Continuous Reduction Of Quality For Huge Profit: Nigerian Manufacturers' Ideal Of Business


By: Olatayo Samuel


"Hey, Samuel, come and take these chairs home," my dad called out to me sometime in 2001 as I was playing with my friends in a street not too far from ours. He had just procured four blue plastic armchairs and was taking them home. My dad was beaming laughter and I also could not help smiling, too, as I saw him with the new innovation in town. For the record, plastic chairs were just gaining awareness then and were scarcely seen in offices, houses, work/sales shops and what have you.

I promptly left my friends, got the chairs from my dad and we went home to set the new furniture in the right places in our sitting room. Fast toward to today, September 2017, 16 years after, we still have those plastic chairs in place and in good condition (but for one with little fracture) and I'm not seeing them becoming bad anytime soon.

Looking at the quality of plastic chairs we have today, can they be said to have the same strength as that of the pioneering chairs? Do we still have plastic chairs that can stay as long as five years today? Do we have chairs that can stand any hard or heavy use and not fall apart?

Let me tell you, we have bought more plastic chairs after that of 2001 but didn't stay up to fours years. You can't sit on the crop of plastic chairs sold to us today and not have the fear of it being broken --- that is if it does not even break. And you know what, this ugly phenomenon is not limited to just plastic chairs: It occurs in every other product. The culture of continuously reducing the quality of product to maximise profit prevails in all our manufacturing firms today. Only handful of them stick to, or improve on, their pioneering quality.

Majority of the products we buy today --- toilet accessories, electronic appliances, steel products, body care products, just name them --- no longer have the good quality they once had.

I suppose a good manufacturing culture is that which quality is unrelentingly improved upon. A good manufacturing firm, I think, is that which is continually seeking ways to improve on its products so it can increase the satisfaction derived from them by its customers. At least, I know that is what obtains in developed countries. A product is not expected to remain the same for a long period: it is expected to improve and satisfies the need of customers more. But that is not the case in Nigeria!

Funny enough, these clearly inferior products are not cheap. In fact, their prices are alarmedly more than what should be the ideal price for the right quality.

Nigerians spend huge amount on these products year in year out but get nothing close to their money's worth. Because these firms want to increase their sales turnover and profit, they reduced quality, making us to get less for what we paid for.

The Standard Organization of Nigeria, SON, which is saddled with the responsibility of monitoring and ensuring the best quality for goods made in the country has also not been working excellently enough. If it had, it would have ensured, under stringent measure, that no product falls short of its originally-certified quality but rather improve on it. SON's roar should have instilled fear in our manufacturing firms. But no!

When I see the mission statements of many of our manufacturing firms --- stating that they are poised to providing customers with best quality products possible at affordable prices --- I always wonder whom they are deceiving.

Clearly, this is an exploitation and dampening of trust on the part of our manufacturing firms. It is a corporate robbery!

This write-up is a call to our government to take a determined step in putting end to this anomaly. The government should ensure, through SON and other relevant bodies, that quality of product made or imported into this country are not compromised for any reason. There should be constant charge from our government to our manufacturing firms to continually improve on the quality of their products.


In developed countries like U.S., UK and even China, substandard products are not taken with hand of levity. In fact, such is always met with heavy sanction and penalty. Such should be the case in Nigeria. There should be standard and such should be maintained.

It is time our government stopped all the foul plays from our manufacturing firms and put them under close watch.

God bless Nigeria!


Olatayo Samuel is a trained Supply Chain Manager and a generic Writer.


Cc:
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naijacutee
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