There are companies whose sole business objective is to make other companies succeed;
Ice-Oneis one of those companies. A uniquely built management Consulting firm with years of experience within the west coast of Africa, Ice-One has carved out a niche for itself with a growing portfolio of successes as proof of its unique and effective positioning. With a team of dedicated young men and women, you might wonder how
Ice-One has been able to achieve so much, working with great brands, and standing out as true innovators. We sat down with their Director of Business Development and Client Services, Mr. Ikenna Onuorah.. Head Of Operations, Joy Johnson and Creative Director, Gboyega Osunkoya, find out how.
Tell us a little about Ice-One…who are you and what do you do?
Mr. Ikenna: Ice-One is a management consulting firm rendering consultancy services in marketing and sales, business technology, corporate strategy, operations and organization. We’re uniquely wired and have our niche, connecting clients Clients to the Generation Y. Our media arm, Ice-One Media is also the brain behind “The Spark” and in a strategic partnership with Vanguard Media Limited, birthed “Vanguard Spark”.. A Youth Empowerment Platform.
Businesses are always looking to attract attention, how do you make your clients stand out from the crowd?
Ms. Joy: We believe in and are excited by every brand we take on. That belief and excitement is what helps us become more than consultants and more of an integral—interwoven part of those brands. In that way we see each company successes as our own. Since
Ice-one is in itself a team of young industry leaders and unique minded innovators, we are able to impart that distinctive mix and freshness to every project we take on. Of course we do our homework on every case, by doing thorough analyses on their consumer, industry, competition, operations, and much more. This helps us identify problem areas and offer case and brand specific solutions. It’s what sets us apart and also as a result sets the brands we help apart as well. The evidence is in our body of work.
Your vision is to be the number one indigenous management consulting company out of West Africa by 2016. How will you achieve this?
Mr. Ikenna: It’s simple really…we will continue to innovate, offer world-class–out of the box thinking management consulting and we will continue to empower people and corporations alike. This is the sum of what our name is…Innovation, Consulting and Empowerment all wrapped in one package. Some of our clients like Airtel and The CHISCO Group among others are drivers of their industry in and out of Nigeria. We are taking the
I.C.E factor to the Big guns within West Africa, and also triggering the growth of the young guns to drive the region’s economy.
What’s next after you have achieved this goal?
Mr. Gboyega: We shoot even higher…we remix our vision and aim to be the number one home grown management consulting firm out of Africa and then the world. We won’t stop, we don’t stop, and we can’t stop!
Quite a number of businesses, especially start-ups and budding entrepreneurs out there do not see the need for business consulting. Are they missing something?
Mr. Ikenna: They most definitely are. From time to time a company’s management requires a reassessment of the entire company, for growth, redirection, realignment and to meet all stake holder targets. Apart from the immense benefits of hiring a consultant for staff augmentation, analytical horsepower, training and skill-set augmentation and a dire need for the application of best practices across industries and functions, there is nothing better than a fresh perspective to help you bring about an external change force that can revolutionize the way you do business and secure higher returns. The best companies in the world hire management consultants…the question is “who are you hiring”? Do they understand the terrain? Are they young and upwardly mobile like you or are they stuck in old theories that will only deliver a stack of printed power-point slides piled away in a corner shelf in your office without any lasting change to your business? These are the questions to ask.
If compared with a competitor on our brand spark, how do you think ice-one will fair?
Mr. Ikenna: [Laughs] that’s not a fair question. You need to understand that every management Consulting firm has it’s own niche. We all have different approaches to delivering services. I told you earlier what our own unique selling point is—this is how we intend to satisfy our clients and if doing this catapults us above competition, and it surely will, then that will be a most welcome development.
As part of your corporate social responsibility, how do you give back to the society?
Ms. Joy: Empowerment is not just CSR to us, it is one of the tri-fold threading of our very nature. Ice-One would not be complete without empowering people. This is why we setup “The Spark”…as you know, it’s a youth empowerment platform and several local youths have benefited greatly from the monthly giveaways as well as the platform itself which we created as a form for self-expression. And this is only the beginning. We are not seeing our journey up as a solitary one, but we will be taking a lot of people up with us. Success is not meant to be a lonely or selfish path. At Ice-One, we love Africa and believe that our success is tied to Africa’s success.
Thanks for joining me in this interview, what will Ice-One be giving off as The Spark – an incentive for our Rookie of the month?
Mr. Gboyega: We’re giving what we know every rookie needs…we’re giving leverage. This leverage will deliver N500,000 in cash grant and business set up.
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