Why MTN is focusing on SMEs, Ikpoki
By Emmanuel Elebeke
ONE would have just concluded that the best place for a lawyer to show his turf is at the court room. But, what MTN’s Sales and Distribution Executive, Mr Mike Ikpoki, is doing with Bizlift, a project created by MTN to reach its sales retailers, particularly the umbrella and roadside resellers, is telling a different story.
Mike
Ikpoki is a trained lawyer who proved his worth at the regulatory department of MTN, but now sees himself on the road as a salesman.
After a consistent trailing of his activities, Mobile Week caught up with him, weekend in Lagos and he opened up to why MTN decided to focus its strategy on SMEs. Excerpts:
Can you give us the growth parameters of MTN since you launched BizLift last year?
BizLift was borne out of several considerations.
As an organization, one of our programmes is relationship. We believe that in building that relationship, we build a relationship with all our stakeholders, customers and everybody else. We also recognized that in the whole context of GSM revolution, we tend to forget some of the people who are critical in terms of making things happen in our business, and if we do not have retailers on the street who make sure that our products are reaching all the nooks and crannies of Nigerian, then indeed we can’t celebrate that we have telecom services that are available to millions of Nigerians today.
For us in MTN, what we decided to do is to have a platform to recognise our retailers, and the whole concept was build around 3Es. One is Engage. Basically, we engage them to know who they are, they know we are the level they are and they too also know us. We keep a data base of them, and that is why we have over 50,000 BizLift members today . There are people registered on our BizLift data base, even some are handicapped. As BizLift members, we give them identity card, materials and empower them with information they needed in order to grow and expand their businesses.
We give them tools to trade such as tables, chairs, information about MTN services to enable them serve the customers better and also expand their business. We believe this is a tool to be able to guide growth in their business. One of the things we are doing is that we have organized several fora with BizLift members across the 36 states of Nigeria. We are facilitating funding from microfinance institutions in Nigeria to help them grow as they desire in their businesses.
We created the platform by which micrifinance institutions can keep them standing. With that, we hope that they will be able to empower more and more businesses from the BizLift members to even grow and expand their opportunities in the business.
In what ways has the brand helped to grow this partnership?
We are a brand that believes in building relationship. One of our key values is relationship and also, one of our key values is innovation and engaging our partners.
What we have been able to do with BizLift at this level is to give all BizLift member an identity cards, which most of them never had. With that identity card, we have been able to engage microfinance banks to attract them and introduce to them these our customers as authentic business men and women , who are serious and want to grow their businesses.
And so far, we have ben able to get the micrifinance banks to support them. A lot of people are now gathering funding as much as N100,000 to N1,000,000. And good thing about this is that, it will expand and grow their businesses and even the spill out benefits of sponsoring their families. Looking at it from that point of view, you will find out that BizLift is actually an enabler.
We actually want the benefits to tickle down to our retailers who are actually playing a key role in our business. In terms of brand equity, I think it is a gain, it is also an innovative vision. We believe that through this, we will enrich lives of our retailers all over the country, and by extension MTN is enriching the lives of her customers, because it means we have more people who know more about our products and services and through that we know how to serve our customers better.
Right now, who are your partners in this pilot project?
We are partnering with micro finance banks all over the country in all the 36 state of the federation. Microfinance banks, by their very nature and as key partners support small businesses to grow. What we are saying is that, with this Lift, we have given them a platform to grow and expand. As we go along we gather more partners and agencies that can support the initiative.
What criteria qualifies a retailer to be a BizLift member?
With the sale of MTN products, one is automatically qualified to register as a BizLift member. Basically, we different categories in terms of the size of the business. So long as you sale MTN product in Nigeria and you have an identifiable location and you have basic particulars, you are welcomed to be a member of BizLift.
There is no strategy without challenges, can you share that of BizLift with us?
We don’t see challenges, we see opportunities in what we do . I think that at inception, there were so many skepticism that trailed the idea.
Some people then were questioning, how is MTN going to partner with somebody under an umbrella, but over time, with the fora we organized for them, more people were able to key in into that and we were able to address that . In fact, that perception had changed. We started this in December last year, and today we have over 50,000 members. As time go on, I believe more people will also join. We will match our words with action in doing what we have promised our customers that we will do.
Competition is hot in the industry now, are you not scared that you may be in for a competition soon?
This is the first in the country. There’s no other company that I know of, which is doing anything close to this. It is unique and is another first of MTN. It is something we are really proud of. That is what we want to be doing if we want to celebrate success in Nigeria entrepreneural skills.
Small business retailers have grown to become big business men in Nigeria today, and these are companies that will employ people in the future. So, we want to also be part of that success story, and at the same time celebrate them.
You also introduced eCharge last year for people to recharge using ATMs. Don’t you think you are attacking the same market you are creating with BizLift?
No, we have different channels. The reality of it is that, there are different customers for different channels. We cannot sale our product with only one channel. There are people who will always go
for ATM channel and there are people who will go to recharge card channel.
And all the people cannot be accommodated with only one channel. So, what we are doing is not in any way contradictory, we are only trying to address the whole channels with different means of getting to them.
Do you see the physical recharge cards dropping out of use in the distant future?
No, the reality of it is that most times they play side by side in the market. What you find out is that there are some locations where you see high percentage of people who use physical recharge cards. They always play side by side. The ATM channel is no less than an electronic, and because of that we are educating our retailers on GPU to know how they can use that better their businesses.
It must be ATM, because they are POS terminals and so on. We’re not creating new channel to take them out of business. All the options are available, and customer’s preference has to be taken care of. We have a long term view in this project, and we are going to grow on this and our customers are going to benefit from it.
