Mr Durodola Kuteyi, the MD/CEO of Spectra Industries Limited has just written a book every young entrepreneur should read right now. It is a 70-page book written to mark his 70th birthday and to celebrate his 40 years of the entrepreneurial journey. It is to also mark his company at 30.
Let's
quickly tell you that Spectra Industries Limited is an indigenous company in
the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME)
Factor, which specialises in Food Processing and Packaging.
Kuteyi
is also the CEO of Betamark Production company, a food processing and packaging
consultancy outfit.
He
has an unflinching interest in Food processing and packaging, SME development, and the establishment of
packaging centres for SMEs and SME Industrial clusters. He believes so much in
the possibility of an industrialised Nigeria.
He
started his entrepreneurial journey 40 years ago, cutting his teeth in 1982,
with the production of Betamark’s Plantain Chips, operating under Betamark
Nigeria Ltd. He was to later set up Spectra Industries Ltd in 1961 but
commenced operation in 1992. The first product of the company is Suco Cocoa
powder drink. The company with a focus
on Functional Foods now has many products in its stable.
One
Way Ticket: My Uninterrupted Life Journey from Pot To Factory, is a good book
to read. It is a book that has a goldmine of information for entrepreneurs who
play in the Small & Medium Enterprise (SME) Sector. His dogged
determination to pursue what he believes in is chronicled in his new book titled ONE WAY TICKET: My Uninterrupted
Journey From POT to Factory. It is a short narration of the story of his life,
what he passed through from age 7 to 70 years. It is a book with 5 Chapters,
with Chapter 1 dealing with his Foundation & Childhood, Chapter 2 on Burden
of Expectation, Chapter 3 Entrepreneurship Is A Journey, Chapter 4 is titled
Strategy is Everything and Chapter 5 is on Shaping Your Business Destiny.
Many
entrepreneurs will find Chapter 5 interesting. It reveals a lot.
“The
Spectra brand has been built from zero point to the point where we are now
commanding both local and global recognition based on the numerous awards we
have received which we cherish so much.”
“If
you look at the name of Spectra; what is Spectra? If you studied physics in
school, you will know that Spectra connote light rays, white light passing
through a prism, separated into seven different colours. That is what we
represent. We should have one raw material that can produce different products
and one machine that can produce many products. Like you take cocoa, you can
get so many products from it. You take Soya, you can get so many products from
it. That is the basis of Spectra and that has continuously guided our strategy.
We capitalized on the fact that in Nigeria, we cannot boast of good medical
facilities like we have in developed countries and once your body system breaks
down, you are on your own. So the best thing expected of you is to eat healthy
food. That is why in Spectra Industries, our slogan is ‘The Home of Functional
Foods’ and we are consistently researching into how to provide Nigerians with
quality and healthy food brands that are up to global standard and yet
affordable. We follow this up by sensitizing Nigerians on the need to feed
well. It does not cost a fortune to eat right if you know the right thing to
eat. For instance, daily consumption of Cocoa products has a lot of medical
benefits that go with the consumption of cocoa for its healing power.
The cocoa bean is a rich substance with high minerals and nutrients providing innumerable
health benefits scientists consider cocoa powder as an active agent that
helps prevent the growth of infectious bacteria in the body as well as
boosts cognitive function and allows
blood flow for healthy growth. The same applies to other brands that we produce
in Spectra. In a nutshell, our mandate is to continue to research to give
Nigerians varieties of food that will keep them healthy and we don’t intend to
drop the ball because we know that as long as we continue to give Nigerians
affordable food with global standards, we will continue to be in business.”
There
is often a misconception of the impact of luck or the role luck plays in
business success. While I do not rule out the element of luck in business
success, you need more than luck to remain successful in business. You need the
Grace of God more than anything to recognize the luck or any opportunity that
comes your way. Luck can come in the form of sudden favourable government
policies or a natural occurrence that gives your business sudden and
unanticipated opportunities and these opportunities bring huge success to your
business.
That
is where the luck ends. For you to remain consistently successful in your
business enterprise, you must see running a business as a marathon race.
Successful entrepreneurs write their own destinies by making the right decisions
and choices.
You
must know that there will be a time that things will be so rough and no matter
how tough things turn out, you must continue to encourage yourself to push on.
There is this song that summarizes the attitude that every SME should have and
I think it was composed by Wole Soyinka “1 Love my country 1 no go lie, Na
inside am 1 go live and die if e turn me so, 1 twist am so, E push me, 1 push
am 1 no go go’.
“That
is the attitude I have always had while running my business. There is this
consciousness that I do
not
have any other profession other than Food Processing and I know that when I am
into food business, no matter what, I will sell and not just sell, but sell
enough to take care of myself till I die. I always believe that if today is
rough, tomorrow will be better and so I have never been tempted to quit in
spite of numerous moments of difficulties. Why quitting is never an option is
because at the time you may decide to quit, that is when things may start
happening in the industry and once you leave, it is always difficult to come
back. Also, when your company is doing well, that is not the time to relax and
start thinking that you are already there. That is when in fact you need to
work harder to take the company to the next level. You must always and
consistently anticipate the future and carve out a space for your business for
that future. It is against this background that we are beginning to plan and
shape the future and business destiny of Spectra Industries. We have taken time
to build the business and in building the business, we have also been guided by
integrity and the need to give Nigerians not just any processed and packaged
food, but quality food that is good and not harmful to their health. That is why
we as staff and management also consume what we produce here. The best way to
know a good restaurant is that restaurant where the owner even feeds his or her
family from the same food cooked in the restaurant. There are some companies
that are into food processing and manufacturing and they hardly consume the
same thing they are packaging for Nigerians because of the quality. But for us,
we are confident that as long as we continue to come up with quality products,
we will continue to succeed.
That
is why we will never compromise our standards and quality. Ln anticipating the
future role of Spectra Industries in the life of Nigerians as well as in the
export profile of Nigeria, I am already projecting ahead on the space that the
company will be in the future. We will undoubtedly end up on the Stock
Exchange. Before then, however, what we are doing now is looking for partners
that will inject funds into the business to scale’ up the capacity of the
company. Once that is achieved, the next thing we want to do is to go to the
Export Processing Zone and operate from there where we will be at the same
competitive level and advantage as the foreign companies because in that
place, there is a lot of concession that reduces your cost of production.
As
it is now, the foreign companies have a lot of edge over us in terms of
sourcing cheap raw materials that enable them to produce at a cheaper rate, sell
and make reasonable profits whereas we that source our raw materials locally
are always crying that we are not getting raw materials. When you are operating
from the export processing zone, it is like you are in another country. A lot
of concessions are given to you in terms of duty-free raw materials and other
incentives that reduce your cost of production. So our next action now is to
get to the Export Processing Zone and once we get there, we can compete with
any company in the world on equal terms and based on our pedigree, I am
confident that the company will shine.
Thereafter,
I can now say I have done my best. I will then approach the Stock Exchange and
finally hand over the company and retire to take a well-deserved rest. From my
experience as an SME operator, I believe the government can do a lot to
transform SMEs in Nigeria and it will be a win-win situation for everybody
especially when special incentives are given to those in manufacturing and food
processing. That is one sure way of promoting food security and a realistic
means of winning the current war against banditry and terrorism. When people
are not employed, they become willing hands for the devil. But when SMEs are
empowered, they create the needed employment that will keep hands busy. To do
this, the government should identify SME operators that they can partner with to
achieve the desired goals.
The
little roles I have played in the development of SMEs in Nigeria is because of
the experience I have had as an SME operator. Under the platform of the National
Association of Small Scale industries (NASSI) as the Chairman of NASSI in Lagos
and the Vice President of NASSI National, I was involved in SME development in
Africa through Technonet Africa and SS GATE. Through that platform, we were
affiliated to Technonet Asia under UNDP. We were opportune to take a study
tour of Asia SMEs that took us to Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, China and
Syria before the onset of the war in Syria. I was able to make that kind of
impact there because of my experience. So if we have someone with such an
experience to advise Government on SMEs, what the person will do first is to involve
the SMEs in the day to day activities of their operation so as to know their
problem. I, for instance, know the problems SMEs are having. I wear the shoe and
know where it pinches. I have also had not too palatable experiences. I had run
into problems with banks about two or three times as an SME. In fact, at a time,
they threatened to close down the factory and sell off everything that I had.
That is a common problem and experience of an average SME operator and they
should not be made to experience such. These are areas where the government can
easily intervene because SMEs in Nigeria are at the mercy of the banks and this
should not be so. Until you make it easy for SMEs, it will be difficult for
them to make much impact on the economy as they are supposed to. When you put
someone with no experience in SMEs, when SMEs are talking about their problem,
such a person sees SMEs as noisemakers because they don’t understand the
plight of SMEs. In fact when you talk about SMEs, some see us as vulcanizers
and artisans and when we try to correct that impression, they just see us as
noisemakers. At a time when I was talking for SMEs and expressing our pains
and frustrations, someone in government called me a “one-man riot squad”.
They are not ready to listen to the plight of SMEs because they are in the
office and collecting salaries; they have no idea of what the plights of SMEs
are and these are the same people that are supposed to advise the government and
formulate policies for the government that are expected to impact on SMEs.
For
people like us, staying in SMEs, working in SMEs and championing the cause of
SMEs has been a pleasure. We often mobilize our people and educate them on good
Corporate Social Responsibility. We organize training for them and I have been
part of this development. At a time, we brought in people from Sri Lanka and
Thailand to teach our people entrepreneurship, Arts and Craft. We also sent
people to South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon, etc., for training. Some of the
beneficiaries are doing well and some have taken into training and are also
doing well. One of them was appointed as Secretary to a State Government and it
was part of the credentials that were used to appoint her as SSG. These are some
of the things that I have done as my own little contribution to the development
of SMEs.
So
when the government is looking for people to advise them on SMEs or help formulate
policies for SMEs,
they
should look for people that have not only passed through SMEs but have also
allowed SMEs to pass through them. By this, I mean someone who has passed through
SME and has probably been hammered by banks or passed through the frustration
of sourcing raw and packaging materials. Such a person will understand the
plight of SMEs and such a person should be the one to head any agency set up
for SMEs and not political figures whose decisions are always based on
political considerations.
If the government is sincerely interested in giving SMEs the attention they deserve, a
Ministry for SMEs should be established because when you look at the numbers,
about thirty-nine million and the impact of such people on the economy both in
terms of employment generation and GDP, devoting a full Ministry to SMEs is
worth the effort. To complement the Ministry, there should also be an SME bank
just like what operates in Thailand. Also in Malaysia, the CBN is directly in
charge of SMEs. Look at those two countries and how SMEs have impacted their
economy. Some people often come up with the argument that previous efforts to
set up banks devoted to SMEs failed because of defaults from SMEs. The
reason for such failure is because those in charge have no idea of how SMEs
work and who they are and of course
when
you give loans to the wrong set of people maybe as a result of political consideration,
there is no way you will expect to get such loan repaid. It is like giving
agric. loan to internet farmers who have no farm anywhere and you expect to get
the loan repaid.
The
present administration has done better in assisting SMEs to develop through the
initiatives of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo through engagement with
agencies like the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), National Agency for Food and
Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Standard Organization of Nigeria.
This initiative has increased the number of productive MSME members. NIRSAL
AGSMEIS and other intervention fund also boost the number of MSMEs.
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