Aka-Bashorun: Nigerian Businesses Must Focus on Solving Challenges

Executive Director, CardForté, Tunde Aka-Bashorun, speaks on the company’s journey in the last five years of growing Nigeria’s digital economy, the realities of manufacturing locally, and why he believes Nigerian businesses must focus on solving real challenges. Emma Okonji presents the excerpts:

Over the past five years, how has Cardforté contributed to advancing digital identity systems and financial inclusion across Nigeria?

We as a company have made our own humble contribution to the growth of the country’s financial ecosystem. Since starting operations in April 2021, Cardforté Limited has produced over 27 million cards for over 150 customers with a significant number of them being Fintechs and first-time issuers. This underlines our core reason for going into business in the first place. This is one way we have made our impact.

Cardforté promotes ‘Made in Nigeria’ products. How has this influenced local job creation, skills development, and economic growth?

From inception, part of our strategy as founders was to incorporate our company culture in our people. And we believed the best way to do this was to work with younger people that we could equip, train, develop and then empower to drive our future growth. We are very proud of our graduate trainee programme that has seen us absorb some 45 per cent of our personnel from NYSC level to full staff. These represent some of our best people, so we got that right. In fact, Cardforté has 100 per cent local staff, rather than hire foreign talent, we send our people to acquire the knowledge, come back and pass it on. This is the Cardforté way, and we are very proud of it.

In what ways have your collaborations with banks and financial institutions improved access to secure and reliable payment solutions, especially for underserved populations?

We are privileged to have supported clients like Thrive Agric, Opay, Moniepoint,

Mintyn, Visual ICT, Palmpay, Allawee, Kalabash, MFBs like Stellas, Abbey, Baobab, Alternative Bank, and Parallex Bank to mention a few. All these clients have products particularly targeted at the underserved members of the population. So, by supporting their excellent and laudable work, we are playing our part in contributing to financial inclusion having reached some 20 millon Nigerians via such collaborations and counting.

What role do you believe the government should play in supporting companies like Cardforté, and what specific policies or interventions would help ensure stability for industry players?

Cardforté being a manufacturer of a specialised product, incurs significant costs across our value chain, from foreign exchange for sourcing raw materials, freight and customs duty for importing these materials, to very high-energy costs associated with running our two facilities in Lagos, and to the sheer cost of our specialized equipment. The government can help us by giving some relief in customs duty and taxes for our raw materials, our equipment, and protect us from foreign actors who suddenly want to come in and compete with the local industry without having contributed nor invested in the local ecosystem. Access to affordable finance is another excellent way the government can help us and other industries to grow and scale. The demand is there for Nigeria to become a regional hub for many different sectors, but the lack of critical infrastructure (Power supply), finance and regulatory bottlenecks, are the biggest obstacles to these achievable objectives.

Over these years in the industry, what can you say that you have learnt that has toughened you?

Having held senior management positions across several sectors in Media, Oil & Gas, Hospitality, Telecoms, Manufacturing, and being an angel investor, I have lost more times than I have won but, in each loss, lies valuable lessons and I have made it a habit to keep them as reference points for guidance and inflection as I progress. All these different experiences of profit and loss, problems and solutions, regulatory issues, being defrauded, etc. have given me the sort of composure I could never have developed by myself. The trick is to continue moving forward, no matter how slow that may seem sometimes.

Can you share how your healthcare card solutions have improved patient record management and service delivery in Nigerian medical institutions?

A simple medical card with a QR code that contains all necessary patient data and history will revolutionise our flailing healthcare system and quicken delivery to the public. It’s critical that the Ministry of Health investigates such a solution, adopts and ensures it onboards every service provider in the land. Just the medical data alone will be worth the effort. We will, for the first time in a long time be able to ascertain the general well-being of our people. This data will inform and influence health care policy moving forward.

Based on your experience, what advice will you give to emerging Nigerian businesses or startups looking to build sustainable and impactful enterprises?

Stress test your business idea, if and when you can answer most of the questions, then you may proceed with starting. Forecast low, budget high, make sure you have clarity on the regulation that governs your sector. Understand the market you intend to serve, don’t build a company you want, build a company people need. Ensure you, the founder is the right person to drive it, if you are not, find someone who can, and let them join you. No one has a monopoly on knowledge so be open and talk to people. The solution to your challenges may just be solved by your neighbor. Be careful not to celebrate too early. Make sure you have skin in the game, there is a desperation to succeed that the best founders possess that can only come from knowing failure is not an option. When my partner and I decided to start Cardforté, we both went all in and knew failure was not even an option.

How has Cardforté supported sectors like retail and hospitality in enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency through its solutions?

Our RFID cards support the hospitality sector, and we are proud to support the World-renowned Radisson group locally amongst others. We implore other hospitality players to reach out and ask about solutions. Our loyalty card products and solutions are the perfect fit for the retail market and are quite popular.

What have been some of the major challenges Cardforté has faced while operating in Nigerian business environment, particularly in the manufacturing and technology sectors?

Constantly updating knowledge and systems is expensive but necessary for growth and better service delivery. Access to affordable finance is a major challenge that we face in the industry, regulatory instability with reference to duty and freight are also a major challenge we suffer while the foreign exchange instability of the past was particularly difficult for us as we frequently had margin erosion due to the volatility. Happy to see the stability we are enjoying under the current administration. Lack of protection from our schemes is an impediment to Local growth as onboarding more foreign Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to compete in country is detrimental and will only serve to further erode local investment in the sector and impede employment creation opportunities for the public.

Looking ahead, how does Cardforté plan to expand its social impact and contribute further to Nigeria’s digital transformation and economic development?

We are close to completing our new facility in Lagos which will increase our annual capacity and capability. Our graduate trainee programme will only be expanded further as we grow, we started with five personnel in 2021, we are at 64 today, with plans to grow the team by another 30+ people in our bid to improve our products and services to clients. We also have a very advanced Research and Development (R&D) department that is constantly seeking more innovative ways to serve our clients. We are championing the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) transition in our space via our partnership with Greenlyfe, who are trying to reduce the carbon footprint across industrial sectors in Nigeria. We also give back in our community via our outreaches in Lagos and our partnership with The Special Foundation that is making giant strides in child literacy. We are very proud of these associations and their impact.