Entrepreneur targets aviation companies, schools with new clothing, shoe facilities

Daniel Young, chief executive officer of Daniel Young Global Investments Ltd, a local manufacturing company, says his company is targeting schools, corporate organisations and the aviation industry such as the airlines, aviation securities and other airline agencies with his new production facilities.

The entrepreneur, who has production facilities in Lagos, Owerri and Aba, said his major driving force was to locally produce standard shoes, clothes and bags that could be globally accepted.

Young reiterated that having looked at some of the brands Nigeria enjoys today in terms of clothing, his company decided to match their standards and production quality, adding that he decided to zero in on uniforms because uniforms often created team-spirit.

“If you look at the airline industry, you see the cabin crew, people in the counter space and pilots all in uniforms and you wouldn’t want to deal with anyone who is not dressed properly. It gives a sense of corporate identity. We decided to look at uniforms and all it entails starting from day care, nursery for schools, and industry based uniforms for hospitality industry, for military, for hospital amongst others.

“If you look at our show rooms today, you will discover that we have been able to do our best to make products that match global standards. We decided to reinvent the school shoes that we used to have in the 1970s and 1980s. What we have done is to take existing ones, study them and amplify the qualities we found that were good and remove aspects that are no longer useful.

“If you look at the 1970s’ designs, you will see that they had a lot of perforations on the leather surface. So, we reduced them and used fabrics inside the shoes so the child would not sweat. We also reduced the weight of the heels for ease of movement. Children do not walk, they run, so anything that impedes their movement will not encourage learning. We have looked at those things and decided to bring a brand new product that will meet today’s taste,” he disclosed.

He further said that raw materials for his production were sourced in Nigeria and stressed on the need for corporate organisations to contract the jobs to experts in the area to encourage uniformity in the outfit.

He regretted that airlines that operated in Nigeria did not patronise indigenous companies, especially at a time when foreign exchange was quite high. “I showed the security boots we made to the managing director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). He was very excited and asked me to present the copy to Fire and Security. They accepted it and agreed that I should supply them but when I went to procurement it was a different ball game.

“They said they already have an existing supplier who is not supplying made-in-Nigeria goods. There is a bottleneck somewhere. Within the system, there are bottlenecks that will not allow a Nigeria made product to supply,” he said.

The entrepreneur said he had a capacity to produce an average of 2000 shoes in two months at an affordable rate. “You cannot buy a good school shoes (Clark shoes) for less than N7,000. We have equivalent of Clark shoes that go for as low as N3, 000 to N4, 500. They come with warranty. Because of my background, every work I do is carrying my name, ‘Daniel Young,’ which is the name I will hand over to my children. If the name is known for production of substandard goods, it means my children cannot use that name.”

On how to penetrate the market, Young assured that his products would speak for themselves and attract the right people.

“If a product is good, it sells itself. If I have good products that speak for themselves and people use them and testify, others will be forced to buy from us. If we are looking for a cheap way into the market, in which case it becomes a man-know-man based product, the product can’t stand on its two feet. The moment the person who gave you the link is out, the business dies with its glamour, which is mostly the case with the businesses we do in Nigeria,” Young said.

IFEOMA OKEKE