By Princewill Ekwujuru & Moses Nosike

On the Nigerian business landscape, consumers have woken up to the concept of choice. Consequently, businesses are confronted with the straight choice to innovate or sink.

An interesting case study is  Nigeria’s  telecommunications industry  which in the last 11 years has grown their  subscriber base to over  100 million active lines.

For example,  Etisalat is  the last entrant into the telecommunications industry, but interestingly is the fastest growing. What is the secret?

One of the indispensable ingredients of a sustainable business is the ability to do things differently.

This works well if the business consistently puts the consumer’s needs first. Lending credence to this, the Business Segment Director at Etisalat Nigeria, Lucas Dada, said ‘We believe that the only way we could make a difference in the market having joined

Nigeria’s telecoms industry as the last entrant, was by nothing, but  innovation. We define innovation as passionately going the extra mile by increasing the notch of value added to customers and raising the bar of quality of service.’

‘There are four major pillars that govern everything we do at Etisalat. One of them is Customer Service, next is Quality of Network, there is Operational Efficiency and very important is Innovation.

These pillars are very difficult to copy. When you are truly innovative, others find it difficult to imitate you. For us, the focus is meeting the needs of our customers.

That is what sets us apart in this market. A big thank you to our subscribers, who joined, stayed and spread the word about our service since 2008. They are the ones who truly know all our milestones spurred by innovation.’ Dada explained.

Little wonder awards and commendations have trailed the network every year. ‘You only have to experience our data services to know how high Etisalat has gone in terms of quality and value delivery. Customers testify to this and even the Nigerian Communications Commission recognizes this.

Meanwhile, we have an eye on the group that account for over 50 percent of employment available to most of our subscribers – the entrepreneurs. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria boasts over 17 million small and medium scale enterprises, SMEs. We support them by consistently creating products and services that help their businesses thrive.’ He said.

A quick example, according to Dada is the EasyBusiness, a Close User Group (CUG) for business owners which enables them to spend less on contacting employees and suppliers.

In the CUG, the business owners can register up to 100 employees, call as many customers as they want with no restrictions and even send free SMS.

‘At Etisalat, we believe SME is the bedrock of leading economies and it is our duty to contribute our quota to the economy by nurturing emerging business owners. This is why we invest in nurturing these start-ups by creating platforms where we let them in on the relevance of innovation and how to inculcate the innovative DNA,’ Dada enthused.

One of such platforms is the Competitive Strategy Master Class, held in Lagos in February and organised by BusinessDay Media Limited, with the theme ‘Creating a Competitive Advantage through Innovation’.

The Business Segment Director revealed that the Etisalat subsidised the cost of the lecture by 50 percent for its subscribers, as a way of encouraging participation by small and medium scale entrepreneurs.

In the same vein, lead speaker at the Master Class and renowned professor of innovation and leadership at INSEAD in France, Hal Gregersen, said that gaining a competitive advantage requires the modest skill of being a child again.

‘Children love to ask questions. The questions pave the way to discovering what makes something happen differently. They have time to observe and badger you with questions to simply know ‘why’. This is how little children find out how to solve what they consider problems.’ Gregersen said.

According to him, to make the leap to standing out among the thousands of companies that do exactly the same thing, business owners and managers have to step back, look at a problem differently by asking questions differently, day in and day out.

‘It is really about exposing ourselves to more viewpoints, more perspectives, more data, more information and being able to hopefully get an answer that would really solve it. Not in a superficial way, but in a fundamental way.’ He said.

The professor, whose newest book is titled ‘The Innovators DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators,” further shared what he had learned about innovation: ‘It is simply doing the work to getting a new idea that creates value.