Challenges bring out the best in humans – UMoEFIK

 BY EBELE ORAKPO & VERA SAMUEL ANYAGAFU 

Mr Mbetobong Umoefik is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Port Harcourt-based Pride Garments Company (PGC), an outfit that specialises in industrial work-clothes & Personal protective Equipment (PPE), skills training, bulk production and consultancy. In this chat with Financial Vanguard, the University of Port Harcourt Management student, speaks on why he got into his line of business, the challenges and says influx of foreign products does not really pose a challenge to him. Excerpts: Upon completing his secondary school education at the School of Arts & Science, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Umoefik attended training courses in textile and fashion design in Europe and Asia. Going into business: *Mbetobong Umoefik…..Asking an SME to deposit N20m for such order and a guarantee of monthly purchases of between N10-15m is really difficult According to Umoefik, he got into the business because of interest, an interest born out of his desire to make his own clothes by himself and avoid problems with tailors. “I developed interest in the business, first of all, to be able to make my own dress by myself since it was always difficult to get a tailor to make your dress when you want it.  There was a brother who was doing the business at home and when I completed my secondary education, I used the opportunity to learn.” Fast learner: “Within a week, I was able to sew a pair of trousers and a bed sheet for myself. Although the brother did not like me using his machine for the fear of damage since I was  not proficient, but when he realised how fast I was to understand the skills without guidance, he decided to guide me through the skills and show me how to use the sewing machine. “The more I learnt, the more the passion increased and making dresses for people became my desire despite the fact that I didn’t want to learn the skills for profit-making. I was actually waiting for university admission that did not come for so many years, and at this point, I saw opportunities in the business and that was how I settled for this line of business,” he said. Start-up capital: “This type of business doesn’t really need start-up capital. When it was time to start my own business, I hired a second-hand sewing machine from a neighbour and my mother also got one for me. My parents paid the rent for the house we were living and gave me one room to live in but it was this room that I used for the business. In 2012, this business won the prestigious Presidential Award of Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN). Challenges: Every business has its challenges and these challenges vary from one level of the business to another. Even now, there are still challenges but where there is a will, there is a way. Most of the challenges deal with skills upgrade, expansion and product improvement but the other challenges such as power, raw materials, influx of foreign products into the country, etc., does not really pose a challenge to me since they are beyond my powers so I do my business as though such challenges do not exist.” Staff strength: “The staff capacity for the business is 50 persons but you cannot operate on this capacity for a long time except you have production orders that can sustain such payroll. So the actual staff strength depends on the size of responsibility at a given time. “When we have many orders, we increase and when the orders are less, we downsize the labour force. Lack of forex: The lack of foreign exchange is really affecting this business because about 90 per cent of inputs, except labour, is sourced abroad. This is so because the fabrics and accessories for the product line that caught my interest the most (the industrial work-clothes),  are imported. We have approached some textile mills in Nigeria to get them to produce that quality of fabric suitable for the production of work-wear but they gave us conditions we cannot meet. “Asking a Small and Medium Enterprise to deposit N 20m for such order and a guarantee of monthly purchases of between N10-15m is really difficult. They equally said that they would need to import some chemicals that will be used to achieve that quality. One is then bound to ask: ‘what was the agreement with these investors when they were granted licence to operate in Nigeria? Some of them are Indians, some Chinese and these countries have this very quality of fabrics and they export same to Nigeria.” Local content: “Local content is 100 per cent workforce, other inputs such as equipment/machines are imported except for raw materials which is determined by client’s specifications that is, where the requested order suggest Nigerian print textile, then the fabric which is 80 per cent of any garment product can complement the local labour thereby increasing Nigerian content to about 90-95 per cent. Most accessories are often imported.”

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/03/challenges-bring-out-the-best-in-humans-umoefik/