‘Nigeria can be our W,African manufacturing hub’

Uwe Raschke is a member of the Board of Management Robert Bosch GmbH. In this interview with FEMI ADEKOYA, he unveils the company’s growth and investment plan in Nigeria’s business sectors, especially plans to make Nigeria its business hub for the West African market. Excerpts.

Raschke

For many companies coming into Nigeria, importation and sales have always been the first entry point, after which they decide on the next phase of investment. Do you see your firm going beyond that and setting up your own manufacturing plants in the country?
Of course, in the long term, I believe that Nigeria has to attract also many manufacturing aids, which is to create continuous and substantial wealth. For us it would create an interesting market if some conditions are given. First of all, we need infrastructure which gives us very good logistics, educated people, stable legal environment, successful fight against corruption.

That is one of the things I would encourage government to do and it is very important that we have also a good number of suppliers here to have really cost efficient and competitive manufacturing outfit.

If all these things are given I do not think that there is any reason why this should not be the case. In a foreseeable time frame, Nigeria would be a very interesting market for us to manufacture for the local market as well as for export to some other countries. I believe the strategy of government should be to strengthen the industrialization of the country and we should not only rely on resources or services.

What is your cutting edge in Nigeria’s innovative sector, considering your product offerings?
Busch does not deliver power plants. We are delivering energy efficient products solutions. We are working on energy efficient cars and energy efficient features on washing machines, efficient production machinery and equipments and this is the main focus; very energy efficient farm work technical solutions, so we are not a power plant provider and we are not competing with General Electric or Siemens in this regard.
We have got a niche market, we deliver to huge markets but we rely on the well built power infrastructure, everybody does it by the way. So to manufacture or use something, normally you need energy.

One thing to ensure that the products meet consumers’ needs and be sure they can afford it. These are our considerations in whatever we have to offer Nigeria.

The Internet of things is set to change almost all of our products in the future. At the end of the day, the issues will be whether you can use these additional benefits that depend on the infrastructure within the country or whether we have enough infrastructure to make use of the internet capacity and this has to be delivered by the government and I believe this is as important as power supply. This has to be considered on time. You will see a huge number of solutions in the coming years.

Considering the opportunities that the automotive policy affords investors in the sector, are considering a long term investment in that sector?
We are not into car manufacturing, we only make components. We depend on needs of our customers, so if our customers like Volkswagen, Toyota and Hyundai, would decide to invest in Nigeria, they would ask us if we are willing to come to Nigeria to be a supplier to them. This is the normal way this corporation works and in this case, if we see a good potential for our products and a good environment to do so, we would follow up.

How soon are you looking at setting up a manufacturing plant in Nigeria?
I am convinced that Nigeria has extremely good chances to become one of the first manufacturing locations of BOSCH in Africa. We already do this in some parts of South Africa, Northern Africa but of additional manufacturing activities in Africa. The share price of the country makes it an interesting market. Normally a country of this size with so many inhabitants, if we look at the growth projection for the next 30-40years, you have to manufacture products in Nigeria but it will not come automatically. As I said, successful manufacturing depends on demands from suppliers whom we cater for their value-chain, educated people, good legal environment, good infrastructure and this the government have through incorporations and external investors. I believe this is already recognized as it has already started.

What is the worth of potential investment that BOSCH is willing to stake in Nigeria?
As I said earlier, this is too early for us. I believe the potential could be very high. At the end of the day, it depends on the economic development of Nigeria and on the framework we find in Nigeria. Normally, what drives business in some countries is the number of people, the purchasing power and penetration of goods.

If there is a country with high number of people, substantial purchasing power, the low class, growing middle class and low penetration of goods, such a country will have excellent growth perspective and Nigeria has the growth prospects. To say a number right now will be by far too early but the potential for Nigeria is tremendously high.