Alpha Mead Facilities and Management Services (AM Facilities), in partnership with Cluttons LLP, has called on stakeholders in the retail sector in Nigeria to come together and promote the development of the sector. This call was made at a stakeholders’ forumheld on Tuesday, February 04, 2014, in Lagos.
According to the organisers of the event, the objective of theforum is to share Cluttons’ experience in the management of retail centres and provide useful insight into how the lessons learned can be adopted for the successful mangement of malls in Nigeria. During the sessions, particpants were given the opportunity of pro bono private consultancy sessions with the Cluttons LLP team.
The event, which had as its theme,“Adopting Global Best Practices For Retail Centre Development And Management In Nigeria”, was designed to create a forum for key players in the retail industry to network, deliberate and seek solutions to the perennial developmental hitches prevalent in Nigeria’s retail sector. Itadditionally sought to galvanize the stakeholders into pressure groups that would lobby for favourable government policies in the Nigerian retail market.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Femi Akintunde, Managing Director,AMFacilities, stressedthe need for players in the retail sector to collaborate to form an association that will systematically grow the retail industry in Nigeria.
He said: “We feel this forum may serve as a good starting point for the establishment of an important networking platform that will help to harmonise the interest of the various industry stakeholders and contribute to the sustainable growth of the retail industry in Nigeria. This collaboration,we hope,may evolve into an association like the RILA (Retail Industry Leaders Association) in Washington, USA.
“We sincerely hope you will find this a worthwhile industry initiative and, by the end of this meeting, each and every one of us would have gained one or two new ideas to get better at what we are already doing. It is also our desire that this forum will help open your creative minds to new ideas and possibilities that will improve your business model and contribute meaningfully to a healthy growth and development of the retail industry in Nigeria.”
Also speaking at the event, the keynote speaker, Ian Gladwin, Head of International, Cluttons LLP,noted that there weregreat opportunities here in Nigeria.He said: “Nigeria has great potential. Indeed, there is synergy with the retail market in the Middle East, and that is why we are here to share lessons from the Middle East and also to use the platform to enter into an emerging market like Nigeria. We are exicited to be here. We will take the positive views we have gotten and come up with decisions for 2014”.
Participants at the event include Chief Atedo Peterside, Chairman Stanbic IBTC; Mr Micheal Chudi Ejekam, Director, Actis Nigeria; Chief Ede Dafinone and Mr Kene Mkparu, Managing Director The Filmhouse.
The stakeholders Forum on the Nigerian retail market was an initiative sponsored by Alpha Mead Facilities and Management Services Limited, in collaboration with their foreign technical partners, Cluttons LLP. Alpha Mead, established in 2006, is the currently leading Facility Management Company in Nigeria.
