…discloses plans to pursue Agro-Export business
Posted by Sade Williams
Mrs. Olatokunbo Fagbemi, Group Managing director of foremost ground handling company in Nigeria, the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO aviance) Plc, has attributed the positive financial performance in the last nine months, to renewal and heavy investment in equipment, also known as Ground Support Equipment (GSE).
She disclosed that the company has invested about N2 billion on GSE, adding that such has brought about more efficiency in service delivery.
The company posted a gross revenue of N7.38 billion for the nine – month period ended September 30, 2019. It subsequently posted a Profit Before Tax of 973.1 million for the Q3 ended September 30, 2019.
The figure is 241.3 million higher than the amount for the same period last year for Nigeria’s foremost ground handling company. This represents 32.96 percent increase over the same period last year.
Fagbemi, who was responding to questions and answers as a guest at the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC) monthly gateway forum at the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos, disclosed that the company, through its ‘Transformation plan’, also reviewed its processes by looking keenly into every single operating manual with a view to getting the best use of its resources.
“We spent about N2 billion, in Cargo, we high loaders, Bowers, we have ACU, GPU, ASU and most of them are the for aircraft handling, within the Warehouse, we have Forklifts, the phase two of the delivery of equipment has started, we are expecting more equipment to come in all through the next couple of weeks. Basically, most of our equipment are to support aircraft handling and the warehouse operations.
“What we have done is that basically, we’ve invested more in equipment and investment in equipment brings better efficiency, the newer equipment have less fuel burn, they are easier to turn around the airport. Also our processes have also helped because we have gone back to look at our processes because right now, every single standard operating procedure is being looked through. There is the transformation plan that is being driven with KPMG, yes we are working with KPMG on our transformation plan and one of the things is that happening is that every single manual is being looked at to see how best we can use the resources.
“And we are assuring our staff that it is not about us coming to sack them, it is about being more efficient because there is the tendency for people to think that it is lay-off but we’ve already explained to them that what we are pushing is to use our people better, more effectively and to have better processes, so that has also helped because once you can bring in efficiency into processes, you have to see it in the savings and cost, otherwise you will just spend the money in terms of operational efficiency, without getting the gains on the investment we’ve had.
From left: Mr. Tayo Ajakaye, manager, communications and corporate services, Nahcoaviance, Mrs. Tokunbo Fagbemi, GMD, Nahcoaviance, Mr. Kelechi Amaechi, Head, Customer Experience Unit, Nahco and Mr. Olusegun Koiki, chairman, League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents at the monthly gateway forum held at Lagos airport on Wednesday.
“If you get to the cargo complex, we are working on every part of it from as basic as from the toilet to the roof, we adhere to the manufacturers guidelines on maintenance culture, I think it is a combination of all these. And on our marketing activities, we have changed orientation, are more focused on the customer and that is what is yielding the result right now”, she said.
Fagbemi disclosed that NAHCO is looking into exploring the Agro-export business adding that it has already opened discussions with some stakeholders and governments.
“The journey so far has been focused on customer experience, we have just created a unit called the Customer Experience Unit, the reason we have created this is to ensure that we can serve the customer better. What we have done in the last ten months is to see how best we can improve our customer experience, based on the five pillars of our transformation: Operational excellence, People and Transformation; Digital Transformation; we have taken all these and we are pushing them, In the last ten months, mainland cargo offshore has expanded into the sea and into some inland services, NAHCO Free trade zone has repositioined, For NAHCO itself, we paid a lot of focus on equipment and worked on infrastructure and facilities, we have also looked at our processes and one of the key areas of focus is Export, we’ve taken it up passionately and we are pushing it, to enhance that focus, we have to look at the processes within our export warehouse.
“We have also rearranged our facilities to be able to enhance safety and security to ensure that the foreign carriers are happy that all the regulations are being met as required, the consequence is that we have passed all out audits and there is more encouragement for Agricultural export and we are ready and we are partnering with different state governments and stakeholders on how to best to push Agricultural export, we have done some things with Kano State government all because of this.
“We know that if the products are not packaged in a particular way, it might get destroyed. We are passionate about that and we are looking for partners and talking to IATA for people to know understand how best we can up the value of the Agricultural export, if more people get it right, more people will be in the business and more of them will pass through our warehouse, and that is one major journey we have been able to embarked on”, she said.
