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Shobanjo - There Is Urgent Need to Ride On CSR for Rapid Development [interview](AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) After putting over four decades into advertising, Chairman, Troyka Group, Mr. Biodun Shobanjo, has assumed a new garb: championing the cause of corporate social responsibility. In this interview, he told Raheem Akingbolu what informed his new role as well as commenting on other relevant industry issues. Excerpts: What inspires you into the frontier of sustainability of corporate social responsibility (CSR)? Many years ago, I presented a paper at the University of Ibadan talking about the collaborative effort that should happen between town and gown, which is the academics and those in the business. I made a strong case that various professions have a responsibility to interact with the universities because it is at that level that we open the eyes of this undergraduates to the reality of the profession they are going to end up in. To achieve that, it may involve finding the time and lectures on both the theoretical and practical sides of the business. I am embarrassed to say this that I had a friend who was a Vice- Chancellor of a university at a time and we actually proposed this to this friend of mine that people are willing to give their time to come and interact with students and share knowledge. But maybe because of the protocols in the university, it was not followed up. I believe that there are people in our industry who can sacrifice their time and share knowledge. That is the way it is done in different parts of the world. You were the first Ambassador-General of Mass Medical Mission of the National Cancer Prevention Programme, curious minds may want to know the connection between that and advertising business There are certain jobs you don't apply for. Those who were behind it must have done their homework because I asked the same question; why me when they first approached me. And they said they wanted somebody in their view who is credible, who could be regarded as being successful professionally and who has some good relationship with the media. So that was how they recommended me. They actually had loads of prospects and their council went and screened all prospects and settled for me to be the ambassador-general. So that was how I got selected to play that role. When we discussed it and I reflected on it, I thought that it was an opportunity to also give something back to the society as regards my time and the knowledge and skill that we will need to deploy in achieving their objective. At the end of the twelve months, we were adjudged to have done a fairly good job. As regards what drives us to do the things we have being doing, end of this year will mark the 43rd year that I have been in this business. Now, when a man has spent 43 years in any profession, the least you can then begin to think of is to give back to the society, to impact the society positively so that most things you are doing or you've done will also help others in attaining and getting the standard that you have reached. When you look at great people who have given back to the society, you will find out that those are the kinds of things that drive them. At least, they would have helped others to go to school or building institutions that would advance knowledge for the betterment of the society. Same way, at the stage I am now, I do say to people; how much food can I eat now, how many cars can one drive at one time; so it is time to give back. I think within this organidsation that God has enable us to build, so far as we find such worthy causes, we would strive to identify with them. Let me make one other point, as professionals, people must distinguish between those who are involved in building careers for people and those involved in conventional business. We are not business men, we are professionals. We eke out a living here and it's from our little resources that we give back to the society. Still on CSR, what informed the choice of University of Lagos for the Multimedia Center? I must confess it was a child of circumstance. The University of Lagos has an advancement board that looks at private-public partnership and identifies what they want. And they actually approached me and said the department has a building but it needed more room. The first brief was weather I could build one more floor. I asked them why they expected that from me. But again, they said they had looked around and no one had impacted the industry as I have done. It was the chairman of the board that came to see me and my initial reaction was to say no. But they put more pressure and then the late Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Tokunbo Sofoluwe, also lent his voice. So I agreed to put the additional floor but insisted on seeing the building to be sure of the state. By the time we got there, my engineers found out that the building couldn't carry an additional floor. That if they put any floor, the building was going to collapse. So, I thought that was a good point for me to withdraw, but they said I can't go away like that. "Since it was one storey building, we needed a two storey building, why don't you build it for us," they had asked me. I said what do you mean, I only earn salary, and how do you want me to do that? We joked about it and that was how we started. Later, when I looked at the contribution of our group to marketing communications industry, I realised there shouldn't have been better organisation to embark on the project. I don't know of any group that is as represented in the area of marketing communications; the support side like we do. We have about five or six companies offering marketing communications support and we will always draw our manpower from the universities and polytechnics. It only makes sense to align with that kind of initiative. So that was why I agreed but I told them that we have to move at my pace because I am not a money bag. Everybody signed up to that and was doing it gradually and recently, the building was commissioned. To me, if the students who are going to be part of the raw materials we would use do not have a good studying environment, the lecturers don't have good offices; it is obvious we won't have good outputs. We felt that it was what we needed to do. Are you thinking of extending this to other schools? I don't think my intention is to replicate this in other schools. To be honest with you, I operate in Lagos, so it's only logical that University of Lagos which is nearby can make the approach. 43 years in advertising, why does it take you this long to invest in CSR? We should make a few distinctions here. This is not about a corporate institution, it is about Biodun Sobanjo, an individual. So this is about what Biodun Sobanjo has been able to do and what he's doing. This would be the context of what I am and what I have been able to do as a professional. Over four decades in business, what has the experience been for you? Very exciting, we came from ground zero. In these 43 years, what we tried to do was to build various companies as we went along starting with Insight and the other eight companies that we have. As the team leader as it were, you needed to do a lot of conceptualisation. There is no company that we have in our group that I am not the architect of. There will always be a need for us to go into a new area, we see the opportunity and we follow it. So it's that ability to be able to see the opportunities and pursue them. Most things that we do are within the interest of our clients because the client will always come first. We failed as well. Some of the companies that we started failed. But the important thing was that we learned from those failures so that we don't repeat the mistakes again. Here we are, we have every reason to be thankful to God. There are challenges and when you add the group, we have about 14,000 people. Building a family structure in businesses has almost become a major challenge in this part of the world, was that the case for you while thinking of succession? Nobody that runs any of our businesses that is a Sobanjo, or an Awosika. We've always made that point here; this is not a family business. This business is for Nigerians. The closest person to me, Jimi Awosika, is from Ondo, I am an Ijebu man; Ken who runs MediaComm is an Igbo man. This business if for Nigerians, so far you are qualified to work here, we would give you the opportunity. My family also knows, because I say to them, Even for my children, there is no automatic place for them if they don't possess the means to work here. You've built people who are now CEOs, Marketing Directors, what are the principles that have helped you personally and in other people's lives? In terms of principles, I don't think there are different principles from those successful entrepreneurs used. If you have a profession, the first thing you need to understand is that the raw materials that you need for the sustainability is people. And not just picking people on the street, they have to bring something to the party; knowledge and skills. Knowledge you acquire from school if you went to a good school, then you need skills that you probably won't acquire until you begin to work, so somebody needs to teach you. So what we do is a combination of both because we recognised that we work in an intelligent environment. A man who is a marketing director of a multibillion naira project and needs to sell the things that he's churning out every day, needs the help of people who understands how to connect his brand to the consumer. You may not necessarily have gotten that knowledge from school; it is our responsibility to teach you how you connect the consumer to the brand. So from day one, we identified there was a gap that we must create -a school, an opportunity to teach. So that was why we started the management training school programme 23 years ago. A university graduate that comes in goes through one year of training. Literarily, we are dashing you money for that one year because you are in school. And by the time these boys and girls graduate and become what we call management or account executives, they are hitting the ground running. In most other countries, that is not what happens, especially advanced counties because when they are in school, they also have the opportunity of people in the business interacting with them. Some of them even have the opportunity of working in the advertising agency environment. So by the time they graduate, they already have an understanding but that's not what happens here. If you go to any mass communication department of any university in Nigeria, I doubt if the students there see the sight of advertising agencies by the time they graduate talk less of working in these agencies. We were quick to realise that, so we started training. And like somebody said, hardly will you go to any advertising agency today and you won't find members of our alumni either those who come here for the management training, or at the executive level and rose within the ranks. Even in our profession, the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), a few alumni of Insight have headed the Association as presidents. That shows you the kind of impact that we are making in our industry. Copyright This Day. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |