Why NASCO is Succeeding
By Joseph Onyekwere
Monday, November 21, 2005
Attia Nasreddin, chairman of the Jos-based NASCO Group explains the secret behind the phenomenal growth of the company
Despite the harsh economic climate in Nigeria, NASCO Group Nigeria Limited has continued to wax strong. Forty two years after it commenced operations in Jos, Plateau State, the company has grown to become one of Nigeria's major conglomerates.
At present the company has four manufacturing divisions in addition to its interest in investment trading, management consultancy and services. NASCO Fiber Products Limited produces and markets carpets and blankets. NASCO carpets and blankets are in high demand. NASCO Foods Nigeria Limited unequivocably leads the cornflakes, biscuits and water wafers market in Nigeria because of their popularity which is derived from their high standards. The popular NASCO biscuits, tea biscuits, shortcake portion packs, cream crackers, orange cream, chocolate cream and banana cream biscuits are among the variety of their products.
Also, NASCO Household Products and NASCO Pack Limited engages in the production of laundry soap, detergent and corrugated and flexible packaging materials respectively.
Attia Nasreddin, chairman of the company told Newswatch that the survival of the company rests on the corporate strategy used in running the organisation and the consumer satisfaction policy. He said that the utmost interest of NASCO is not profit as it obtained in other manufacturing concerns, but the welfare of the people." The dream behind NASCO is to see a great Africa. And NASCO works to ensure that Africa develops and people come out of poverty and the only way to do this is perhaps invest in our country," he said.
He attributed the success of the company to hardwork and perseverance. "Hard work and perseverance have been our winning strategy. We believe in what we are doing, knowing about Nigerian market and meeting the need of the market," he said.
In addition, the management believes in effectiveness and transparency, giving no room for ethnicity or religious affiliation in staff recruitment. To Nasreddin, the strength of NASCO is gained from its Africanism. "We are contributing in both Nigeria and Africa," he said.
Administrative efficiency, staff motivation, properly crystalised roles, efficient horizontal and vertical communications are all part of its corporate strategy. NASCO staff is given regular training with job performance and self assessment policy. These, Newswatch learnt are part of their unique selling point.
Apart from the production and marketing of goods and services, NASCO is alive to its social responsibility as a corporate citizen of Nigeria. As NASCO grows bigger, it continues to touch more lives in so many ways. "We help the host community in all developmental projects. We support federal institutions, hospitals, orphanages and we constructed an overhead bridge near the market. People thought that is part of the market, but NASCO built it," Nasreddin said.
The company has been involved in no small measure in other humanitarian activities. His words: "We contributed to the famine-stricken Niger Republic. We contribute a lot in the over-all development of Nigeria and also in expanding our products and services. Recently, we sponsored the first Joseph Gomwalk Memorial Lecture through the Institute of Public Relations, Jos. We also sponsored the Olympic committee."
Aminu Ogaji, assistant general manager, human relations/administration, NASCO explained that part of their strategy is to pro-act, to look ahead of issues and see which areas of government policy would affect their activities and quickly address them. "For instance, if the government is going into the storage of maize for its strategic reserve, we already know that maize is a major raw-material for our company's production. How does it affect us? Before the government goes into it, we now visualise the position and take a look at it," he said.
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