THE DISSECTION OF ALIKO DANGOTE & HIS WEALTH

The argument about DANGOTE striving on government connections to succeed as a business man has surfaced again, we want to examines ways to become a successful business man and leave the rest for our readers to decide. There are three major strategies by which a business can gain competitive advantage. These strategies were defined by Michael Porter in his book, they are; Cost Leadership, Differentiation, Focus.

Cost Leadership is the reduction of your cost of production better than your competitors such that you will be able to sell lower than them and still be able to make more margin than they do. This can be achieved through economies of scale with larger, better and faster equipment.

Competitive advantage strategy, the second way to gain advantage is differentiation. This is used when you sell a product whose feature can be used to differentiate it from another product of the competitors. These features can help a company sell a product at a premium. Watch out for products that you buy at more expensive prices than its competitors and you will realize that it is because something has been used to differentiate one from the other.

Lastly, the one other strategy is focus. Focus is a strategy where you take a segment of the market & focus on it for sales. You create a product specifically for that segment of the market. There's what is called market segmentation. You can segment your market in different ways...Market can be segmented demographically, geographically, psychographically and behaviorally.

But in disagreement, there are basic theories that underpines what is happening in Nigeria. simply putting up some basic marketing strategy employed by almost all FMCGs in Nigeria and a host of others might not actually apply here. If we actually look at competition using  5 forces by Micheal Porter, we can see that this hero here has used government to lock all of it to himself;

He determines all and of course he would be KING. Take a look at these task environment factors; rivalry among competitors, threat of entry of new players, threat of substitute product, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers. DANGOTE on a daily basis smashed all of these with the help of the government.

These analysis shows things inherent in DANGOTE's operations around the country, infact he got government connections, which gave him boldness in his steps, moves and decisions. He always device a way to have that advantage in his business endeavors. This has always set him apart from his competitors