Seasoned industrialist and executive chairman of United Technologies Limited, an engineering and manufacturing company, Otunba Aderemi Abdul-Bojela, has introduced the Quality Life Improvement Plan, (QLIP), a blueprint designed to bring succor to local manufacturing.
QLIP is a specialized consumer credit programme established to assist in the sustained growth of local manufacturers by way of inventory disposal through the availability of consumer credit geared towards local products and services. It also provides easily accessible funds for buyers of consumer products and services to purchase items without putting excessive strain on their resources.
Speaking at a press briefing, Otunba Aderemi Abdul-Bojela, the innovator, described how the QLIP scheme will help various facets of the economy to achieve the quantum leaps essential to becoming a developed nation. The scheme will bring solutions to the tripod of challenges that successive governments have grappled with: development of the economy, job creation, and diversification beyond oil.
He said: “As a manufacturer of air-conditioning units and refrigerating equipment across decades, we encountered so many challenges and this prompted us to look for a solution to help us overcome those challenges. This search gave birth to the Quality Life Improvement Plan, a formula that has been successfully test-run with leading commercial banks, co-operative societies, and citizens.”
“QLIP is positioned to help promote local consumption, which enhances local manufacturing with a chain effect across the economy. What this translates to, in the final analyses, are increased government revenue, technological development, and increased Gross Domestic Product, while improving Nigerian’s quality of life and productivity,” Otunba Abdul-Bojela added.
QLIP is coming at a time when the high cost/scarcity of foreign exchange, customs duty, and power supply have forced a lot of manufacturing companies to go under. To cap it all, the increasing demand for foreign goods by consumers is draining national reserves, and further straining the national economy. Hence, QLIP’s tested blueprint for a national consumer credit scheme encouraging consumers towards made-in-Nigeria goods has attracted positive reactions.
“When we patronise made-in-Nigeria products, the impact on our economy will be enormous and it will help companies favorably compete with their foreign competitors,” he said
Every economy needs radical innovation to keep it growing and evolving. The Consumer Credit Guarantee Scheme is one innovation that will help the country leap-frog decades of economic down-turn and become the harbinger of Africa’s industrial revolution, he added.
He further noted that through its diverse products, it will enhance connections between parties in the payment space by concentrating on eliminating pain points and enhancing customer satisfaction.
To him, pain points ranges from issues of reliability of channels to specific issues of trust, explaining that some people however still won’t use their cards for online payments because of the fear of fraud, while some are concerned about the cost of using payment channels.
This, he said, could be partly responsible for the low rate of adoption despite all the awareness, products, services, government policies and investment in this sector. According to him, in spite of the number of service providers in the financial technology and digital payments space, more than 85 per cent of transactions are still done via cash.
“All these concerns and many others are what we have termed as pain points and RoutePay is all out to fix them in very innovative ways. We are deploying an intelligent customer experience survey system to capture feedback from users from time to time so as to constantly adjust our services, processes and products to meet the users’ expectations.
“We are making digital payment products and services available to all and sundry regardless of their exposure, technology awareness, location, age, affluence, and education. RoutePay products and services are omnichannel, available across all channels of payments including Web, Mobile, POS, ATM and USSD, etc. It also has an array of products and services targeting different market segments, demography, inclinations, and leanings,” he explained.