Ayo Alonge, [email protected]
Bayo Adedeji, who is the Chief Executive Officer of WakaNow, a leading startup in travels and tour business in the country, takes a look at the pros and cons of the business, while affirming that the opportunities far outweigh the challenges. He believes that government can boost the capacity of SMEs by encouraging competition and making loans available for entrepreneurs at single digit interest rates.
While fielding questions on the activities and business strategy of his company, Adedeji also bared his mind on the question of ease of doing business in the country.
Background
WakaNow is a hybrid travel agency, meaning that we are both online and offline. You go both online and offline to book flights. Our primary product is travel tickets. Offline, we have about 53 offices where you can come and do business with us. We sell both inbound and outbound flights. We also sell hotels, both locally and internationally. We sell travel related products. We are that middleman agency that provides flight related services between the airline companies and the passengers. The innovation of the company came up with two founders – Obinna and Ralph. They floated the company about 12 years ago. They came up with some brilliant ideas and built it to the level that it is today.
Challenges
The challenges are not as huge as the opportunities and that’s why I like to focus more on the opportunities. The challenges are there because there is always something wrong. For instance, the adoption of online services is growing but still very low. Talking about the access to the internet, for you to be a successful business, there must be the access to internet. Today, people don’t like paying online and still prefer paying to someone handy. That’s a big challenge.
I am one of the people that like to focus on the doughnut and not the hole. We only have about 1.7 million unique travellers in Nigeria and what that means is that there is still a lot of people that are yet to travel.
If we have to assume that we have a population of 200 million people, that means that there are over 198 million people who haven’t traveled. That means that we have only penetrated, technically, one percent and that means we have about 99 percent of people to reach. Now, the disposable income may be low but the opportunity is large.
How do we get people to travel; get on planes and get exposed to the world? How do we get people to choose air as a means of transportation over road? How do you convince people about expanding their horizon on the need to go see the world? How do you make it affordable? How do create an easy payment plan? We are about to launch another programme that would engage that. The goal for us is about expanding the pie. That is the opportunity that exists because we have only penetrated one percent of the market.
Stages and strategy for growth
I think we have gone through the deep and turns of growth and now we are at the cliff of stability and steady growth. We are now institutionalising the company by creating processes that are robust. We have gone from the early startup days to raising funds and to becoming very stable. We want to now make the company a brand name and as something that lasts beyond a lifetime. The first thing we do is that we focus on the customer and be sure that the customer is at the centre of what we do.
The second thing we do is that we innovate around the customer. To innovate around the customer is to give the customers what they need. Today, we came up with an innovation that enables the customer go on WhatsApp and buy travels. We want to make it simple. Your ticket is easy to get on WhatsApp than through e-mails. We are also creating more touch points. WakaNow is going to be in 120 touch points, by the end of the year. That means we are going closer to the customer. The next is automation and expansion. That makes us do things faster and better. These are what will take us to the next level in the business. Our employees are also important to us. We must make sure we take care of them and treat them like our customers.
Competition
Competition is fierce, both online and offline but the biggest is offline. That is the market that people ignore but we don’t ignore them. It is bigger offline because the bulk of the market is still done offline but we focus on how to make people go online. We focus on what the customer likes and the behaviour of the customer.
We then simulate and model our business to suit the likeness of the customer. That is why we are a hybrid model. That allows us to do things the way our competitors can’t do. We focus on what others can’t do and our focus is on the customer and not competition. When we compete, the customer wins and when the customer wins, we do better.
Governmental role in travels
Government should take the role of regulation and enhancement. Goverment must enhance businesses to do more and create an enabling environment for businesses to thrive. Government must not over regulate us. I am an advocate of less regulation but make it very competitive because when companies compete, the customer wins. The customer wins on price. Encouraging competition in the market is key for business growth. The customer wins.
Ease of doing business rating
I think things are getting better in the area of helping entrepreneurs and business owners like ours to do more. The taxation system is still stiff for SMEs though. Things are are not arbitrary as they used to be and that is helping business. I am a very positive minded person. We know that government will always create policies for its people. What we do is that we innovate around them. For every policy, like the dollar crises and cash transfer policies, we had to innovate around them. That is our way of supporting government policies.
Goals
We are working to be the largest travel company in Africa such that someone from Botswana, Rwanda, Egypt and the rest can think of travelling and we are the preferred company to do that for them. That is our goal and mantra and we will continue to focus on that. We are on a moving business and we are fully funded. We are able to raise both local and foreign investments. That is why we are not depending on loans. We only relate with banks to give our customers loans to enhance their purchasing power.
Empowerment and job opportunities
At the moment, we have about 300 staff strength and as we expand into multiple locations, we see the need to hire more. Two is that we have an affiliate programme such that we empower people on the travel business while they own their businesses. They can start selling travels because we give them products at very discounted prices.
That is the way we are empowering people. Right now, we have been able to get about 10,000 affiliates on board. That means we have empowered 10,000 people to do their business. We want to empower our people because we know that the more they are empowered, the more they have the disposable income to travel. It becomes a big loop.
SMEs growth
I think that the issue of taxes on SMEs ought to be addressed. I see that SMEs are getting pressured with taxes now and that makes small businesses not able to compete as they ought to. I will also say that the access to loans at single digit interest rates be made available so that small businesses can grow. We should also look at how we can scale up our infrastructure. As we do that, we create more opportunities in tourism. We are the giant of Africa and the most populous black nation. That status creates more opportunities for travels and tourism.