Connect with us

Uncategorized

Red Star Has Retooled to Serve Outsourcing Sector, Banks- Obabori

Published

on

Kindly share this post

The resent assigning of specific tasks to four divisions of Red Star Express Plc was in its preparedness to harness potentials in the outsourcing space of the economy, without compromising on the mandate as the credible indigenous company with penchant for pick-up and delivery of express documents and parcels, domestic and international, said Mr. Peter Olusola Obabori, the group managing director/chief executive officer.
In this interview Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, after his recent appointment as GMD, Obabori, said that the Group had since 2008 commenced the compartmentalization of its divisions, today, identified as Red Star Fright (RSF); Red Star Express (RSE); Red Star Support Services (RSSS) and Red Star Logistics (RSL).
Obabori, an astute management professional with long and outstanding Sales and Marketing career with an accounting and finance background, was previously the General Manager/Chief Operating Officer of Red Star Logistics Limited.

He joined the services of the organization in 1999. At various times, he served as the group’s Assistant General Manager in charge of Strategy and Business Development for over five years and later as Deputy General Manager Sales with the responsibility for the national sales management.  Sola has a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. Hons) degree in Accounting, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in Business Administration from Obafemi  Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

He is an alumnus of several advanced management and leadership programmes from world class institutions including -The School of Business Leadership of the University of South Africa, McGill Executive Institute, Canada; Lagos Business School, Nigeria; Harvard Business School, USA; Haas Business School of the University of California, Berkeley, USA; The University of Westminster, United Kingdom and FedEx Purple Academy, Belgium where he excelled as the Purple Star Award Winner in 2006, among others.

Red Star Express Plc’s Journey in Past 24 Years
“It has been a long journey. Twenty-four (24) years is also a length of time in the history of the company; we have seen it together. I have been here for seventeen (17) years; which means out of the twenty-four years I have seen ups and downs.
 It is such a journey that has been rewarding to a very large extent, considering the amount of issues Nigeria has dealt with over the same period.
As I said during the anniversary: the owners/founders of this great company have done a great job, because, naturally, the mortality rate for companies is typically five years.
“I can mention many companies that came up during the same time Red Star Express was established, they struggle to stay alive for five years and there after they fizzled away; not because the owners didn’t have good intentions.
But, when you confront some issues that are bigger than you at some points, an economic circle that is tougher than you can contend with, sometimes, the best option is to give up and walk away from the fight.
So, staying around for this long means that we have to fight with many things and have been able to survive.

Emergence as Group Managing Director and Plans for the Company
“To me, it is a mixed basket of joy, but comes with serious responsibilities. You can be joyful of clinching a new job, but you must be conscious of delivering on the expectations.
There are big tasks on my hands; that is why the euphoria of been appointed the GMD has fizzled away as far as I am concerned.
I am settled to do the work before me. In terms of plans for the future: I have met a very good company on ground that has done very well in the environment.
Red Star has gone through many phases and it is listed company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) which puts us in the public domain.
“Therefore, we must not let down those who have put their investments here. That is why my number one role is to secure what is on ground and build on the foundations that have been laid in the last twenty-four years. So, we are looking at business expansions in various areas.
We are looking at various innovations and technologies to drive our businesses and we are doing serious investments in the company for future stability. One of the things we have found in companies like this is that for your future growth you must consider the strategic investment areas. That is way we are building a future for those that will later take over.

Plans for (Indigenous) Business Acquisitions
“There are possibilities to that effect. As a businessman you keep your ears and eyes wide open to opportunities. So, Red Star Express will respond with regards to opportunities.
At the global level it is happening in our industry; companies have to ‘swallow’ other companies. Such acquisitions have happened a lot in the banking sector in the last ten to fifteen years.
Some of them are done voluntarily, while others are through enforcement or policy direction. When government says you must have certain level of capitalization, people may have to respond by ‘swallowing’ smaller companies. In our industry it is usually voluntary. We are open to business opportunities and will keep monitoring situations in the industry.

Businesses & Challenging Economic Situation, Competition in Industry
“Looking at present economic challenge, Red Star was founded in 1992; a very turbulent economic period also in Nigeria. In 1998 there was global economic meltdown, which was also a season we weathered together.
This is eight years after that cycle that saw the collapse of many banks. Therefore, permanent rejuvenation and focus are core areas that companies must emphasis.
Because if you dabble into various businesses to stay alive; even diversification can kill your business. I have studied many companies and when you are a master of one trade, you also get yourself into trouble. For us in Red Star, one of the keys that have taken us thus far is focus
“Red Star is a much focused company I met and I have inherited as the CEO to run the affairs. Since 2008 we have had a bit of compartmentalization of our business leading to- Red Star Fright (RSF); Red Star Express (RSE); Red Star Support Services (RSSS) and Red Star Logistics (RSL). So, we have four companies inside Red Star Group.

Why Red Star Group Was ‘Unbundled’
“The purpose of the compartmentalization is to ensure that the entities can focus on the area of growth that we consider core for the business segment. For example, freight is a mega area of expansion.
Sea freight market is huge, even though in Nigeria we are going through economic recession. In other words, the volumes of goods have gone down substantially. The Customs Service even confirmed that the volume of exports has depreciated by a very wide margin.
Also from the air port side, as an import dependent economy, the volume has reduced, which means for us to go up we have to deepen what is on ground. For instance, the RSSS is engaged in outsourcing services for the banking sector. I see companies outsourcing some of their services to enable them focus on core competencies.
“We have offices nationwide; so, there is a structure already in place to help companies manage services they can’t handle, and definitely, it is cheaper for them.
If you run a chemist company, must you run a dispatch session to be able to distribute your goods from company-to-company and homes? It makes a lot of economic sense for you to ‘offload’ that aspect of the business, because by the time you start buying trucks and other machinery, recruit staff, of course you are going to pull your self down.
“We have seen that happen to many companies who ended up burning their fingers. So, looking at these opportunities we created those divisions in our business to address the needs in our current economy. And we are responding well to the challenges.
In fact, if you want to do well in Nigeria look at the banks; they are deploying technology to equip their businesses and drive down costs. If you do same with your business the results will show you made the right decision.

Assessment of Nigeria’s Postal Industry
“The industry is a reflection of total state of the economy. If the economy does very well, it will also benefit from it. If the power sector runs very well, what will happen? Production will improve substantially.
To us, there will be more goods to deliver from one location to another. The industry is not operating in isolation of the rest of the economy; we are part of it. We oil the machine of distribution from the point of production to the level of consumption.
That is our job; intermediaries from the time the raw materials are sourced to the end production. As the middlemen, whatever happens at the two ends, we will take a share of it. Whether they do well or not, the impacts rest with us
“To a large extent, the industry needs re-organisation, but it does not imply we are no contributing to the economy.
I cannot boast that we have done better; we are reflecting the state of the economy in a larger scale. If you consider the investments in the industry, the workforce, taxes payable to the government-P.A.Y.E, corporate taxes; and structures put in place we have contributed to scaling-up of the economy.
We need to put up the figures together to understand what the industry is contributing to the economy in general. There people who are licensed today to just do delivery. They operate without belonging to any Association, because today if you can acquire a truck or two you have started…

…But That Raises the Issue of Quacks
No! They have licenses to operate but chose not to belong to any association, because they don’t want the challenges of unionization.
We were in a meeting few days again, and some of them are not willing to participate, because there are pressures they may not be able to face. Companies have gone down as a result of unionism…

Migration of Postal from Communications Ministry to Transportation
“Well, I don’t want to make categorical statement on this matter, but I know we do more of transportation than communications. In past it used to be post and telecoms (P&T). That classification has always been there; I am not in the position to change it. But, what do we do for a living- we move shipments from one location to another.
If you interpret that properly, the society should decide where we ought to belong. We move goods via trucks, bikes, and aircrafts.
If you look at that broad description of services we render, then where should we belong? At some point, our members belonged to the maritime unions, but after many years of squabbles they have migrated to post and telecoms union.

Red Star’s Expansion Plans
We have about 170 offices and agencies across the country. In terms of growth projection, the four pillars that I mentioned earlier, we are trying to deepen what each of them is doing currently.
Through RSSS we are providing shuttle services for banks and other organizations. We are trying to deepen such operations without having to mingle into what is not our operational area. People want faster service; technology helps to offer faster services and cut costs.

Red Star’s Five Year Plan
We may not draw a plan for you because this is public quoted company. Anything I say now can affect our operations at the stock market. It is easy to be killed when you have opened your arsenal. But one thing I can guarantee you is that Red Star is a forward-looking company.
We will not leave this company the way we met it. Our plan is to add as much Naira as we can, rave up the value of the company; a pact we have signed with the owners of the Company. Our reports are released quarterly; we will continue to work hard for the benefit of the shareholders.

Non-Passage of Postal Commission Bill                
We are losing a lot (as a country) for non-passage of the all-important Bill. We do visit other countries and you would see a clear separation of roles between regulator and operator, enabling clear-cut policy direction as against the arrangement today where NIPOST is playing both rules. In the telecoms sector there is a clear direction on how things should be done.
Independence and control are part of critical areas that should be considered while passing the bill. I believe the industry will be given opportunity to make considerations to the Bill before passage. Ghana, Niger and other West African countries boast of a postal Commission.

Licensing & Renewal Fees Charged by NIPOST
Well, when the current fees were put forward, we had to fall in line. If you want to do survive you have to join hands with the government to sanitise the industry. Many (courier) companies had gone under, not just necessarily due to the licensing and renewal fees, but there are too many issues in this business ecosystem.


Kindly share this post

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek believes that technology makes life more exciting and helps improve the lives of people around Nigeria and indeed the world. So since 2007, we have devoted our energy to independent reportage of technology and how they affect lives.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Comments

Uncategorized

EAIF Commits Additional US$30M to Support Indorama’s Expansion with Third Urea Plant in Nigeria

Published

on

Kindly share this post

The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), a Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company, has committed a US$30 million senior debt facility to Indorama, a leading producer and exporter of fertiliser.

The investment enables the construction of a new plant, port terminal, handling stations, and storage facilities in Nigeria, providing a major boost for the country’s agricultural sector, which is a crucial driver of the country and region’s economic growth.

EAIF acted as a co-lender within a broader debt financing package arranged by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), mobilising US$1.25 billion from a syndicate of impact investors, development finance solutions, and commercial banks.

EAIF’s investment increases the Fund’s lending to the company to $111 million, reflecting a joint-ambition to accelerate Indorama’s growth strategy and Nigeria’s aspirations for diversification and industrialisation.

The new funding unlocks fresh capital to enable the construction of a dedicated port terminal and state-of-the-art urea fertiliser plant, anticipating an increase in its current capacity from 2.8 million metric tons to 4.2 million metric tons per annum.

The expansion leverages the company’s strategic location as a freight-competitive supplier serving the needs of significant urea markets in the southern Atlantic, including Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, as well as West Africa, South Africa and the USA.

The facility bolsters Indorama’s capacity, extending its complex beyond the current two urea fertiliser plants, which is well poised to meet the entire demand of the Nigerian market.

The third urea plant aims to maximise output to meet the food demands of growing populations as disruptions precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine crisis affect food security around the globe.

Global crop production is reliant on the international supply of fertiliser. The landmark project is expected to position Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, as a leading producer of urea among the top 10 producers worldwide.

Contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals 8 and 9 on Decent Work and Economic Growth, and Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, EAIF’s loan forms part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) objective for new infrastructure to drive action on climate and nature.

The construction of the port terminal and third plant is set to begin in 2024, with commercial operations expected to commence in 2026. During the construction phase, it is estimated that over 500 jobs will be generated, further contributing to economic development in Nigeria and beyond.

Commenting on the transaction, Olivia Carballo, Managing Director, Emerging Market, Fixed Income at Ninety One, the fund manager of the EAIF, said: “Our continued support for Indorama demonstrates EAIF’s commitment to harnessing the region’s significant economic prospects.

Africa’s potential for industrialisation is tremendous, and this landmark project is a testament to Nigeria’s enhanced ability to produce and export competitively priced, high-quality fertiliser to farmers in regional and international markets, which will remain a priority for years to come.”

Munish Jindal, CEO, Indorama, said: “Indorama will utilise state-of-the-art technology and adhere to stringent environmental standards to ensure optimal efficiency, product quality and sustainability.

We believe that the establishment of this fertiliser will position Nigeria as a key player in the global agricultural market. We are committed to maximising the potential of this project to benefit farmers, communities, and stakeholders across the value chain.

The involvement of esteemed lenders like the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund will not only help Nigeria’s in becoming one of the largest exporter of the fertilisers in the region but will also address the issues of global food security. We extend our sincere appreciation to all our partners, lenders, and stakeholders for their unwavering support and dedication to our shared vision.”

Sérgio Pimenta, IFC Vice President for Africa, said: “Reliable access to high quality fertiliser is essential for food production and food security around the world. IFC’s investment in Indorama, along with African, Asian, European, and American partners, signals our joint commitment to support the agriculture sector, Nigeria’s economy, and the expansion of Indorama, an important supplier in the global food chain.”


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Lifi.net Achieves 500mbps Speed to Rank among Fastest Internet Providers in Nigeria

Published

on

Kindly share this post

Lifi.net, a fast-growing internet service provider, has attained internet speed that is many times faster than the documented average internet speed in Nigeria as at January 2024.

Lifi.net Image

Latest disclosure by LIfi.net shows that the company now delivers up to 500 megabits per seconds (mbps) internet speed in unlimited services provided to homes and offices. This is higher than the country’s average internet speed of 26.74mbps.

As internet subscriber base increases in Nigeria and hit 161.68 million in January, the quality of internet service provided by operators to their users still constitutes concerns as 2G network which has limited speed dominates the space by covering 57.78%.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) revealed through its latest data that while 3G is responsible for 9.36% of internet users in the country, 4G covers 31.75% of internet access and 5G internet only serves 1.11% of internet users in the country.

This combination explains why Nigeria ranked 93rd on the global mobile internet speed test out of 144 countries tested by Ookla, a U.S-based internet speed analysis firm, in January, putting the country’s median internet speed at 26.74 megabits per second (mbps).

However, Lifi.net (NT/007/22), a licensee of NCC, is among few Internet service providers (ISPs) that deliver fastest internet speed in Nigeria with up 350mbps for homes and 2500mbps for offices while assisting new ISPs with speeds over 5000mbps at the data centre and delivering the capacity to their various hubs at no extra cost.

“For over five years Lifi.net has been a leading network company, providing quality internet solutions at the speed of light and at affordable rates. We have highly technical and hard-working personnel and partners. We are very skilled at managing Cisco and Mikrotik Routers’ deployment, configurations, and integrations, fibre laying, and splicing,” says Abraham Oluwambe, Chief Operating Officer of Lifi.net.

He added that as operators attract more subscribers to their respective networks, they should equally place a premium on upgrading the quality of services to deliver broadband at the fastest internet speed possible.

“Our services are not only widespread but also affordable. We believe in making quality connectivity accessible to all. We understand the importance of budget-friendly solutions. Our cost-effective broadband plans ensure you get the best value for your investment without compromising on quality.

“While providing high-speed and reliable broadband connectivity, operators may choose the floor or the peak performance of its service. At Lifi.net, we always go for the latter,” he said.


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Our 2023 Ads Safety Report

Published

on

Kindly share this post

By Duncan Lennox, VP & GM of Ads Privacy and Safety

Billions of people around the world rely on Google products to provide relevant and trustworthy information, including ads. That’s why we have thousands of people working around the clock to safeguard the digital advertising ecosystem. Today, we are releasing our annual Ads Safety Report to share the progress we’ve made in enforcing our advertiser and publisher policies and to hold ourselves accountable in our work of maintaining a healthy ad-supported internet.

The key trend in 2023 was the impact of generative AI. This new technology introduced significant and exciting changes to the digital advertising industry, from performance optimization to image editing. Of course, generative AI also presents new challenges. We take these challenges seriously and will outline the work we are doing to address them head-on.

Just as importantly, generative AI presents a unique opportunity to improve our enforcement efforts significantly. Our teams are embracing this transformative technology, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), so that we can better keep people safe online.

Gen AI Bolsters Enforcement 

Our safety teams have long used AI-driven machine learning systems to enforce our policies at scale. It’s how, for years, we’ve been able to detect and block billions of bad ads before a person ever sees them. But, while still highly sophisticated, these machine learning models have historically needed to be trained extensively – they often rely on hundreds of thousands, if not millions of examples of violative content.

LLMs, on the other hand, are able to rapidly review and interpret content at a high volume, while also capturing important nuances within that content. These advanced reasoning capabilities have already resulted in larger-scale and more precise enforcement decisions on some of our more complex policies. Take, for example, our policy against Unreliable Financial Claims which includes ads promoting get-rich-quick schemes. The bad actors behind these types of ads have grown more sophisticated. They  adjust their tactics and tailor ads around new financial services or products, such as investment advice or digital currencies, to scam users.

To be sure, traditional machine learning models are trained to detect these policy violations. Yet, the fast-paced and ever-changing nature of financial trends make it, at times, harder to differentiate between legitimate and fake services and quickly scale our automated enforcement systems to combat scams. LLMs are more capable of quickly recognizing new trends in financial services, identifying the patterns of bad actors who are abusing those trends and distinguishing a legitimate business from a get-rich-quick scam. This has helped our teams become even more nimble in confronting emerging threats of all kinds.

We’ve only just begun to leverage the power of LLMs for ads safety. Gemini, launched publicly last year, is Google’s most capable AI modeI. We’re excited to have started bringing its sophisticated reasoning capabilities into our ads safety and enforcement efforts.

Our Work to Prevent Fraud and Scams

In 2023, scams and fraud across all online platforms were on the rise. Bad actors are constantly evolving their tactics to manipulate digital advertising in order to scam people and legitimate businesses alike. To counter these ever-shifting threats, we quickly updated policies, deployed rapid-response enforcement teams and sharpened our detection techniques.

  • In November, we launched our Limited Ads Serving policy, which is designed to protect users by limiting the reach of advertisers with whom we are less familiar. Under this policy, we’ve implemented a “get-to-know-you” period for advertisers who don’t yet have an established track record of good behavior, during which impressions for their ads might be limited in certain circumstances–for example, when there is an unclear relationship between the advertiser and a brand they are referencing. Ultimately, Limited Ads Serving, which is still in its early stages, will help ensure well-intentioned advertisers are able to build up trust with users, while limiting the reach of bad actors and reducing the risk of scams and misleading ads.

  • A critical part of protecting people from online harm hinges on our ability to respond to new abuse trends quickly. Toward the end of 2023 and into 2024, we faced a targeted campaign of ads featuring the likeness of public figures to scam users, often through the use of deepfakes. When we detected this threat, we created a dedicated team to respond immediately. We pinpointed patterns in the bad actors’ behavior, trained our automated enforcement models to detect similar ads and began removing them at scale. We also updated our misrepresentation policy to better enable us to rapidly suspend the accounts of bad actors.

Overall, we blocked or removed 206.5 million advertisements for violating our misrepresentation policy, which includes many scam tactics and 273.4 million advertisements for violating our financial services policy. We also blocked or removed over 1 billion advertisements for violating our policy against abusing the ad network, which includes promoting malware.

The fight against scam ads is an ongoing effort, as we see bad actors operating with more sophistication, at a greater scale, using new tactics such as deepfakes to deceive people. We’ll continue to dedicate extensive resources, making significant investments in detection technology and partnering with organizations like the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and Stop Scams UK to facilitate information sharing and protect consumers worldwide.

Investing in Election Integrity

Political ads are an important part of democratic elections. Candidates and parties use ads to raise awareness, share information and engage potential voters. In a year with several major elections around the world, we want to make sure voters continue to trust the election ads they may see on our platforms. That’s why we have long-standing identity verification and transparency requirements for election advertisers, as well as restrictions on how these advertisers can target their election ads. All election ads must also include a “paid for by” disclosure and are compiled in our publicly available transparency report. In 2023, we verified more than 5,000 new election advertisers and removed more than 7.3M election ads that came from advertisers who did not complete verification.

Last year, we were the first tech company to launch a new disclosure requirement for election ads containing synthetic content. As more advertisers leverage the power and opportunity of AI, we want to make sure we continue to provide people with the greater transparency and the information they need to make informed decisions.

Additionally, we’ve continued to enforce our policies against ads that promote demonstrably false election claims that could undermine trust or participation in democratic processes.

Overall 2023 Numbers

Our goal is to catch bad ads and suspend fraudulent accounts before they make it onto our platforms or remove them immediately once detected. AI is improving our enforcement on all these fronts. In 2023, we blocked or removed over 5.5 billion ads, slightly up from the prior year, and 12.7 million advertiser accounts, nearly double from the previous year. Similarly, we work to protect advertisers and people by removing our ads from publisher pages and sites that violate our policies, such as sexually explicit content or dangerous products. In 2023, we blocked or restricted ads from serving on more than 2.1 billion publisher pages, up slightly from 2022. We are also getting better at tackling pervasive or egregious violations. We took broader site-level enforcement action on more than 395,000 publisher sites, up markedly from 2022.

To put the impact of AI on this work into perspective: last year more than 90% of our publisher page level enforcement started with the use of machine learning models, including our latest LLMs. Of course, any advertiser or publisher can still appeal an enforcement action if they think we got it wrong. Our teams will review it and, in the cases where we find errors, use it to improve our systems.

Staying Nimble and Looking Ahead

When it comes to ads safety, a lot can change over the course of a year: the introduction of new technology such as generative AI to novel abuse trends and global conflicts. And the digital advertising space has to be nimble and ready to react. That’s why we are continuously developing new policies, strengthening our enforcement systems, deepening cross-industry collaboration and offering more control to people, publishers and advertisers.

In 2023, for example, we launched the Ads Transparency Center, a searchable hub of all ads from verified advertisers, which helps people quickly and easily learn more about the ads they see on Search, YouTube and Display. We also updated our suitability controls to make it simpler and quicker for advertisers to exclude topics that they wish to avoid across YouTube and Display inventory. Overall, we made 31 updates to our Ads and Publisher policies.

Though we don’t yet know what the rest of 2024 has in store for us, we are confident that our investments in policy, detection and enforcement will prepare us for any challenges ahead.


Kindly share this post
Continue Reading

Trending