At last, Dangote opens up on secrets of success in last 20 years
African leading investor and President, Dangote Grop, Alhaji Aliko Dangote has presented a clear picture on his business strategies which have kept him on top of the continent in the last 20 years.
Addressing a crop of scholars from Lagos Business School, Pan Atlantic University, who toured his emerging massive oil refinery in Lekki recently, he said the success of his company in the last two decades rested on five pillars: investment strategy, which includes identifying where to play, efficient execution of business plans, effective personnel, integration and driving of efficiency across value chain, and local sourcing of raw materials.
According to him, he had the habit of taking the risk of investing at the period when investors are afraid of venturing into investment.
The diversified investor used the occasion to hail the Federal Government’s foreign exchange (forex) policy, saying there had been over $2.3 billion fresh capital inflow since the reforms were carried out in the forex market. He said more capital inflow would be experienced if the government further relaxed the forex policy.
While lamenting the high cost of electricity supplied to industries, he said his businesses depended wholly on the energy generated by his company, which, he said, is cheaper than public electricity.
According to him, his company made the greatest impact on the Nigerian economy on investment in cement, which, he said, made the country to move out of import-dependency to self-sufficiency. He said his firm had mapped out strategies to re-create similar feats in agriculture, energy, construction, fertilizer and petrochemical sectors to drive economic growth.
The objective, he said, is to make Nigeria have multiple sources of revenue generation and create a platform for irreversible growth in diverse sectors of the economy.
Continuing, he averred that “What made Nigeria to go into recession was lack of growth. Unless growth is happening in different sectors of the economy, it would be very difficult for the economy to sustain itself. I believe that until Nigeria diversifies its economy, we would be coming out of one problem to the other, because the economy cannot rely on oil alone.
“We are investing heavily in agriculture and this is one area people don’t understand, the impact of farming on the economy. Ethiopia, as a country, depends largely on agriculture and grows its economy. Its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) did not collapse unlike what we experience in Nigeria, which largely depends on oil. This is a lesson for us. Agriculture is expanding and we have no choice than to implement major restructuring and diversification of the economy.”
Giving further insights on his ongoing Africa-wide expansion, Dangote said his brand had moved from commodity trading to energy production in Senegal. The company makes extra profit by selling excess energy it generated to Senegalese communities at cheap rate.
Despite improved political stability, settled macro-economic environment and rapidly expanding middle-class in Africa, Dangote said the collapse of commodity prices, huge infrastructure deficit, corruption and low intra-trade agreements remained the bane of the continent’s growth.
He therefore called on African leaders to abolish restrictive visa procedures and tariff regimes, noting that the continent would be shut against foreign investments if its borders were not easily accessible. He cited Angola as an example of countries into which investors might find difficult to venture, because of stringent visa procedure.
