By Lucky Isibor
A University don in the University of Benin and Professor of Business Administration, Professor Patrick Ehiabhi Oseyomon has called on product manufacturers and the different service providers in the nation’s economy to imbibe the culture of innovation in manufacturing and the provision of services to their customers and clients to have a competitive edge over imported goods and services from foreign organisations and enhance their sustainability and profitability.
Prof. Oseyomon gave the admonishion while delivering the 345th Inaugural Lecture of the University of Benin titled, “Creative Destruction and Customer Satisfaction: The Jawbone of An Ass for Business Success and Sustainability”, on Thursday, 10 July at the Akin Deko auditorium of the University.
While defining Creative Destruction as “The practice of deliberately rendering an existing product obsolete in lieu of a new one through innovation”, the erudite scholar pointed out that creative destruction has become a magic wand deployed by several manufacturers in the industrialised natoins in Europe and America for business success and sustainability, adding that innovation and technology are the drivers of the phenomena.
“The two pillars that drive creative destruction are innovation and technology. The essence of creative destruction is customer satisfaction which ultimately snowballs into business success and sustainability. Ability to satisfy customers is the litmus proof of business success and sustainability.”
While urging all tiers of government, regulatory agencies, manufacturers and business entities in the country to embrace technology to continually reinvent innovations in their areas of operation, Professor Oseyomon made far reaching recommendations for the success and sustainability of business organisations in Nigeria.
“Managers, Entrepreneurs, Marketers, operators of non-profit organizations, Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) should imbibe and practice the principles of creative destruction in order to compete favourably with goods and services of foreign organizations.
“Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), National Association for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) should enforce the use of innovation in product development by business organizations that will bring about customer satisfaction and safe product consumption.
“Business managers should be technology-driven for efficient and effective business operations to save cost and reduce prices of products for their customers.
“Business organizations should take caution to minimize the risks inherent in the practice of creative destruction and optimize its opportunities to achieve business success and sustainability.
“Organizations should frequently benchmark the innovation and technological practices of competing companies especially foreign companies to maintain parity or do better so as to encourage patronage of home-made goods.
“Government officials in Nigeria (Federal, State and Local) should practice creative destructive work environment that will engender good governance for the citizenry. Dynamic innovation in governance is the way to go for job creation, provision of infrastructure, creation of conducive work environment, minimization of capital flight (JAPA), economic growth etc.
“Customer satisfaction should be the basis for the practice of creative destruction. Therefore, business managers should enshrine the philosophy of customer orientation, as part of their culture and business practice.
“Organizations should give priority to competitive product quality, customer complaints, effective service delivery, research and development (R&D) for sustainability of customer satisfaction, patronage and retention.
“Organizations in Nigeria in particular and elsewhere in the globe need to benchmark for effective performance include: True practice of creative destruction, frequent innovation that will give rise to value laden goods/services, the use of state-of-the art technology in production processes, proper management of opportunities and risks in the practice of creative destruction, and high premium on customer satisfaction as the overall goal/objective to foster customer patronage and retention”.
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Edoba Omoregie pointed out the the 345th inaugural lecture of the University is the first to be delivered in the Department of Marketing and the 16th in the Faculty of Management Sciences.
Prof. Edoba who was represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academics, Prof. Victor ‘Ogie Igbineweka pointed out that the second semester of the 2024/2025 academic session has commenced with lectures going on smoothly.
While thanking the members of academic staff for their dedication to duty and the cooperation they’ve extended to him since assumption of office as Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Omoregie assured that their welfare is upper most in his five point agenda for the university.
Speaking to newsmen on the imperatives of developing the appropriate technology to drive innovation in the nation’s manufacturing sector and service delivery, renown Professor of Mathematics at the Edo owned Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma Prof. A Abhulimen called for a recourse to the development of the foundation, adding that the foundation is weak. He opined that we should start from our secondary schools, lay good foundation for the sciences and encourage the teachers.
We need to go to the foundation. I remember my last year lecture, “Everything is Mathematics”. The foundation is no longer there, so what are they going to innovate when they don’t have foundation. We need to go back to the foundation, teach our children, build on that foundation before they can initiate and innovate anything and create innovation; because if they don’t have the foundation in the sciences, how do they apply it, because this is applied sciences. We need to go back to our secondary schools, ensure they’re properly tought the sciences, encourage the teachers.”
Professor Ehiabhi Patrick Oseyomon was born on Sunday August 1st, 1965, to the family of late Mr. Samuel Oko-Oboh Oseyomon and Mrs. Blacky Oseyomon. He attended Afuda Primary School, Egbele-Uromi in Esan North East Local Government in Edo State from 1971-1976. He then proceeded to Igbueben Grammar School for his secondary education from 1977-1982 and Ugboha Secondary/Commercial College from 1982-1983 respectively.
He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration in 1996 with a Second Class Honours Upper Division from the University of Benin. He went further to obtain Master of Business Administration (MBA) in the year 2000, a Master of Science (M.Sc) degree in Business Administration with specialization in Marketing Management in 2007 and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Business Administration in 2014, from the Department of Business Administration, University of Benin, Benin City.
Professor Oseyomon joined the services of the University of Benin on the 26th of January, 2004 as Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Business Administration where he rose to the position of Professor in 2020. He teaches Business, Marketing, Entrepreneurship courses – and advanced research methodology at both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes.
Professor Oseyomon has published sixty (60) academic peer reviewed journal articles spread across foreign, national and local integrity journal institutions. He has supervised and co-supervised five (5) PhD thesis, ten diploma (PGDBM) long essay and numerous undergraduate projects. He is an external Examiner in several Universities. He has been a member of the Academy of Management, Nigeria since 2015 till date. He was awarded a Fellow of the National Institute of Marketing, Nigeria in 2025. Professor Oseyomon has attended and presented papers in several academic conferences. He authored two (2) textbooks that are widely used in teaching Marketing and Entrepreneurship in Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria. He has several book chapters for teaching Business Management.