Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (PINL) and its group have come together to develop aligned direction for its businesses with the aim of sustaining its leadership in its core business area, increase market share and boost revenue.
The group comprising PINL, Ocean Marine Solutions and Delta Pacific Marine Services, declared the intention to recapitalise to support its plans to boost investment in new areas of businesses in order to increase revenue generation and profit for the companies and their shareholders.
These plans were made public by the directors of the company during a three-day corporate retreat for the directors and top management cadre of the companies recently.
The retreat which had as its theme: “Developing an Aligned Direction” was facilitated by PricewaterhouseCoopers PwC to enable the directors and management of the three companies to review their operations to create an aligned direction for the group.
Three of the directors of the companies namely; Osahon Okunbo, Anita Aikhomu and Nicholas Rhodes spoke to journalists on the essence of the retreat which they said was the first ever since the over 16 years of operations of the companies.
Okunbo explained that the “mind of the board” in planning the retreat was a platform for the management to express themselves and to build a strong bridge between the board and management.
According to him: “One major outcome we are hoping to achieve, which I think we are on the good part of achieving is a strategy of implementation. So it’s been very engaging, directors have heard from management and management from directors, put out the problems and hoping to develop implementable solutions.
“The major hope for us is that at the end of the day, the executive management is able to push down that strategy to the lower subordinates to be able to implement the strategy on the ground level. So that’s for me will be the major thing we plan out to achieve”.
He assured that the board would inject more funds into the business by way of recapitalisation, urging for the prudent management of such resources to achieve set target even as he warned that wastage would not be condoned but rather be tracked and reprimanded.
He described the retreat as a wonderful time and expressed appreciation to the facilitators, PwC for the professionalism and expertise exhibited in facilitating the programme.
On her part, Aikhomu said: “We are all trying to align ourselves for sustainable growth in the business. So we’re trying to brainstorm and see where all our heads are at and see what we can do to make the business grow”.
Also, Rhodes added that the retreat “gives the team the opportunity to interact with the directors and vice versa to understand what works and what doesn’t work and allow us guide the business in the best possible part and it’s been very useful in that respect”.
He said the engagement had helped the directors to see “an alignment on the opportunities”, noting that there are some key action points that will help reinvigorate its areas of the business,
“So I think we have been able to get much more clarity on what direction we want to take, how we wan to ensure the longevity of the business and how we can engage the stakeholders, the staff to build a better business going forward,” he said.
