Lay-offs   Specials New IMDiversity Pharmaceutical Careers Channel   New! Expanded Graduate/ Professional School Opportunities Channel   What's New at IMDiversity

The Changing Face of Nigerian Business

The Nigerian economy is changing for the better. Since 1999 there has been sustained growth in the economy. The GDP grew from US$46.7 billion in 2002 to US$116.4 billion in 2006 at an average growth rate of 6.48. The nation's debt profile has improved tremendously. Its indebtedness to the Paris Club was restructured and paid off in 2005. The London Club loans were also paid off less than two years later. New policies have been introduced to bring economic and business practices in line with global trends. The government's National Economic Empowerment Development Strategy (NEEDS) is a reform program modeled after the IMF's Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility and aimed at meeting United Nations-set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Through NEEDS new policies are being developed with the aim to reduce poverty, attract foreign investment and make private business the engine of economic growth in the country. These trends translate to major opportunities for business, especially the Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). One of the companies taking advantage of the trend is a small consulting firm called SCAL.

This Special Report focuses on SCAL and its business.

Strategic Capital Alliance - A New Era Firm in National Development

By Obi. O. Akwani
Editor, Minorities' Global Village

April 2007

A perceptible change for the better is taking place in the way business is done in Nigeria today. You may not immediately realize it because the change is not happening evenly. In most sectors, things have remained "business as usual." Government is still not working as well as it could. The habitual inefficiencies in government systems and services, like thick layers of aged dust, remain mostly undisturbed. Electricity remains in short supply and poor management practices are severely worsening the bad situation. For example, the current generating capacity of 4000 mega Watts was reduced to 1000 mega Watts for several months earlier this year after the largest power generating station at Egbin, Lagos State had to be shut down. There is still corruption in most governments -- mismanagement and ill-use of public resources are still very much evident in everything from ill-equipped schools to bad and deteriorating roads. These all point to a chronic inability of public service providers to deliver reliable services.

But beyond this first window of gloom, some real changes for the better are happening. To meet an estimated 10,000 mega Watts power need, the government is embarked on the construction of several new power stations across the country. Some of these stations are nearing completion. Power generation and distribution have also been opened to private competition. Within the private sector, a new crop of enterprises run by devoted professionals, are emerging, ready to take over the management of Nigeria’s privatized public service systems. These entrepreneurs have invested their long-term corporate survival in the new policies of government, driven by global imperatives.

One of the achievements of the out-going Obasanjo government is its response to the global economic challenges facing Nigeria. To bring the country in-line with global imperatives, the government adopted a set of policy positions designed to make the country successful and well integrated in increasingly close-linked and interdependent world economies. There is a greater attention being paid to international standards for business practices by government. As a result, its policies are increasingly geared toward encouraging local businesses to meet international standards.

One of the new corporate entities taking advantage of the new policy scenario is a consulting company called Strategic Capital Alliance Limited. SCAL is not a large conglomerate like Transcorp -- another new era corporation put together within the Obasanjo administration to act as an engine for rapid economic and industrial development in Nigeria. Yet SCAL remains, through the far-reaching insight of its founders, one of the small to medium private companies tooled up to realign Nigeria for sustained development. The mega-corps are important in the new economic transformation envisaged for the country by government experts, but just as important is the role of smaller companies like SCAL.

SCAL's advantage is, in part, that it is not saddled with the tremendous political baggage that a company like Transcorp must cope with in the Nigerian business/political environment of today. While a mega corporation like Transcorp must struggle to overcome the resistance of a local political mindset unused to, and suspicious of, the sudden appearance of a domestic corporate conglomerate, small firms like SCAL have an unfettered room to forge ahead in the new business and economic policy environment.

SCAL came into being in March 2002 just as new economic policies were being brought on stream and given shape. The Nigerian government was talking up a paradigm shift in the way the nation's business is normally carried out. The new focus was on privatization -- divesting government holdings in various businesses into private hands, and encouraging the private sector to become the engine for economic development. SCAL's well-connected and informed principals saw opportunities in the emerging policy environment and seized them to set-up a "research-based economic, management and financial consulting company."

The people behind SCAL saw a bright future for business in Nigeria.

"What we have now in Nigeria, which has not been there before, at least for some decades; what we have now is the right policy environment. There is a strain of sound policy positions that have been taken up by the current government. We see the government's economic liberalization policies as something that augurs well for the country for the foreseeable long-term future. What is needed is the will to sustain the changes and maintain the innovative spirit created through those policies. Massive investments in revamping, reconstruction and expansion of infrastructures; reforms in the banking and finance sector; all these point to future sustainability of the new and better economic order," so says Oluba Martin, the CEO of SCAL.

According to Mr. Martin, SCAL really took off following careful analysis of the government's new blueprint for national development. "We saw the potential for tremendous growth in business for home-based entrepreneurs and for expatriates," he said.

The company expected a substantial number of its business to come from outside Nigeria in the form of FDIs. They also realized that a lot of the entrepreneurs from outside the country may already be familiar with the Nigerian culture and business environment, given the high number of highly trained Nigerian nationals outside the country. But whether they are home-based or coming in as foreign investors, the entrepreneurs are all going to need the ready connections, familiarity and understanding of the operating environment before they can, as quickly as possible, get up-and-running with minimum hitches.

This insight became the basis of SCAL's business model out of which they have built a wide-ranging consulting business encompassing economic analysis; business viability studies, strategy design and market research. They also provide recruitment, training and capacity building services, as well as other strategic communication services for clients.

"Our object is to provide the best possible options for success for any business -- public or private sector, local manufacturers, foreign investor interests, SMEs or otherwise," Martin says.

Since 2003 SCAL has built-up an impressive list of clientele. Among them, the National Clearing and Forwarding Agency (NACFA) for which SCAL packaged the post-acquisition strategic marketing plan for submission to the Bureau for Public Enterprises. In 2004 they helped put together a feasibility study and business development plan for Northbridge Investment Company Limited, an Abuja-based firm.

The company's expertise is not limited to work with private firms or parastatals. They also work directly with governments and politicians in formulating the policy basis for government action. They have helped several governorship aspirants in different states of Nigeria develop their economic blueprints. Their expertise in this area is so well recognized that early in the 2007 political campaigns, they were given exclusive responsibility for the development of a national infrastructure sector policy for one of the presidential aspirants. SCAL designed the MDG programmes monitoring and evaluation framework tools and kits for the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and the MDG office.

According to information in the company's profile over 40 public and private establishments have benefited from SCAL’s expertise. Its success rate at mid-wifeing start-ups is over 65 percent since 2003.

The greatest advantage for SCAL is its people. The company has some of the best Nigerians in the field as principals. One of the company directors, Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, PhD (Wisconsin), is a neo-classical economist. He was the World Bank's "Country Economists" for the East Asia and Pacific regions for a number of years. Dr Kalu was twice Nigeria's Minister of Finance (1985-1986 and 1993-1994) and Minister for National Planning (1987 to 1989).

Another economist on the six-man SCAL board is Dr. Ayo O. Teriba, a Monetary Economist who is on the faculty of the Lagos Business School.

From the banking sector comes Shuaib Idris Abubakar. He was Assistant General Manager (AGM) for Liberty Merchant Bank (2001). He now runs (Time-line) Consult Limited.

The vision that drives SCAL comes from its CEO, Mr. Oluba Martin. Martin graduated in 1995 with a Masters degree in economics from Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Awka, Nigeria. He was with the Lagos Business School in 1996. Between 1997 and 1998 Martin worked as a Senior Investment Analyst for Hamilton Hammer & Co (Investment Bankers) with responsibility for securities analysis and forecasting. He left Hamilton Hammer to join ReStraL Consulting Limited as Team Leader in-charge of the Research and Strategy group. Martin left ReStral to join BGL (Investment Bankers) Limited. In 2001 Platinum Bank (now Bank PHB) invited Mr. Oluba Martin to midwife their investment banking subsidiary, Platinum Capital Limited. After a successful outing with Bank PHB in late 2002, Martin was invited by a new outfit, the Lombard Group, to set-up their Lombard asset Management Limited and Lombard Finance Institute. He resigned from the group shortly after, at the beginning of 2003 to help set-up Strategic Capital Alliance Limited.

Since coming on-board as CEO in 2003, Mr. Martin has proven himself to be not only an expert in engineering successful start-ups, but adept as well in growing and sustaining a successful business. He has taken the company from a consulting firm that provides purely business start-up financing and implementation services for its clients to a multi-faceted organization that includes SCA-institute – a training and capacity development arm of Strategic Capital Alliance. SCA-institute provides training programs in practical finance, economics, strategy, management and leadership. It also provides customized training and consultancy services to meet specific needs of clients. Since 2005 SCAL has developed a new, Strategic Communications, division. Through this division, the company provides editorial, writing and publication services; documentary production; media relations; employee communications and other related services.

Mr. Martin continues to push himself and SCAL to newer heights. He is nearing completion of his doctoral degree in business administration in a DBA program jointly run by the Swiss Management Center (Switzerland) and ESEADE University Business School (Argentina).