BusinessDay 17 Aug 2017

14
BUSINESS DAY
COMPANIES & MARKETS
Comfort Stevens berths in Aba, to
produce 5,000 pairs of shoes daily
GODFREY OFURUM,
The Aba shoe industry
has received
a boost
following the inauguration
of a
multi-million naira shoe and
garment factory, promoted
by Comfort Stevens Group,
a United States of America
based firm.
The factory, which is located
off-MCC road, Aba, the
L-R: Bayo Adekanmbi, chief transformation officer, MTN/keynote speaker; O’Lekan Babatunde, publisher,
Brand Crunch; Jaiye Opayemi, CEO, Chain Reactions and Steve Babaeko, CEO, X3M Ideas/speaker,
at the maiden edition of BrandCrunch Learning Session in Lagos.
commercial hub of Abia State,
is to produce 5,000 pairs of
shoes daily, when fully operational
in January 2018.
Comfort Stevens, a multinational
e-commerce, multivendor
marketplace company,
will also provide an
online platform for producers
and marketers of different
products made-in-Aba to sell
their products.
John Nwankwo, president,
Comfort Stevens said:
“We are unique, because
most of these other online
stores do not own product
lines; they are just there to
connect buyers and sellers.
But Comfort Stephen is
unique, in the sense that we
have our own product linesgarments,
shoes, bags and
other fashion accessories
and these are Comfort Stephens
branded products,
produced in Aba and we are
proudly saying that they are
produced in Aba and meets
the same standards you see
in Italy, Brazil, Dubai and
even better than what is
produced in China.”
He said further: “Using internet
technology and human
resources, Comfort Stevens is
here to create economic value
and by so doing, promote the
non-oil sector, particularly
goods made in Nigeria with
C002D5556
emphasis on Made-in-Aba
products.”
“Recall that the Acting
President, Yemi Osinbajo, in
one of his recent visits to Abia
State, commissioned the Abia
Investment House, a-one stop
shop, established by the Abia
State Government to improve
ease of doing business in the
State.”
The one-stop shop was
designed to host the Inland
Revenue Service (IRS) and its
partners to create a friendly
environment for investors
and other patrons, who would
come into the state to do business,
Nwankwo said.
It is the dream of the State
Government to rank among
the top 10 States in the ease of
doing business in the country,
he said. “It is heartwarming
that efforts of the Government
to improve ease of doing
business in the State; including
revenue harmonization
have started yielding fruit,
and these results are coming
within two years of the life of
the present administration in
the State.”
Thursday 17 August 2017
Nigeria’s
Government to
auction N135bn
bonds August 23 –
DMO
The Federal Government
has offered
for subscription by
auction, N135 billion
bonds in its Aug. 23 auction,
according to the Debt
Management Office (DMO).
The offering circular obtained
from the DMO’s website
on Tuesday in Abuja indicated
that it would sell N35
billion of a bond, to mature in
July, 2021, at 14.50 per cent.
It would also sell N50 billion
at 16.28 per cent to mature
in March 2027, while
another N50 billion of paper
would be sold at 16.24 per
cent, to mature in April 2037.
All the bonds on offer are
reopening of previous issues,
the circular said. Nigeria
issues sovereign bonds
monthly to support the local
bond market. It also created
a benchmark for corporate
issuance to fund its budget
deficit.
NOSAK Group pioneers survival
strategies for businesses in recession
...Introduces programme for learning and development
The current economic
variables playing out
within the Nigerian
business hemisphere
have forced organisations to
transition in order to survive
and still maintain a portion
of the market share. This has
equally given rise to innovations
regarding strategies for
survival, which will hopefully
check future re-occurrence.
Igie Odozi, head of training
at the Nosak Group, stated
that this reality not only impacts
businesses directly in
terms of market share but
affects to a larger extend the
owners and drivers of the
business.
“The major stakeholders
in this endeavour are the
owners and the employees,”
Odozi said “In situations such
as the one business owners
and organisations have found
themselves in this country,
the organisations will have to
grapple with issues of shrinkage
of the market, downsizing,
cost savings/reduction in
order to remain afloat while
employees on their part are
up and doing in seeking for
greener pastures in other
organisations to mitigate the
risk of job losses.”
According to Odozi, this to
a large extent accounts for the
current high level of employee
turnover in organisations.
For organisations willing
and seeking to remain afloat
while running profitably, the
key is to imbibe a culture
of learning. Training programmes
for human capital
development are now channelled
towards ensuring the
effectiveness of employee
contributions to the success
of the business.
Nosak Group as a world
class company, an innovative
and leading brand in industries
is an advocate of this
smart solution of investing
heavily in continuous learning
and development of its
workforce using the best of
technology and content.
A recent study revealed
that leading companies
like the Nosak Group are
taking it further by leveraging
on social learning
activities, mobile learning
solutions, among other initiative.
Hence, the Group
has consistently increased
its budget size for learning
and development.
This has equally given rise
to a paradigm shift whereby
there is a transition from the
traditional context of strictly
controlling approach of the
workforce to the innovative
approach of engaging and
seeing the workforce as partners
in the business.
The traditional methods
of learning are also being
abandoned in favour of more
effective learning solutions
based on cutting edge technology,
which engages talent
and improves performance.
“In the present scheme of
things, our approach at Nosak
Group to organizational
development are prioritizing
the Individual employee, developing
and re-training key
talents as a strategic business
priority leading to business
growth, and strengthening
partnership between the
Group and our workforce,”
the Nosak executive said.
“This makes us not to be
overly ‘controlling’ but one
that views her employees as
collaborators for success.”
It is in line with this paradigm
shift by the management
of Nosak Group that
it commissioned a worldclass,
fully equipped training
school on March 15 2017, to
serve not only the needs of
the Group but other organisations
willing to key into the
initiative.
Halogen Security CEO receives
Titans of Tech Merit Award
The CEO of Halogen
Security, Wale Olaoye,
has been honoured
with a ‘Titan of Tech
Merit’ award. The Chief Executive
of the foremost risk management
company in Nigeria
was honoured for his commitment
and dedication to the
integration of technology and
its application to the Nigerian
security landscape.
The ‘Titans of Tech’ award
was held at the Oriental Hotel
in Victoria Island Lagos,
to recognize stakeholders
presently contributing to the
advancement of technology
in Nigeria.
Established by Technology
Africa, the event is also a
platform where the most influential
players in West African
ICT markets interact for the
purpose of exchanging ideas
and positively influencing and
promoting ICT agenda for the
optimal good.
The event had a business
roundtable, an interactive session
and award presentation.
It was attended by technology
industry leaders and ICT
professionals, security experts,
very senior Government officials,
the media, corporate
organizations representatives,
and the general public. This
year, the event focused on ICT
and Security.
Among the guests were
Adebayo Shittu, Nigeria’s honourable
minister of communication,
Emmanuel Uduaghan,
former governor of Delta State,
and Tony Ojobo, director of
public affairs at the Nigerian
Communications Commission
(NCC).
The Halogen boss was also
the keynote speaker at the
event.
He spoke on ‘The Strategic
Role of Technology in curbing
Nigeria’s security challenges,
the Halogen experience’.
He took the audience
through the twenty five year
experience of Halogen and its
evolution to becoming a technology-powered
end-to-end
risk management company
that is positioned to deliver
peace of mind to individuals,
communities, businesses and
government in an open and
continuously changing world.
“No one is immune to the
reality that the world is now
borderless and the threats we
face as individuals, businesses
and on the national scale have
heightened due to the change
in the risk equation occasioned
by technology and the state of
anomie prevailing in the world
today,” Olaoye said. “The reality
of warfare and considerations
for national security going
cyber have become more imminent
and this should be a
major consideration in our
national security policy and
architecture.”
He was optimistic that the
several security challenges
facing currently facing Nigeria,
from porous borders, poor prison
infrastructure and systems,
and kidnapping for ransom,
will be a thing of the past.
“This will happen when
we are able to strategically
deal with policies that enable
coordinated approach
to technology and security
infrastructure working to
address our national security
imperatives,” Olaoye said.
“These imperatives include
national identity data integration
& management, national
addressing systems coding,
risk management impact assessment
as part of building
approval process, movement
and residency database localized
in Local Government
level policy, etc.”
He said that the value of internet
of things (IOT), artificial
intelligence, mobility and cloud
and their application to national
security systems would then
have meaning. He added that
most of these technologies are
already available in the country
and companies like Halogen
and the government need to
take seriously, engagement
with strategic Nigerian professionals
in evolving the several
policies that would enable the
country leverage fully the advantages
technology portends
for our National Security.