NIMN 2022: Shun old models, reinvent new ideas, experts charge industry captains, business owners

Business owners, industry captains and brand custodians desirous of staying relevant and enhancing their company’s bottom lines have been charged to reinvent their businesses in a way that will take advantage of the newer opportunities induced by technology advancements.

Making the charge in Lagos weekend at the 2022 Annual Marketing Conference organised by the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), the experts, cut across the different sectors of the nation’s Integrated Marketing Communications space, argued that it is becoming increasingly dangerous for business owners to continue to stay glued to old business models, in a rapidly changing, tech-induced space.

Speaking on the theme ‘Driving Business Sustainability in The Age of Data and Technology’, the Keynote Speaker, Mr Kola Oyeyemi, stated that contrary to the traditional belief that the advent of technology would improve the lives of many at the expense of ‘a smaller few’, tech advancements have continued to take its toll on many businesses, due to the failure of those businesses to take advantage of the benefits inherent in such techs.

He, therefore, argued that with the explosion in data and very aggressively disruptive technologies, it has become imperative for business sustainability to be discussed from the perspective of performance fundamentals.

Describing as ‘unsettling’ the issue of disruptive technologies, the chief executive of Axiom Intel Limited noted that while technology can enhance operational and financial efficiencies, it can also accelerate a business’ decline and extinction, if not taken advantage of.

“This is like riding a wild tiger. Any error can be very fatal. Technology can help you drive operational and financial efficiencies. It can make you leaner, fitter, smarter and more profitable. It can make you more innovative and enable faster access to the market. However, technology can also accelerate your extinction,” he stated.

Oyeyemi also cautioned that such disruption might have a negative impact on businesses, though it might not necessarily be through intra-business competition, but as “a barbarian from outside” the industry.

Using the advent of smartphone technology as an example, he argued that the introduction of the first smartphone device by IBM in 1992 and the advent of the internet had permanently made smartphones change the face of business and personal interactions.

“This is one of the most visible examples of Creative Destruction. The smartphone took mobility of life and business to a whole new level and created a convergence of industries into this powerful device,” he added.

According to the former President of the Advertisers’ Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), the convergence had led to the premature death or a mutation of a lot of industries, with over 14 classic industries changed or being changed by the smartphone.

Some of the industries affected, he added, included music production and distribution, video production and distribution, banking, insurance, watch, print production, broadcast, gaming, retail brick and mortar channels, maps, credit, cinema, advertising, photography, hospitality, transportation, logistics, education and medical practice.

Oyeyemi attributed such disruption to the fact that technologies have no regard for extant rules of engagement or the old factors of competitive advantage.

“They are barbarians who have pulled down old structures and systems and created a whole new frame for competitiveness beyond industries,” he stated.

The keynote speaker, therefore, charged business owners to be wary of organizational rigidity since such strategy impairs innovation and ecosystem thinking and could therefore lead to the extinction of such businesses.

In her contribution, the Marketing Coordinator, Allied Foods (Burger King), and one of the panellists at the conference, Joyce Ibukun Adeyemo, harped on the need for marketing practitioners in the country to take disruptive marketing seriously.

“This is because it helps you refreshen your products in the eye of your customer, and creatively give you a competitive advantage,” she stated.

Also speaking at the event, the institute’s president and chairman of council Mr Idorenyen Enang, described the conference as a way of creating a platform for stakeholders in the nation’s marketing space to exchange ideas.

He explained that the 17 prominent practitioners, with some drawn from sister professional bodies, were a way of further enhancing the practice and collaborating with sister professional bodies, with the aim of bringing more benefits to its members.

The institute has elected Prof. Michael Kupolati and Mrs Ebisan Onyema, as its first and second vice-presidents, respectively.

Announcing this at the institute’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on the second day of the marketing conference, the President of the institute, Enang, stated that the newly-elected officers would replace the duo of Dr Kasuwar Gambo and Mr. Chuka Eborah, the erstwhile first and second vice-presidents, respectively, who had served out their terms on the institute’s council.

Congratulating the duo, Enang expressed the belief that the newly-elected officers would bring to bear the vast experiences they had garnered over the decades in the marketing field.

He also expressed the institute’s gratitude to the erstwhile first and second vice-presidents for their contributions to the growth and development of the institute in the past few years.

Responding on behalf of the new officers, Kupolati assured them of the duo’s commitment to contributing their own quota to the development of the marketing institute.

Kupolati and Ebisan emerged victorious after the online manifesto night and voting exercise, conducted by the Electoral Committee of the institute, between June 8 and 17.

While Kupolati was elected unopposed with 293 votes out of 450 registered votes, Ebisan defeated Ayoade Adeyemi with 241 votes to the latter’s 180.