Palmadex Global Integrated Services Ltd, a multi-award-winning non-oil agro-export company founded by Dr Benard Omoyeni with six Portfolios namely export investment, export consultancy, export of non-oil agricultural products and raw materials, export of African/Nigerian Foods, Wood Processing, Farming and Export Training Academy in this interview with Daniels Ekugo, shares his experience and what Palmadex Group offers.

 Hibiscus is a crop that grows in the northern part of Nigeria, essentially from North Central, East and West. Our strategy is that we have our base in the north, precisely Kano State and from there we have chains of suppliers, by our agreements, we commissioned them to source for this product, we are talking about from the farm to our warehouse and there are different approaches to that, in some places, some suppliers may go to the warehouse and in some places in the hinterland and we aggregate those products to the warehouse where we now do our processing before we export.

 What are the challenges you face from the sourcing to the exporting part of your business?

Major challenges revolves around the regular logistic challenges, given the distance from the North East, and or the condition of our roads, security issues and so sometimes breach of agreement by our local suppliers. Road challenges is top on the list because  you have to use vehicles, use other companies, you are not doing all these by yourself and then the potential for some of them to breach agreement on the part of the other service providers – cases of delays, cases of people attempting to do away with your goods, people coming in with stories that affect your timeline. Given the condition of our road network, there has been instances where  trucks were held in one particular place for weeks, those are part of the challenges, and this kind is beyond our control.

 As an exporter, ordinarily we are not expected to face Forex challenges because we don’t depend on the Forex to do our job, as a matter of fact, we add value to the economy, we bring in forex to boost the economy but the challenge is where the value of the naira is depreciating against the dollar for instance, so the cost of goods locally also increase which might affect out projection of what we have already planned, which may mean you will operate at a loss or sometimes try to break even in what we use as a benchmark.

  God has helped us primarily; we always talked about the God factor. God has helped us tremendously beyond that, our own efforts as an  organization, we have in place systems, policies and procedures that are standardized, that helps us to operate, giving our core values of integrity of trust. We have been able to carve ourselves a niche in the business, we have gained a reputation of been an export company of choice by reason of the value we have added, clients are attesting to it that we are reliable and we have made sure we remain same even when our profit threshold is threatened. Our focus is building a brand that will be competitive globally and that has kept us going.

The entrepreneurial journey has not been entirely smooth, of course as a business that is starting off, there were challenges that confronted us, but we have been able to surmount the initial teething problem, and we are moving on our pace. In our case we look at milestones, our accomplishment, we look at major things we have achieved. We have been able to have our offices two other nations of the world – Vietnam, Dubai, we have robust client base spread accross the six continents of the world. The positive feedback from our clients accross the globe reinforces our position as export company of choice, In addition we have been enlisted as member of various international organisations like International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), we are the first export company in Nigeria to be enlisted member of ICC. We have been recognized by obtaining various awards as best export performing company, that for us is our achievement, for us to have maintained our operation against all business challenges in the last years that for us also is an achievement, so we have continued to increase our portfolio. We began with just having a portfolio but now we have six portfolios amongst them we have farm – mechanized farming, export academy, export consultancy, export investment etc, so for us these are key milestones that we have achieved in the last 8 years.

 Our projection for the next five years is to take over the world as Corpirate multi-national organization pursuant to our vision of being the global export trading partner of choice, delivering superior services through integrity, efficiency and reliability in the international value chain.

Ans: My assessment is very simple and direct, it is quiet challenging doing business in Nigeria. The business climate is not quite favourable, not supportive. It takes a strong businessman to remain in business here. There are lot of external factors that are beyond your control that you have to surmount to remain in business –economic policies,  insecurity, unstable market price regimes, labour related concerns, right personnel to work with, financial support that is not readily available, so these are the challenges and they are quiet enormous.

 If  I am to propose a bill, it is a bill for provision financial support to SMEs. We hear of government grants in some instances,  but we need to do more and be practical. If you compare us to some world economies, where you can get as low as zero digit interest rate, in some countries 2 per cent to 3 per cent but in Nigeria we are talking about 23 – 27 per cent, so imagine you have an Act that makes SMEs loan available at 2 per cent? That will provide access to fund and boost investment in SME businesses and will encourage people to go into entrepreneurship

We have our CSR policy, annually we have a budget for CSR. One key one we do is scholarship. We have been able to partner with the Julius Omoyeni Foundation for Educational Development   a Foundation that runs an annual scholarship programs, we also set aside some funds for social investment opportunities that comes across to us. We have a dream to build hospitals, roads, provide water and we believe we are getting there.

Palmadex is a multi billion naira organisation. Our staff strength is growing in bounds, we have direct staff and support staffs. Our direct staff is about 20 while our support and indirect staffs is above 170. We have continued to add value to employment and wealth creation, boosting the socio economic development of Nigeria as a business.