Airtel MD: To continue prospering, companies must render unique service

Segun Ogunsanya, managing director (MD), Airtel Nigeria, says Nigerian enterprises must constantly innovate to ensure success and business continuity.

According to him, “businesses will die” if they do not break the mould of how they operate traditionally.

Ogunsanya spoke on Thursday at the “hyper consumer centricity conference” and launch of “Cash Token”, an “electronic reward and celebratory gift commodity”.

Cash Token was produced by CeLD, a cash reward as-a-service company, in conjunction with Keystone Bank.

He said as companies innovate, they must focus on creating value and maintaining customer loyalty, while learning from the examples of international conglomerates who have retained a high global ranking.

“I commend CeLD and Keystone Bank for creating a cash token. It is a unique innovation to promote customer loyalty,” he said.

“But remember, an enduring loyalty comes from three basic things. Your product must be fit for purpose, you must give excellent service, and of course the price must be good.

“Flashback to 2001 about 20 years ago, the five largest companies in the world were General Electric, Microsoft, Exxon, Citibank and Walmart for a very long time.

“Fast forward to 2018, you know who the five largest companies are? Apple is the largest (iPhone), next is Google of Alphabet Inc, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon. The only surviving member of that group of five is Microsoft. They survived because they changed.

“You cannot rely on the glories of years gone by -they don’t work. What is so common to those five companies? I just looked at them and identified three different factors.

“The first one is about scale or reach- it is king. The more people you can reach, the more valuable you become. The information from knowing so many customers is just invaluable, it is wealth and it is the new oil.

“So when you have scale, when you can reach so many people, you’re going to make tons of money.”

Ogunsanya also said services that companies render must be unique for them to continue “prospering.”

He said the “cost to scale” is a huge consideration for businesses because it determines success in the long run.

He added: “The second thing common to those companies (five biggest companies) is what they are selling. You must sell something unique. Which is why I love what CeLD is doing. You are going to make lot of money but the advantage is not going to be permanent. In another few months or years other people are going to copy you. Be ready to change before they get to where you are.

“There is a cost to everything. How to scale is very essential to making money. Technology is key. If you don’t reinvent yourself, if you don’t innovate, you’re going to die.”