Business will be tough this year – Unilever MD

By Princewill Ekwujuru

The Managing Director of Unilever Nigeria Plc, Mr. Thabo Mabe, has predicted a tougher business environment in 2013. He  made this predication at the 2012 Customers Forum of the company in Lagos, where the company honoured  its distributors.

Mabe said that global warming predictions indicate that   business environment in 2013 will not only be tough in Nigeria, but also  globally.

He  also pointed out that in the tough business environment, the company has  commited  itself to doing those things that will project the company’s products, thereby giving  it  the opportunity to  meet up  its values of winning store-by store, channel-by-channel and customer -by- customer which based the  company’s 2013 business focus.

He explained that the emergence of the northern region as the highest sales point of the company in its 2010 financial year was because of the way  it ran its business in that part of the country. He said,  “There is a point as a business you need to adapt to the environment; there is a point as a business you need to stop saying let me keep my team safe. And in those environments, how do you give people what they want? You have to go the extra-mile in those  volatile area, that is what we have done, and am proud to say we have lost no sales personnel, no customer. We have been in the thick and thin, our teams are totally empowered.”

“The aim of the Customers Forum is to say to our customers you have done a good job. It’s an opportunity to say to our customers who did the job, those guys who go out during the raining season, during flooding, during the northern crises, they continue to go and sell, Its exciting to us, that our northern region has recorded the best growth and you will be shocked to see some of the best sales people who came from the north. That is an exciting time for us to celebrant,” Mabe said.

On the importance of the event to the company, Mabe said; “The uniqueness of the programme is about celebrating with all of our customers, the way they have transformed our business within the period of  two  years. We have more than doubled our share price in the market.

We have more than increased our shares in our market places in terms of share, and that is an important moment for us to say to our customers, thank you. We have done this together. This is about how we will prepare for 2013 and this is how do we prepare ourselves in this more volatile business world.