Katunga media boss faults saturation business claim, says organisations need to think outside the box

By Amechi Obiakpu

A stakeholder in the Integrated Marketing Communications sector (IMC), Joseph Edgar has faulted the claim that the dearth in business activities is as a result of the saturation of the country’s business climate.

There have been complains from different quatres in recent times about the challenges in doing business in Nigeria, with many of them blaming the development on the saturation of Nigeria business environment. But, Edgar disagrees with the notion, instead he opined that organisations need to think outside the box.

Edgar, who is an Executive Director at Katunga Media, believes that the country is large enough to take on every business as long as the promoters of the business understand the terrain they are operating in.

Speaking in an interview with Espi News recently in his company’s Ikoyi, Lagos office, Edgar instead attributed the challenges in the country’s business climate in general and the dearth of briefs in the Integrated Marketing Communications space in particular to the herd mentality.

“The problem in Nigeria is the herd mentality where everybody goes the same way,” Edgar averred.

“In the IMC sector, you find out that, after staying in an organisation for a while, when a staff wants to leave, he leaves with one or two clients to form the base of the new company’s revenue generation base. This trend will continue as more organisations are created until a point where more businesses are left with few or no brief except a few big players in the industry,” he said.

According to him, about 70 per cent of new businesses are patterned the same way. This, he noted has made many organisations in the IMC sector to be irrelevant and moribund, because of their inability to think outside the box.

Unlike what obtains in the industry presently, the Katunga boss said at Katunga, they are different as they create their own market to remain relevant in business.

“At Katunga Media, we create our own market because we realize that is the only way we can remain in business and be relevant to our clients.

“We come from an investment banking environment where we are taught to be thinkers. So we are taught to think outside the box.

“We are not interested in making money, because we feel money limits creativity; instead we are interested in changing the dynamics in the business landscape,” Edgar added.

Katunga Media is a 360-degree marketing communications company with deep African root. The outfit has been in operation for about two years and recently signed a partnership agreement with Brand Journalists Association of Nigeria (BJAN) to organize a bi-annual capacity building exercise for its members.

Asked if he is worried Katunga Media will be choked out of business considering the presence of major players in the industry, the Akwa Ibom state born businessman said: “There are very few people who are running in the same space as Katunga media.

“We have learnt early in the young life of our business not to compete with any organisation and that is one philosophy we adopted that is working for us.

“That is why, we decided to create our own market and chase influence. We are about power and influence and we do not worry about money because we do not see it as an end but as a lubricant to achieve our set objectives,” he posited.