Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Business of "Packaged Water"
When something is very common Nigerians refer to it as 'pure water'. Many people do know how this two-letter phrase got into common usage.
It was around the 80's thanks to falling oil prices, global economic recession and macro-economic adjustments directed by the World Bank and some 'voodoo economists' - public utilities notably water and sanitation began to crumble. The poor and not so rich continued to salvage whatever they could from available sources, making it safe as much as they could by boiling, filtering, adding some chemicals and other measures just to get adequate supply of this vital liquid. The rich and those who could afford it began to drink water packaged in plastic bottles purported to have been taken from some divine sources somewhere high up in the hills in Plateau State. This trend became a status symbol and of course the smart entrepreneurs were soon smiling to the banks. Other people followed using the same business model, creating several brands of what could have ordinarily been taken out of the tap pipped from the Utility Boards. Our senses were insulted with media adverts from the likes of Ragolis, Swan etc. What started as a little drop just to wet the grounds became a torrent, and so came Eva, Gossy, etc. You could even have them custom made for your birthday or wedding celebrations with your photograph on the package. Yes, you, your own very brand just for one occasion.
This is as far as the fancy plastic bottle could go because the vast majority of the over 140 million Nigerians have several uses for the cost of one bottle of packed water. Enter the Nollywood Paradigm: What if we could just put water in some transparent waterproof material strong enough to with stand tropical heat of over 30 degrees centigrades? We could easily make smaller packages, make them cool using ice blocks and hawk them at the motor parks, along the major roads in the city with heavy traffic. What about the water source? Never mind, we could sink a bore hole or we can buy the raw material from that politician on our street. What about NAFDAC? 'My Guy' we have to start first and then regularize the business. How much are we going to sell the product? Will poor people be able to afford it? You could have 10 for the cost of the smaller bottled cousin.
The result - another combination of raw talent and appropriate technology in defiance of the traditional mode of development. Now we could find this later version popularly known 'pure water' in every part of the country. No marketing, no branding , just an essential commodity made available in a form that is acceptable to consumers. It even delivers more than it promised. 'Pure water' has contributed immensely to the reduction of diarrheal diseases in children and thus cutting down infant deaths resulting from drinking unsafe water without the interference of doctors, nurses and all those pretenders from the Ministry of Health, Unicef and other donors. And poverty reduction - yes the UN will like this for its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) project. It has provided loads of employment to people from retired soldiers to retrenched civil servants and unemployed school leavers . Yes again, it is a major source of second income for those who work in banks, oil companies etc that invest in or set up such businesses. Even corporate organizations are not left out of this lucrative business - ask Coca Cola and May and Baker about how this has contributed to their bottom line.
When something is very common Nigerians refer to it as 'pure water'. Many people do know how this two-letter phrase got into common usage.
It was around the 80's thanks to falling oil prices, global economic recession and macro-economic adjustments directed by the World Bank and some 'voodoo economists' - public utilities notably water and sanitation began to crumble. The poor and not so rich continued to salvage whatever they could from available sources, making it safe as much as they could by boiling, filtering, adding some chemicals and other measures just to get adequate supply of this vital liquid. The rich and those who could afford it began to drink water packaged in plastic bottles purported to have been taken from some divine sources somewhere high up in the hills in Plateau State. This trend became a status symbol and of course the smart entrepreneurs were soon smiling to the banks. Other people followed using the same business model, creating several brands of what could have ordinarily been taken out of the tap pipped from the Utility Boards. Our senses were insulted with media adverts from the likes of Ragolis, Swan etc. What started as a little drop just to wet the grounds became a torrent, and so came Eva, Gossy, etc. You could even have them custom made for your birthday or wedding celebrations with your photograph on the package. Yes, you, your own very brand just for one occasion.
This is as far as the fancy plastic bottle could go because the vast majority of the over 140 million Nigerians have several uses for the cost of one bottle of packed water. Enter the Nollywood Paradigm: What if we could just put water in some transparent waterproof material strong enough to with stand tropical heat of over 30 degrees centigrades? We could easily make smaller packages, make them cool using ice blocks and hawk them at the motor parks, along the major roads in the city with heavy traffic. What about the water source? Never mind, we could sink a bore hole or we can buy the raw material from that politician on our street. What about NAFDAC? 'My Guy' we have to start first and then regularize the business. How much are we going to sell the product? Will poor people be able to afford it? You could have 10 for the cost of the smaller bottled cousin.
The result - another combination of raw talent and appropriate technology in defiance of the traditional mode of development. Now we could find this later version popularly known 'pure water' in every part of the country. No marketing, no branding , just an essential commodity made available in a form that is acceptable to consumers. It even delivers more than it promised. 'Pure water' has contributed immensely to the reduction of diarrheal diseases in children and thus cutting down infant deaths resulting from drinking unsafe water without the interference of doctors, nurses and all those pretenders from the Ministry of Health, Unicef and other donors. And poverty reduction - yes the UN will like this for its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) project. It has provided loads of employment to people from retired soldiers to retrenched civil servants and unemployed school leavers . Yes again, it is a major source of second income for those who work in banks, oil companies etc that invest in or set up such businesses. Even corporate organizations are not left out of this lucrative business - ask Coca Cola and May and Baker about how this has contributed to their bottom line.
Labels: Pure Water
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Nigeria's Mobile Telephone Financial Markets
Most adult Nigerians cannot actually remember that there was a time in this country when they lived without mobile telephones. But the mobile phone phenomenon is impacting on the lives of ordinary Nigerians in more fundamental ways. Apart from the common uses of talk...and Nigerians can talk and text messages, virtually all the features of any new model are being put to use as far as the network operators can support them. Thanks to the Chinese - mobile phone handsets are becoming so cheap that they have become party gifts for kids.
While these are expected trends, a more profound effect is that on the financial markets. I recently asked a banker about the competition in the funds transfer business within Nigeria. He went on to list the major banks, financial houses and then transport companies that have expanded into courier business - the likes of Edo Line, Chisco, ABC etc - which is an example of Nollywood paradigm in its own right. But he failed to recognise the cellphone service providers who provide the 'backbone' for millions of airtime transactions that are redeemed at a discount at millions of locations across the country. The average daily transactions may run into billions of Naira. This amount is outside the banking sector. There is no way for the Central Bank of Nigeria to capture this sort of data. A financial system in its own right, it has enabled people to solve emergency financial problems in a creative way.
Meanwhile, we still hear a lot of rhetorics around traditional thinking of making payments through cellphones while a functional system regulated by the 'visible hands of the market' has been put in place by Nigerians for Nigerians. In this day and age of globalisation, who knows how this phenomenon will affect the business of Western Union and MoneyGram. They should be worried or better still watch the space before this lucrative Nigerian market is eroded by yet another Nollywood paradigm.
Most adult Nigerians cannot actually remember that there was a time in this country when they lived without mobile telephones. But the mobile phone phenomenon is impacting on the lives of ordinary Nigerians in more fundamental ways. Apart from the common uses of talk...and Nigerians can talk and text messages, virtually all the features of any new model are being put to use as far as the network operators can support them. Thanks to the Chinese - mobile phone handsets are becoming so cheap that they have become party gifts for kids.
While these are expected trends, a more profound effect is that on the financial markets. I recently asked a banker about the competition in the funds transfer business within Nigeria. He went on to list the major banks, financial houses and then transport companies that have expanded into courier business - the likes of Edo Line, Chisco, ABC etc - which is an example of Nollywood paradigm in its own right. But he failed to recognise the cellphone service providers who provide the 'backbone' for millions of airtime transactions that are redeemed at a discount at millions of locations across the country. The average daily transactions may run into billions of Naira. This amount is outside the banking sector. There is no way for the Central Bank of Nigeria to capture this sort of data. A financial system in its own right, it has enabled people to solve emergency financial problems in a creative way.
Meanwhile, we still hear a lot of rhetorics around traditional thinking of making payments through cellphones while a functional system regulated by the 'visible hands of the market' has been put in place by Nigerians for Nigerians. In this day and age of globalisation, who knows how this phenomenon will affect the business of Western Union and MoneyGram. They should be worried or better still watch the space before this lucrative Nigerian market is eroded by yet another Nollywood paradigm.
Labels: send me credit
