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Nigeria as the preferred country of origin in exports

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Positioning Nigeria as the preferred country of origin in exports

By Adetokunbo Adewoyin (AgMP4)

In 2015, faced with dwindling foreign exchange reserves and substantial reduction in the earnings from oil exports, the Nigerian government decided to diversify the economy away from oil through non-oil exports.

This led to the development of the “The National Strategic Export Products (NSEPs)” which are divided into 3 broad categories as stated below: · Agro industrial – palm oil, cocoa, sugar, rice and cashew · Mining related – cement, iron ore/metals, auto parts/cars, aluminum · Oil & gas industrial products – petroleum products, fertilizer /urea, petrochemical and menthol. As at 2016, the top 10 earners from agricultural commodities exports in the world which included USA, Brazil, Canada, India, Argentina, Australia and China earned about US$641 Billion, buttressing the massive earning potential from non-oil exports.

The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), which is charged with export promotion from Nigeria, is currently promoting 22 non-oil products under the zero-oil plan which will generate an estimated annual revenue of about US$30 Billion. It is important to note that generating this projected revenue from non-oil exports is premised on Nigeria's ability to attract buyers from around the world, and consistently record successful export transactions.

This is largely hinged on being an attractive /preferred country of origin in a global environment which presents buyers with options to trade with any producing country.

According to Wikipedia, country of origin represents the country (or countries) of manufacture, production, design, or brand origin where an article or product /service comes from.

Where buyers are presented with the option of importing from different countries of origin, there are some criteria that these buyers would base their choices on. Some of them are: Ÿ Quality- What origin offers the best quality according to internationally accepted standards? Ÿ Quantity- Are the products/ services available in commercial quantities in the country of origin? Ÿ Pricing - What origin offers the best price? Ÿ Logistics- How easy is it to move the products to destination from origin? What is the transit time between purchase, shipment and arrival at destination? Ÿ Tariffs and waivers: Are there waivers or tariffs on purchasing from a particular origin? Ÿ Political stability: Is there any political uproar or instability in the country of origin that can hamper trade? Ÿ Economic Policies: What are the economic policies regulating international trade from the origin countries? Ÿ Country Perception/Integrity: What is the perception of the country of origin in the international market? Does the exporting country have a general reputation of not honouring contracts? Ÿ Legal issues: What are the laws governing exports from a particular origin?

Some buyers are concerned about other issues such as:

Ÿ Child labour Ÿ Traceability of the products Ÿ Religious practices Ÿ Organic status of the products Ÿ Working conditions in the exporting country

These buyers would most definitely import from origins that present them with options best suited to their preferences.

While some of the criteria listed above are within the control of the exporter, some of them are unfortunately not.

This therefore implies that for Nigeria to become a most preferred origin, it is the collective responsibility of the government, exporting authorities, exporters and other stakeholders to work collaboratively to present Nigeria as the origin of choice to buyers across the world.

Becoming a preferred country of origin will ultimately enhance our trade opportunities, increase trading activities and boost the foreign exchange earnings of our country.

About the Author Ms Adetokunbo Adewoyin CITF is an Export Consultant at Fortress20 Commodities. She is an alumna of the Agribusiness Management Programme (AgMP) 4 Class of Lagos Business School.

Resilience in Times of Crisis & Uncertainties

10 Practices that Work

Tunde Ekpekurede

"Oh! mama This choice I made didn't work out the way I thought it would, now I'm hurting" - Lucky Dube

The woman who Lucky Dube had told his mama was the best woman in the world, turned out not to be so. This is the stark reality of life – our choices never always turn out to be what we expected. The financial projections never always fall into line at the end of the year; the project delivery timeline never really turns out to be what we expected; the perfect job never really turns out to be what we expected; the new investment never really yields as much as it was expected to; even the weather projections often differ from what we anticipate. What does all this mean when we are confronted with the many challenges of life? It tells us that we need an approach to life different from the fixed mindset that we often use to engage in life. We need to engage life with an attitude that says we will find a way to our destination no matter what, or else we will redefine our destination. An attitude that has an inbuilt ability to rebound when our predictions fail to align with reality – and really, many of our predictions hardly ever go the way we planned. This attitude of mind is called resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back when confronted by a setback. It is a quality of mind possessed by every champion, whether in life or in business. To quote Dean Becker of Adaptive Learning, "More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person's level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That is true in the cancer ward, it's true in the Olympics, and it's true in the boardroom."

Since January 2020, resilience has become a buzz word in many academic literatures and for the right reason. Covid - 19 brought with it one of the most unexpected shocks in recent business history. This singular disruption has led to very severe economic, social, political, and health consequences on a global scale. These devastations notwithstanding, a crisis is not something that should be left to waste. The consequences and disruptions already experienced will be of no account if lessons are not learned and appropriate changes to how we engage with the future built into our organizational or personal thinking. Below, I will recount the story of the famous Andes flight, a flight that should have lasted under 3 hours that took 72 days with much death and pain in its troll. Much of the material in the story that follow have been taken from the books "ALIVE" by Piers Paul Reid and "MIRACLE IN THE ANDES" by Nando Parrado.

"More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person's level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That is true in the cancer ward, it's true in the Olympics, and it's true in the boardroom."

The Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 – The 72 DAYS FLIGHT FROM URUGUAY TO ARGENTINA

On 13 October 1972, a chartered Uruguayan Air Force plane was flying over the Andes carrying the Old Christians Club rugby union team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to play a match in Santiago, Chile. Unfortunately, due to cloud cover, the pilot, unaware that he was flying below the height of the Andes mountains crashed into the Andes.

The plane clipped the peak at 4,200 metres (13,800 ft), severing the right wing, which was thrown back with such force that it cut off the vertical stabilizer, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. The plane then clipped a second peak which severed the left wing and left the plane as just a fuselage flying through the air. The fuselage hit the ground and slid down a steep mountain

slope before finally coming to rest in a snowbank.

Early days

Of the 45 passengers on board the aircraft, 12 died on the day of the crash, 5 died the day after, and one died on the 8th day. The remainder 27 survivors suffered varying degrees of injuries from the crash, including broken legs. Aside from friends and family members who were accompanying the Old Christian Rugby players, the average age was 24 years, w i t h t h e m a j o r i t y, u n i v e r s i t y undergraduate students, that included a first- and second-year medical student. The survivors went to work immediately and began to improvise splints with what remained of the salvaged parts of the aircraft. Search parties from three countries looked for the missing plane. Since the plane was white, it blended in with the snow, making it invisible from the sky. At one point, the survivors tried to use several sticks of lipstick recovered from luggage to write an SOS on the roof of the plane but abandoned the effort after it became apparent that they lacked the necessary lipstick to make letters that would be plainly recognizable from the air. The initial search was cancelled after eight days. The survivors of the crash found a small transistor radio on the plane wreckage and one of the survivors Roy Harley heard the news that the search has been called off on their 11th day on the mountain after the joint search committee from the three countries concluded that it will be IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to be alive 11 days after a crash on the Andes mountains. The others who had clustered around Roy, upon hearing the news, began to sob and pray, all except one named Nando Parrado, who looked calmly up the mountains which rose to the west. Another named Gustavo came out of the plane and, seeing their faces and knowing what they had heard climbed through the hole in the wall of suitcases and rugby shirts, crouched at the mouth of the dim tunnel, and looked at the mournful faces which were turned towards him. 'Hey boys, ' he shouted, 'there's some good news! We just heard on the radio. They've called off the search. ' Inside the crowded plane fuselage there was silence. As the hopelessness of their predicament enveloped them, they wept. 'Why the hell is that good news?' Another survivor, Paez shouted angrily at Nicolich. 'Because it means,' Nicolich said, 'that we're going to get out of here on our own.' The courage of this one boy prevented a flood of total despair.

Cannibalism

The survivors had a small amount of food: a few chocolate bars, assorted snacks and several bottles of wine. During the days following the crash, they divided out this food in very small amounts so as not to exhaust their meager supply. A survivor named Fito Strauch also devised a way to melt snow into water by using metal from the seats and placing snow on it. The snow then melted in the sun and dripped into empty wine bottles. Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. There was no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain. The group survived by collectively making a decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades.

All of the passengers were Roman Catholic. The many rationalized the act of necrotic cannibalism as equivalent to the ritual of Holy Communion, or justified it according to a Bible verse (no man hath greater love than this: that he lay down his life for his friends). Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later. There are reports that one older female passenger, Liliana, although not seriously injured in the crash, refused to eat human flesh due to her strong religious convictions – she died shortly thereafter, in the avalanche.

Avalanche

E i g h t o f t h e i n i t i a l s u r v i v o r s subsequently died on the afternoon of 29 October when an avalanche cascaded Therefore, it was decided that a group would be chosen, and then allocated the most rations of food and the warmest of clothes and spared the daily manual labour around the crash site that was essential for the group's survival, so that they might build their strength. Although several survivors were determined to be on the expedition team no matter what, including Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, one of the two medical students, others were less willing or unsure of their ability to withstand such a physically exhausting ordeal. From the rest of the passengers, Numa Turcatti and Antonio Vizintin were chosen to accompany Canessa and Parrado. At

down on them as they slept in the fuselage. For three days, they survived in an appallingly confined space since the plane was buried under several feet of snow. Nando Parrado was able to poke a hole in the roof of the fuselage with a metal pole, providing ventilation. Among the dead was Liliana Methol, wife of survivor Javier Methol. She had been the last surviving female passenger.

Before the avalanche, a few of the survivors became insistent that their only way of survival would be to climb over the mountains themselves and search for help. Several brief expeditions were made in the immediate vicinity of the plane in the first few weeks after the crash, but they found that a combination of altitude sickness, dehydration, snow blindness, malnourishment and the extreme cold of the nights made climbing any significant distance an impossible task.

Hard decisions

Canessa's urging, they waited nearly seven days, to allow for the arrival of s u m m e r , a n d w i t h - i t h i g h e r temperatures.

The sleeping bag

It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. They also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing temperature of the nights, a trek was impossible. It was at this point that the idea for a sleeping bag was raised.

Carlitos took on the challenge. His mother had taught him to sew when he was a boy, and with the needles and thread from the sewing kit found in his mother's cosmetic case, he began to work ... to speed the progress, Carlitos taught others to sew.

December 12

On December 12, 1972, two months after the crash, Parrado, Canessa and Vizintín began their trek up the mountain. Parrado took the lead, and often had to be called to slow down, though the thin oxygen made it difficult for all of them. It was still bitterly cold but the sleeping bag allowed them to live through the nights. In the film Stranded, Canessa called the first night during the ascent, where they had difficulty finding a place to use the sleeping bag, the worst night of his life.

One of the horsemen, a Chilean arriero named Sergio Catalán, shouted "tomorrow." The next day Catalán took some loaves of bread and went back to the river bank. There he found the two men still on the other side of the river, on their knees and asking for help. Catalán threw them the bread loaves, which they immediately ate, and a pen and paper tied to a rock. Parrado wrote a note He was able to stop a truck and reach the police station at Puente Negro, where the news was finally dispatched to the Army command in San Fernando and then to Santiago. Afterwards, Parrado and Canessa were rescued and they reached Los Maitenes, where they were fed and allowed to rest.

Finding help

Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. Gradually, there appeared more and more signs of human presence, first some signs of camping, and finally on the ninth day, some cows. When they rested that evening, they were very tired and Canessa seemed unable to proceed further. As Parrado was gathering wood to build a fire, Canessa noticed what looked like a man on a horse at the other side of the river and yelled at the near-sighted Parrado to run down to the banks. At first it seemed that Canessa had been imagining the man on the horse, but eventually they saw three men on horseback. Divided by Portillo River, Nando and Canessa tried to convey their situation, but the noise of the river made communication difficult. telling about the plane crash and asking for help. Then he tied the paper to a rock and threw it back to Catalán, who read it and gave them a sign that he understood.

The following morning the rescue expedition left Santiago, together with Nando Perrado and rescued the remainder survivors at the crash site

10 Resiliency Lessons for Life & Business

1. You don't have any control over the external environment. The Old

Christians Rugby club set out to have fun and do what they love doing, but the plane's pilot made a disastrous mistake. You only know your product.

There are a lot more other variables that you do not know. To better deal with a complex environment where p r e d i c t a b i l i t y i s i m p o s s i b l e , organizations need to embrace what

Tim Sullivan in HBR Reprint No R1109E calls Embracing Complexity. Here Tim

Sullivan discusses the need for organization to staff their human res o urce s with p e rsons with cognitive diversity, avoiding the trap of cause of effect, going beyond expert predictions to keep a curious mind and to be open to continuous learning and exposure to different and even conflicting points of view.

2. Never underestimate the power of relationships. If only one person survived the plane crash, I can tell you with almost 100% certainty that he or she will not make it. In organizations and individual lives, we all need relationships that will help us overcome complex uncertainties. There has been a lot of collaboration and alliances in the last year to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic. Some uncertainties are political, and you will need a great deal of collaboration to overcome a looming regulatory legislation that threatens to wipe out your industry.

3. Develop Leaders at all levels. On the day the survivors heard on radio that the search has been called off, it took the courage of about three survivors who showed great leadership to re s c u e t h e s p i r i t s o f ot h e r s .

Organizations should relentlessly develop leadership materials at all levels. In times of crisis of any kind, you will find leadership talent to be very invaluable.

4. Make it easy in your organization to experiment with new ideas. The survivors experimented with everything possible. With a diversity of young energies, the mini organization that ensued tried and experimented with whatever they could think of. In times of crisis, make it possible for leadership to hear the most stupid suggestion without any penalty. In Strategy AS

Simple Rules, (https://hbr.org/2001/01/strategyas-simple-rules) Kathleen M.

Eisenhardt and Donald Sull gives simple frameworks employed by companies like Amazon that make it possible for them to experiment with new ideas.

5. Infuse the organization with a resilient spirit. Nando Parrado, who emerged as the leader of the survivors, lost his mother and sister, who were accompanying him to watch him play. He never let his loss

deter him from a relentless focus on the way out of the situation. The science of Resilience is being taught today in many organizations. I have been privileged to teach this in several organizations in Nigeria, and my book, "Realizing Mental Resilience – Unleashing Individual & Team Performance," has been embraced by several leading organizations. Leaders, managers, and employees must be taught the science of bouncebackability - to count lost opportunities bygone and focus on the challenges at hand.

6. Infuse your organization with a culture of gratitude. In times of uncertainty, anxiety kills initiative.

One of the best ways to overcome this tendency is to cultivate the habit of gratitude. This is a winning personality trait. Gratitude diffuses tension and brings a fresh perspective in the midst of any challenge. The Harvard Medical

School journal defines gratitude as: "a thankful appreciation for what an individual receives, whether tangible or intangible. With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives … As a result, gratitude also helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals–whether to other people,

Last photo of Uruguayan Flight 571 before it crashed in the Andes

nature, or a higher power". According to Sabina Nawaz, (https://hbr.org/2020/05/in-timesof-crisis-a-little-thanks-goes-along-way), a little thanks goes a long way in times of crisis.

7. Reframe the situation. While we have no control over many forces that impede our world, we have the power to reframe any situation. In the article, "You're Not Powerless in the Face of Uncertainty" (https://hbr.org/2020/03/youre-notpowerless-in-the-face-ofuncertainty), Nathan Furr advises leaders to reframe the opportunity.

Reframing allows more options.

Organize a strategy meeting to reframe the challenge. The option to eat the flesh of their dead colleagues is a feat that beats imagination, given the way we are hardwired to stick with what worked yesterday. Organizations should be in the mood of always "We don't know …. "This posture creates a willingness to learn. When you already know, learning stops.

8. Timing – Always watch out for the right timing. With all the risks identified in the planned trip to look for civilization and the risk mitigation factors put in place, the survivors decided to wait for the temperature to improve a little bit. In executing a successful strategy, timing can be a make or break deciding factor. It is noteworthy that by the ninth day, Nando's accomplice was nearly at the point of losing his life. This expenditure may have been fatal if the temperatures were worse than the chosen time that they decided to set out.

9. thTake Action: On the 12 of December, the two men saddled with the task of putting their lives on the line to rescue others moved. There is no strategy that has a sure-determined outcome. Every endeavor is fraught with its own set of risks. But we cannot analyze an opportunity forever. When we have done all that we can do, we will have to move. The lepers in the bible said, if we sit here, we will perish, if we go to Samaria we may perish. 10. Commit the chosen line of action into the hands of a higher power, whatever that means to you.

About the Author:

Tunde Ekpekurede is an authority in the fields of mental toughness and resilience and has served as speaker, facilitator, and executive coach in these fields for over a decade. He has worked in executive level positions in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England, and Nigeria. He is currently the CEO of Learning4Living, a Training and Leadership Development company. He is a member of the Advanced Management Programme (AMP) 12 Class of Lagos Business School.

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