When Mrs Alakija quit her thriving career in the banking industry with the then International Merchant Bank, Lagos, her plan was to start a business that would not only provide financial renumeration and independence but also the one that would bring her joy.
In September 1985, Mrs Alakija registered in two schools in England, The American College in London and the London Central School of Fashion. She returned to Nigeria in 1986 and started her first label, Supreme Stitches. She was fashion designer of the year1986/87 and later became the president of ‘FADAN’ Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria between 1995 and 2001 .
In 2001, her Haute Couture fashion business, The Rose of Sharon House of Fashion , eventually changed into a business that mass produce tee-shirts, which no longer required her full time attention. The company’s name, therefore, changed again, this time to Rose of Sharon Prints and Promotions. “Our new vision was to produce good quality shirts with a series of style and panache to feed the Nigerian interest in golf, leisure wear, and promotions,” Alakija said at the launch of the clothe line. She is now the Executive Vice Chairman of Famfa Oil Ltd.
Before she became famous and outstanding, she had traded on what many women love trading on- shoes, handbags, jewelry, skirt suits, dresses and clothes. “In my school days, I loved buying and selling. I was born into a trading family. I sold many, many things,” she said. She later resigned from full time fashion designing to start monogramming business, screen print, heat transfer at her Adeniran Ogunsanya office in Surulere Lagos. After few years she moved to a bigger complex in Surulere to start the the printing business in a bigger dimension. For her it was from one thing to the other.
Alakija has just climbed another ladder with the rebranding of her company Digital Reality Print Limited. The ultra-modern purpose –built print solutions and one-stop-shop facility opened shop on Commercial Avenue, Yaba, Lagos State.
She spoke to Sunday Sun on her businesses, what has kept her going and her success story.
Excerpts:
I had my heart set on running my own business as far back as my teenage years. I spent every secondary school holiday in my mother’s fabric shop at the Ereko area of Lagos. I helped out, attended to clients and got accustomed to various fabrics like Shindodo lace, floral polyester and nylon fabrics, voiles and cottons.
I know that all these helped prepare me for my future in fashion designing. No knowledge is ever lost and the things I learnt as a teenager in my mother’s shop have given me the important insight into life of business that helped me later on in my life.
I started trading when I returned from England after my secretarial course and continued when I moved up the corporate ladder. I traded in ready-to wear clothing, scarves and jewelry by importing them from Europe during weekend visits.
I became representative for various types of drinks from various manufacturers and had wholesales outlets in Iponri shopping centre, Surulere and Alade market shopping centre at Allen Avenue, Ikeja.
Sometimes, I bought commodities in bulk from multinational companies and sold them to market traders . Once, I even worked towards purchasing a shipload of rice which unfortunately fell through.
All my life, I took practical steps while I kept dreaming big dreams. I remember on one occasion , I had the bright idea of setting up a piggery farm, I didn’t like the bacon and sausage available locally, and was dead set on making my own. I asked my husband to buy me a book on pig farming during one of his trips abroad. Though he obliged , he made very good fun of me. Needless to say the idea never came to fruition.
How did you come about the digital reality business?
There was a time that I decided that I wanted to go into a new business and because I never take any major step without asking God first, I took it to the lord in prayer and he showed me the offset printing. He showed me machines that are related to the offset printing. However, the large format print industry was coming up very strong within the industry so we started off with that. It took five years for us to move to offset printing, having started the large format printing in September 2006. The offset was added to the large format precisely on my 60th birthday, the 15th of July 2011.
And since then we have added many more machines to this arm of the business and when we are starting out I decided that I wanted a company name that will depict what we do and how we do it. Digital means the type of print we want to do. The Reality means the type of print we want to produce. And then we came up with the logo which has vibrant cools which depict the fact that we print in colours and vibrant colours. God also gave us the slogan viable for the company, Awesome Images. As a result of which ever since we started the company, we have always top quality at the back of our minds, and one of our major targets is that we must always deliver strong quality jobs to our clients. This is important to the requirements of our clients because they too have to deliver somewhere or to the end users. There is also always a timeline to whoever is printing with us. When we wanted to add the finishing department to machines we started off with, we realised that the prefix we started off with were too small for our needs so we had to look for a larger infinity. We now have this ultra modern state of the art purpose built print facility that has everything.
As a former banker and fashion designer, digital reality business seems technical, did you go to school to learn about printing too?
For every factory, you hire a machine operator and engineers and for the running of the business I have learnt on the job and it’s a continuous process. That is how I have been operating. I make sure that I hire top notch technical staff for this area who are highly experienced and more talented and diligent. They have been working with us for years to be able to cater for the various types of work that we are expecting. We are ready for business; we are ready for very large businesses to come in, whether it is printing for politicians, bankers, eateries, schools, missions, name it. We are fully ready to provide every service they possibly ask for.
Aside the ultra modern facilities, what makes Digital Reality stand out from other printing companies?
One of the things that stand us out is definitely our cutting edge technology. The machines that we use, they are brand new, they are state of the art, they are always the latest brand in the industry, our staff are well trained, they are experienced, they are talented, they are diligent and extremely hardworking. We motivate our staff, and we continue to set the pace. This office facility has a crèche, a sick bay, cafeteria, and we put motivational incentive scheme for the staff. We all operate like a big happy family. The motivational aspect of staff welfare is one of the things that make us stand out. There’s a crèche, there is a nursery, a mini clinic.
What vision do you have for this company in the next five years?
God will continue to direct us to show us the vision, ideas and the steps to take at the right time and he will continue to open doors for us. Our plan is to always be the best at what we do at every time. A sustainable brand that is best-in-class for everything within the space of printing.
As the richest black woman, did you open Digital Reality as another avenue for making money?
There is no one that doesn’t need money. I didn’t confirm that I’m the richest black woman, you are the one saying so because I don’t know how much anybody else has but for what God has given me, I give him all the glory. To answer your question, everybody needs money because no matter the amount of money God gives you, you can only sleep on one bed. You can only sleep under one roof. God expects us to share whatever it is he has given us to those who are in need and I try to do that as much as I can. It is absolutely necessary for one to continue to work; he said those who do not work will not eat. It gives us the opportunity to be able to hire people to work because there is so much unemployment out there, it affords me the grace, the opportunity to help them put food on their table, and to be able to support their family.
As a renowned entrepreneur do you mentor people?
I mentor as often as I can with every opportunity that I get. I do it on the internet, I do it in the facebook, I do it in the ministry, I do it one on one. I do it even in the books that I write.
What advice would you give to people who want to go into your kind of business or any business at all?
I will tell them that before they go into any type of business they must pray, they must talk to God because they want to do it in their own way and ask God to come and put rubber stamp on it. It is wrong. You have to ask God where God is leading you, ask him where it is exactly, what is it exactly, how should I go about it. Even to the mundane things like the slogan for the company, I asked God and God gave me the picture, the images, and that is what we used for the company’s advertisement. God expects us to be passionate, he expects us to be hardworking and he expects us to represent him well, he expects us to do things according to his leading. Don’t say because Jane or Bisi or Ngozi is doing it, then you are going to do it. That place God called Ngozi may not be where he called you to. So you have to ask God.
You were working in the bank, what is your memorable event when you look back?
Before I went into fashion. I have not met the Lord. However, I sat down , I decided that I needed to decide on a career path that I will not regret, that I will enjoy, not one that would make me upset or unhappy, or grudge when I wake up and don’t feel like going to work. Every time I talk about fashion, I was eager to go to work. I believe that I took the right step though I was not yet in the Lord at that time. But I look inwards, I look at my spirit and I had peace inside. Even if you had made a mistake of not asking God before you took that step, if you look back and you look at the grace that he gave, you will find out that you will do that thing with a little more ease than if you didn’t have grace to do it because you will be struggling. I had grace in that line of business at the time that I did and the rest is history by the grace of God.
What was the turning point in your life?
When at the age of seven my father sent me to England to study, I didn’t realize that was going to be a turning point, something that is going to affect my future. Something I would look back on and say my parents, even though they are late now at the age of 95 and 92 five years ago, they gave me something to stand on. They gave me something I could recall, something I can refer to, something that has opened my eyes, something that has made me a better person. I can say that, that was one of the turning points in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment