The Managing Director, Henkel Nigeria, Rajat Kapur, in this interview with GBENGA SALAU, spoke on a number of issues facing businesses in Nigeria, including proffering solution and how his company has stayed afloat despite the harsh operating environment.
The second basket is meeting the needs of consumers, by dividing Nigerians into two, which are the premium consumers and the mass consumers. For the mass consumers, you need to give them the right offerings, efficiently and at a reasonable cost level that they can carry, while for premium consumers, you need to add other things they need on top and charge the extra to meet the cost.
We have many programmes that have societal impacts, which we have done as part of our sustainable initiatives, but I will talk on two. We decided to do something about it. Back in 2017, we reached out to about six unemployed youths, and we gave them some basic training on how to manage a small business. They were taught mathematics and bookkeeping. After the training, we invested in these six people and then gave them free products to sell, and we set up a mobile shop for them at no cost to them. The whole premise was to train them, invest in them and see what happens.
In meeting the needs of the consumers, especially in a country with huge youth demography, what strategies are you implementing to meet their expectations?