L’Oreal commits 800m Euros to R&D

In order to improve the quality of its products and enhance variety, L’Oreal Group has so far committed over 800 million Euros to research and development (R&D), BusinessDay has learnt.

“We have spent over 800 million Euros in R&D. We strive to design products that meet specific needs and are culturally relevant, while demonstrating respect for the environment, community and biodiversity throughout the product life-cycle,’’ said Idorenyen Enang, ‎managing director, L’Oreal Central West Africa, during the Nigerian Retail Transformation Conference organised by DMS Retail West Africa Limited, held in Lagos.

L’Oreal deals with cosmetics of various types. The firm is currently tapping into the Nigerian retail sector, which is booming on the back of the country’s 170 million population, rising middle-class and dominant youthful population.

Currently, World Bank and Euro International estimate that middle-class is occupying over 30 percent of Nigerian population, while young people account for over 43 percent, over 72 million. However, many organisations are not tapping into the huge market owing to wrong business model and their reactionary inclinations.

“Many firms are not collaborating. This is why we have a few retail shops making huge sums while others become onlookers. Again, we have a number of reactive managers and collaboration cannot work for reactors,’’ Enang said.

In addition, he said the company’s approach was centred on attracting the best people, respecting their needs and empowering them to realise their full potentials, adding that these people, in turn, have helped the company become a sustainable enterprise in West Africa.

He stressed that retailers in the country must have the right mindset to compete, innovate and work with numbers, saying “the generation of marketers we have now, who are supposed to be the real players in retail business, do not like numbers. How can you compete with big players that work with data then?’’

 

ODINAKA ANUDU