INTERVIEW
O luwatobi Ajayi started Nord Automobiles after realising that most Nigerians did not have access to good quality, yet affordable cars. He was keen to change the mentality of Nigerians, who would only consider buying second-hand foreign vehicles, by ensuring his company provided automobiles that were of a high quality, yet still affordable. He also wanted to create jobs locally. Ajayi has since been named one of the ‘30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa’ by Forbes . His efforts also enabled him to win gold in the MBA Entrepreneur of the Year category of the AMBA & BGA Excellence Awards 2021. Ambition caught up with Ajayi to hear more about his journey to create this award-winning company.
in about a year. I decided to solve that problem by producing and offering Nigerians brand-new vehicles with world-class warranty, that are durable, reliable, safe and affordable. How did you choose the name ‘Nord’ for the company? I was on a business trip in Thailand in 2016 when I realised that I knew the problem I wanted to solve. I knew how I intended to solve it but I hadn’t really thought about the marketing and branding, let alone the name. When I got to my hotel room, I set the criteria of the name. For me, the name had to be easy to spell, easy to remember, easy to pronounce, sound strong and be a nice, four-letter word. I wanted it to include the letter ‘N’ somewhere to represent its country of origin, Nigeria. I play Scrabble and I decided to form the name using these criteria as I would during a game of Scrabble . I started with the letter ‘N’. Next, I had to insert a vowel and I preferred ‘O’. If you play Scrabble well, you will know the letter ‘R’ has some properties of a vowel – it’s a consonant that allows you to add another consonant to it fairly easily, so I went for ‘R’. I knew I just needed to add one more letter, a consonant, and I would have a name that met my criteria. For the last letter, I started in alphabetical order. ‘NORA’ and ‘NORB’, I didn’t like. ‘C’ gave me ‘NORC’, which didn’t meet my criteria for being easy to spell and pronounce. ‘D’ gave me ‘NORD’, which sounded good
and met all the criteria I set, and that was how the name was formed. Later, I realised that ‘Nord’ means ‘north’ in some European languages and that this also signifies going up, going green, going well and positivity. I liked the name and I found out that a lot of people, our customers and even the general public, love the name. In a recent interview, you said a challenge was that many Nigerians prefer not to buy local. Is this trend changing? Yes, Nigerians [traditionally] do not buy brand-new vehicles regardless of the country of origin. They prefer to buy foreign used vehicles. Nord is changing this culture and trend. Customers come to us to buy vehicles because they would rather buy a brand-new, durable, safe and reliable vehicle than buy a foreign used one that is four years old for the same price. We are making some progress here, but it will take some time, years and maybe even decades, before most Nigerians would prefer to buy a locally assembled, brand-new vehicle. Better pricing from locally assembled vehicles and auto financing would help accelerate this change in trend.
Why did you set up Nord Automobiles?
I saw a problem, and I decided to solve it. Brand-new vehicles in Nigeria were either good quality, but expensive or low quality and relatively affordable. Nigerians didn’t have the opportunity to buy a good-quality, brand-new vehicle at an affordable price, hence a lot of people bought used vehicles which offered the quality, albeit from older models, at a fairly affordable price. However, the age of the vehicles meant Nigerians were not getting a great deal, as these vehicles do not last as long as a brand-new one would and usually had mechanical and electrical problems
What other challenges have you had to face on your entrepreneurial journey?
There are so many challenges I have navigated, and I am still navigating some. Some are global challenges affecting any
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