L
LequteMan
Guest
Mrs Florence Seriki, is an entrepreneur with ability to recognise opportunities that are not so glaring.
At an age when her colleagues were at sea concerning the direction their lives would take, she saw a gap, moved to fill it and as a result, got catapulted atop a multi-billion naira conglomerate - Omatek Group of Companies.
Excerpts from Tribune:
“When I was in school as a Chemical Engineering student at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), I did a project that cut across the University of Ife and University of Lagos. Due to the sensitive nature of the project, one of my lecturers at Ife bought a computer; it was the first XT computer that came to the University of Ife. So, I had to learn programming and Lotus.”
“My knowledge of computer operations became useful when I was posted to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) during my National Youth Service Corps programme. At NNPC, I found out that many executives just decorated their tables with computers, which they were not using. Once the secretary was not around, the boss could not work on the computer. So I told my boss, ‘Sir, I used a personal computer to do my project, can I teach you how to use the computer?’ My boss asked if I really could and I told him I could. So, I taught my boss. He told another director, who told another director. Later, I also began to train staff of banks and oil companies.”
“As I was training executives, I realised that many companies did not have enough computers. I saw this as an opportunity to start selling computers. So, I started initially by buying foreign brands and selling to my customers. As a result of the excellent sales performance achieved by Omatek Ventures, we were appointed as a premium partner of Microsoft. By this time, we had annual sales revenue of over $1million.
“Up to 1992, key computer buyers in Nigeria were banks and oil and gas companies. They were buying only finished products. The oil and gas companies were buying only from their offshore companies. Therefore, there was no opportunity for Nigerians to sell to them. I started a joint venture with two Nigerian banks. Thus, we got concessions for oil companies to do business with us but we were required to have offshore affiliates. So, we went for offshore affiliates.
click here to read more
#Omatek #FlorenceSeriki #Nigeria #Tribune #OAU
At an age when her colleagues were at sea concerning the direction their lives would take, she saw a gap, moved to fill it and as a result, got catapulted atop a multi-billion naira conglomerate - Omatek Group of Companies.
Excerpts from Tribune:
“When I was in school as a Chemical Engineering student at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), I did a project that cut across the University of Ife and University of Lagos. Due to the sensitive nature of the project, one of my lecturers at Ife bought a computer; it was the first XT computer that came to the University of Ife. So, I had to learn programming and Lotus.”
“My knowledge of computer operations became useful when I was posted to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) during my National Youth Service Corps programme. At NNPC, I found out that many executives just decorated their tables with computers, which they were not using. Once the secretary was not around, the boss could not work on the computer. So I told my boss, ‘Sir, I used a personal computer to do my project, can I teach you how to use the computer?’ My boss asked if I really could and I told him I could. So, I taught my boss. He told another director, who told another director. Later, I also began to train staff of banks and oil companies.”
“As I was training executives, I realised that many companies did not have enough computers. I saw this as an opportunity to start selling computers. So, I started initially by buying foreign brands and selling to my customers. As a result of the excellent sales performance achieved by Omatek Ventures, we were appointed as a premium partner of Microsoft. By this time, we had annual sales revenue of over $1million.
“Up to 1992, key computer buyers in Nigeria were banks and oil and gas companies. They were buying only finished products. The oil and gas companies were buying only from their offshore companies. Therefore, there was no opportunity for Nigerians to sell to them. I started a joint venture with two Nigerian banks. Thus, we got concessions for oil companies to do business with us but we were required to have offshore affiliates. So, we went for offshore affiliates.
click here to read more
#Omatek #FlorenceSeriki #Nigeria #Tribune #OAU
