Quest To Offer Service, My Driving Force Into Business, says Dr Ukweh, GMD HOGIS Group/Arubah
It's quite unusual in our clime to see a medical doctor venturing into any business endeavour outside the preview of his or her academic discipline. But Dr Ikechukwu Ukweh, an erudite medical practitioner turned entrepreneur seems to have altered the narratives courtesy of his forays into the ICT and hospitality industry. His motivating factors, business acumen, and recipes for upcoming entrepreneurs are compelling and intriguing.
Sir Dr Ikechukwu Ukweh is the Group Managing Director and Specialist HOGIS Group/Arubah & GTCO CALSCAN Nig Ltd all based in Calabar, Cross River state. In telling his compelling story to THE BEAGLE NEWS team of Judex OKORO, Victor UDU, Ekanem ASUQUO and Ebi COLLINS, Ukweh says the Quest To Offer Service was the driving force into business.
EXCERPTS:
Could you take through on how you started your own business?
Yes, I started Arubah Medical Centre in 2015, and in 2021, diversified into the hospitality industry with the establishment of Hogis Luxury Hotel. Two things led us into the business that we are doing today. GTCo, an ICT company gave birth to Arubah Medical Centre and Hogis Luxury Hotel.
My major drive for entrepreneurship is the quest to offer service. Because over time, I have learned that for you to part with anyone's money, you must have offered valuable service. My venturing into the business space was purely to offer products or services. I realized that offering a particular service gives you the opportunity to make money. And that started way back in my days in the University where I used to sell clothes sewn from Aba, where I grew up. That was what launched me into business.
For Arubah Medical Centre, I didn't even dream of starting a hospital. It all started when I lost my third son in a hospital in Calabar. My newborn child had died because of lack of basic facilities like power and medical oxygen. After my son's death, I thought of how many people who have lost their lives as a result of dearth of basic necessities. From there, my spirit told me to build a hospital. I resolved that if I can find a piece of land around Marian Road, then I will build a better equipped hospital. As God will have it, I was able to get land on Marian, and built Arubah Medical Centre in the space of one year.
Today, I'm glad that we have saved and are still saving lives with Arubah Medical Centre. The records are there. Everyday I receive messages from people, thanking me for what God is using Arubah to do. Recently, I stumbled on a man around Calabar, he approached me and gave me a hug. He told me how his wife had delivered a set of twins in my health facility prematurely. He was full of praise for the quality of services his family received at the facility. So it gives me great joy that though I suffered a loss, but people are benefiting from it today. Arubah Medical Centre is nine years old, today, and still waxing strong.
Similarly, our idea of delving into the hospitality business is the same issue of service. Oftentimes I had associates who came to town for one reason or the other and were dissatisfied with what was one ground. We kept moving from one hotel to the other. So it prompted me to also set up a small, but quality hotel in Calabar, only if I had a land on State Housing Estate. Again, miraculously, I got a land in my preferred location and Hogis Luxury Hotel was birthed. I told myself that I should be able to do something different from what others were doing in order to stand out. And in all that we have done over the years, it is firstly to offer not just affordable service, but quality product. The story behind our conglomerate is about solving problems of society. And in solving those problems, you make money. I ventured into ICT early in life as a student to solve a critical area of need in the University community as well as correct financial anomalies in the system. Today, ICT and a disciplined management team have been the brain behind our success story.
How do you navigate around your chain of businesses? What are your challenges?
It has been difficult for me. But I have built a credible team over the years to manage the day-to-day running of business, while I superintend over them all. For instance, I have not been to my Hospital for over three weeks. The team has been managing things they’re very well. ICT has also helped, because most of our communication are done online. And my numbers are everywhere in the hospital to reach out to me in case one is not satisfied with service they receive. We have an online platform where effective communication on the running of the hospital is done.
The same thing is applicable at Hogis Luxury Hotel. Most of my capable staff at Arubah Medical Centre were moved to Hogis, leaving some other strong hands there. Majority of my team members were Corps members who served here and were eventually retained. I have groomed them well. Most of them own shares with the company. In doing so, I have been able to secure their future. So they will do all they can to get things working, knowing that if things crumble, it will also affect them adversely.
I try to ensure that I empower people around me to have a stake in business. That's what I've done to secure the businesses. In terms of challenges, funding has been tops. There are stages where you have issues that takes you to financial institutions for funding. There will toss you around without any positive response. But somehow we have been able to navigate through it.
The second challenge is the issue of having transparent account managers. I have a three man team managing our accounts. In maintaining financial accountability, they are overburdened. The third challenge is that of dealing with tax authorities in the State. I normally tell government that once it supports businesses, they will ideally pay tax. I pay over two million on both police and local security. Power is yet another challenge. These are all challenges businesses face that ground them to a halt. Government should provide the enabling environment for businesses to thrive. If it does, there will be compliance in payment of taxes.
What is your advice to young entrepreneurs who would want to venture into your kind of business?
I have read that first, if you are an entrepreneur, you don’t really need capital per ser to start up a business. You can even start off the service first and then with that you can gather funds. Secondly, you can build a team. Like I said when we started Zellence tech, we were three of us. I had the connection to bring the funding, Gabriel the second person had the skill because he is an IT person but has no money, and Joseph Ekuma Nkam, the former minister of education and the former UNICAL Students Union Government (SUG) Public Relations Officer (PRO) had the school connection and it was his connection that gave us the school building. Money would not gotten us that building that time because it was owned by the school. So, when we told the then Vice Chancellor, Prof, Ivara Esu, about the project he was delighted and said take the building and don’t pay any money. It was Joseph that had that connection. So, if you entrepreneurial desire and you don’t have funding, you can leverage on friends around you who have funding the skills. The problem we have now is that people are very greedy. I had a group of guys, with skills in software developer, that came up last for us to do a project and I told them, this is how I want us to do the business. I said for start, let us share the profit in percentage base before we venture into the business because what kills businesses is when you don’t share the profits before starting it. When you now start and profits start coming in there would be problem. They objected on the ground that they have the skills. I said okay you can go home with your skills. They went round and later came back. But I had to counsel them that every human being has an element of greed in him or her. But you must suppress that greed to make progress in life. Again, you must be able to show sincerity and trust in your business transactions with people else people would not patronise you. Always do your service as a skills and give others what belongs to them knowing that you are in business. So, if you don’t have the finance, get across to those that have and show sincerity. Once that is done, you would able to thrive.
Again, seek knowledge. In any business you want to venture into, you must know the details about that business. Before I opened this hotel, I studied hotel business as if I were going to do exam. I read everything about what makes a hotel a five star. The size of the room, what is the size of the bed, where do you position the bed, where do you put your TV sets, etc. All those things are on the Internet and I kept reading them. It was from there I discovered that all five star hotels has rug in its corridor. So, you must be able to have a very deep understanding of every business you want to venture into so that you don’t enter a business and fail. People kept wondering why I entered and succeeded. I didn’t enter and start learning the business. Even before the drawing, people kept asking, who designed this hotel for you? And I told them I did the rough drawing myself and I told the architect this is how I want my building to look like, this is where the windows should be and this is how I want my doors to be. Then the architect would go back and redesign it. So, there is need for an in-depth study on what you want to do and be and how to excel.
What are those things that you think are unique about the business climate in Cross River State?
The diversity of human beings in Cross River state makes business very unique. Besides, Cross Riverians don’t have disposable income but they have high taste. You must be able to marry the two and that is the secret of my success. I know that an average person that leaves in Calabar likes good thing but not willing to spend so much to get the good things. So, create the services to be good and in an affordable price. If you go to Lagos, they have a disposal income and you can still sell. The rich sells, the poor sells, and the middle rank sells. In other words, there is a market for everybody. But you cannot carry the market situation in Lagos down here. For instance, when I finished this hotel, a company from South Africa, BON, came in and said they want to manage the hotel. I asked them the cheapest room in BON is N70, 000 and nobody in Calabar would pay that much for a room. Yes, we have about 30 rooms and would it not be better to sell the rooms at N35, 000 and the rooms fully booked for a day. I think it is better for me. So, you must learn the diversity in where you have found yourself. In Arubah, when we opened, we were selling card at N5, 000 but in Port Harcourt card was N20, 000. Of course, they can because they have the disposal income to pay up. Here, they would prefer to go to the chemist store and treat themselves with that N20, 000 rather than paying that to buy card for treatment at Arubah Hospital. So, when the services are available, both the rich and poor can afford the service.
So far, how have been able to contend with the local content and be able to give back to the society in the cause of the managing the business?
From the start of developing the structures, we work with the locals from right from Arubah. At the beginning somebody suggested we bring in artisans from Cotonu because they are faster, they can sleep there and finish the work with on time. But I said no that even if we are getting some artisans from Cotonu, we would bring in labourers from our environment to mix it. We also patronise the local sellers here; the majority of the workers in our employ are from here. In terms of giving back to the society, we have also done that by giving out scholarships to students in UNICAL, we have allowed students who are going to school to work so that they can have income by rescheduling their work days to accommodate their lectures time; we have patronised the motherless babies’ home. We have also engaged the communities during our special events by visiting traders at Etim Edem market, visiting the people at UCTH. We have also lived up to our civic right by paying our tax religiously.
Having been around both sides of the divide, what do you think that can be done to uplift the public hospital to be able to leave up its responsibilities especially in the area of curbing high mortality rate prevalent in those hospitals?
It requires a lot. But first it requires the political will. If I have a good intention without the political will, I would not be able to achieve on mandate. For things to work in this country, those at the helm of affairs must step on toes. We must be able to say this is what we want. From manpower, we must be able to recruit the best; we must also provide those recruited with the equipment to work with and the enabling environment to work with as well as good take home pay. Most doctors travel abroad because of lack of the above-raised issues. If you have the right man power, equipment and the good environment to work in, then the pay package may not be the main issue of doctors travelling abroad. So, if you can provide these three basic things coupled with the political will, then our doctors would stop traveling abroad and our public hospitals can perform wonders. Anything short of that, doctors would keep leaving for greener pastures. And that is what we have done at the private sector that have kept doctors even when we are not paying as much as government. But there are happy to work in Arubah because there is an office for them, the environment is okay for them, and they have the right equipment to work with. With that, high mortality rate would be reduced.
What would you advice government to do to promote the hospitality and tourism industry as they mark one year in office?
My advice for government is to first of all look at how to develop infrastructures because most of the hotels don’t have access roads. Secondly, they should provide security for the citizens and those coming into town. Once you don’t have confidence in the security system of a town or city, people would not go there. Thirdly, mobilising businesses into town to create more disposable income. That disposable income is what drives tourism because if you don’t have money you cannot go the night club; you cannot hotel bills. So, government needs to provide more businesses and platforms for investors to come into town. Again, government should improve on the tourism attractions we have. Our slave Museum should be revived fully, all the water fronts should be revived; Kwa Falls, National Park, Nkarasi Monolith, etc should be revived. Cross River already has that advantage of being surrounded by nature’s gifts. People pay money to go to Dubai to see artificial nature. But here, we have the advantage of natural nature and if it can be developed, then the sky should be our limit. We expect that those desks used by late Nnamdi Azikiwe, former Nigerian President, and late Dr. Akanu Ibiam, former Eastern region Premier, and others at Hope Waddell School should be preserved for tourist to come and pay money to see those things. Go to Gambia and you would see the number of tourists that enter the country. So, I enjoin them to ensure that by the time they finish in the next seven years, tourism would have been taken to the next level.
