YINUSA
MOHAMMED: The Mayor at MAYER
Yinusa Mohammed is an ordinary
Nigerian trying his best to add value to whatever opportunity he
is privileged to have. He
marries philosophies to ensure that he gets every opportunity to
add value to DN MEYER Plc and the macro economy.
The primary interest of good management is to identify what
one is working for and it is necessary to empower the people under
you.
Another aspect of Yinusa
Mohammed’s approach to management is that, organisations should
not be unnecessarily expense driven, rather organisations should
be value driven. He
believes that when there is something to be done, the first
consideration should not be how much it will cost.
According to him, the question should be what do we get by
doing it and when, what you will get by doing it outweighs the
cost then obviously you will go ahead and do it.
The MD/CEO also believes
that it is important that management should emphasis teamwork, and
that once there is teamwork, the tendency is for people to work
for the same goal.
When Dunlop Nigeria Plc
bought into the company in 1994, the company was at the brink of
collapse and was also just a paint manufacturer, though it went
into trading in products like photocoping machines, Gillette, Peak
Milk and so on.
The corporate name then
was Hagemeyer and the Company’s product name was Sigma. When
Dunlop came in, the name had to be changed to DN Meyer Plc and the
company’s brand name to Meyer Paints.
The first five years 1994 - 1999 were used in selling the
new corporate name. It
was a lot of work to sell even the corporate name itself to a
level where it became a household name.
In doing this, the company has been able to have a very
remarkable growth in volume, turnover and profit.
Year 2001 half year
result of the company showed a turnover of N423 million, an
increase of 41 percent over the corresponding period in year 2000.
The MD/CEO of DN Meyer Plc said all the credits will go to the
Company’s system of value creation.
The Company’s objective is that anybody who is associated
with the company be it customers, staff, or shareholders should be
able to see value in their relationship with the Company.
The Company has created the necessary environment and more
importantly, has concentrated on the quality of the products and
their human resources, which the management believes is more
important. This the
company does through the empowerment of the people that has one
thing or the other to do with the company to run whatever
responsibility that is given to them with minimum level of
interference.
The Paint business
according to the MD/CEO is one of the most competitive businesses
in this country, and there are at least 300 paint companies in
Nigeria
ad the paint market in
Nigeria
has been shrinking from the mid 80’s when DN
Meyer Plc hit 120 million litres per annum.
In year 2000, the Company was just producing about 113
million litres, therefore, the competition has been very stiff.
The Company’s decision
has been to carve a special niche for themselves and operate at
the top of the market. While doing this, the company was not
unmindful of the fact that about 50 percent of the market belongs
to the small paint companies, and the remaining 50 percent for the
top of the market. To
operate at the top of the market, you need good quality products
and good customer services to back it up and that is what DN Meyer
Plc has been doing for some time now.
To check against
substandard products, the company, in conjunction with the
Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and the Police have,
been doing a lot. In
the paint making industry, it is at the decorative level that one
can talk about very easy entry because the capital is not too
high. But if you must
produce a good product, a lot of input has to take place.
DN Meyer Plc has a lot of products that other people do buy
and mix-up and this has been a major problem and the Manufacturers
Association of Nigeria (MAN) is working very hard to put a stop to
that.
The cash cow in the
paint business is the decorative product, emulsion and gloss.
The other product lines have to do with specialised paints.
The company has an auto paint and the brand name is Meyer
Flex. The Company also
has Meyer Wood for furniture, industrial paint for industrial
purposes, the marine paints for ships and oil rigs.
The Nigerian Stock
Exchange (NSE) last year gave the Company the NSE President’s
Merit Awards in Chemical and Paint Category.
Yinusa
Mohammed is married and has
children.
Newswatch Special Feature, Friday, 15 November 2002
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