It’s just a few minutes past noon in Yola when we make our way to the Arts & Science building. The air cooling in Professor Chris Mbah’s office is the perfect refreshment for a wary reporter.
“Welcome, welcome University Relations team!” The prof’s Executive Assistant, Adekunle Ojo greets us at the entryway. No face mask, no entry! is boldly emblazoned on the door.
A luxurious whiff of “bakhoor” tells me the bespectacled Prof is not just a man of books. He is also a savvy globe trotter, and this fragrant woody scent may be an acquired taste from his time in Abu Dhabi. Professor Mbah has lived and worked in the Middle East, the United States, Europe, Australia, and the South Pacific Rim. His next stop and present base is the American University of Nigeria (AUN).
Professor Chris Mbah is the Dean of AUN’s School of Graduate Studies and our special guest for Faculty Conversations. He has just published a paper:
“Marketing Sales-service Interface and social media Marketing Influence on B2B Sales Process”
The title, quite a mouthful, is worth its weight in gold at AUN’s ivory towers. The paper deals with an issue every business owner must contend with in the digital age.
“Social media is accessible these days by just about everyone. Whether in universities, or sourcing materials for production or sourcing transportation for logistics, and so forth. I saw that making decisions about which one to use is where the rubber meets the road.” Professor Mbah said.
Dean Mbah knows his onions. As a professor of full standing in Business & Entrepreneurship, he has been seasoned by years of research, fine-tuning his craft.
“You have to make decisions knowing that historically this has worked for somebody, ten thousand people better, 2 million people even better but one person no. Decisions are made based on a history of success or potentials for success. Every day of our life is about decisions. Going to Lagos on a boat, on a canoe, and by flight? or by driving? or by horseback?
We shared a hearty laugh at this analogy. Imagine traveling to Lagos from Yola by horseback…
Dean Mbah believes you have to analyze all kinds of risks and costs associated with alternative decisions. This strategy works well for the United States. In America where the Prof spent his formative years, the service industry accounts for a whopping 79% of the total workforce amongst economic sectors. The positive impact of an effective service industry transcends the boardroom down to customer service representatives. Sadly, the same cannot be said for most service providers in Nigeria.
“In this country, frankly the service sector is a little lacking behind, you can buy stuff today and they sell it to you happily, the salespeople are there to convince you to buy it, they are really good at convincing you. But when you come back with an issue, nobody is home” said Dean Mbah.
From this point on, the dynamics in the prof’s office switched from press interview to a kind of student-teacher parley. The Prof transported us to what we can only imagine is a taste of his business classrooms.
“I just bought a battery here. You know how much warranty I got? One month for my truck battery. Elsewhere in the world, for a 5-year life battery, you will get 2-3 years guarantee. If anything happens to it within 2-3 years you take it back and get a new one, but chances are that battery will last for 7 years, more than the 5 years you paid for okay? Those are the kinds of things we are dealing with. So my question, therefore, is how do we make these decisions. That’s why we came to this area of research, it is very important organizations make decisions with respect to sales, marketing, and services. How do you use social media to approach that or to market that, which one do you pick? How do you pick it? Alternative decision making. Is it Twitter, is it Facebook or YouTube. From a reach standpoint to target standpoint or type of market or legal standpoint. There are all kinds of ways to look at it, we have to analyze the various areas of decision making to make a determination of assigning value or quantifying risks so we’ll know which ones are higher risk, lower risk, and medium risk. We have to take a combination of what works for us so we can make a more effective decision” He said.
Professor Mbah and his co-authors used a literature review and the Analytical Hierarchy Process Model (AHP) to gain a better understanding of how social media can serve the marketing, sales, and service industry(M-S-S). In total, 30 M-S-S managers of a multinational electronic firm situated in Africa and the Middle East participated in this study. The authors collected data from M-S-S managers during training sessions on marketing, sales, service alignment, and social media marketing (SMM).
“So really frankly the keyword for us is AHP, right? Analytic Hierarchy Process in making multi-criteria decisions or multi-attribute decision that’s from game theory. This particular area is also connected to game theory in economics ”
This is indeed intriguing stuff for academic brave hearts. To find out more about the revolutionary techniques Professor Mbah and his coauthors propose for improved organizational performance, you will have to read the full-text archive of his paper on Emerald insight at:https://www.emrald.com/com/insight/0885-8624.httm
I was truly fascinated with Dean Mbah’s contributions to the body of knowledge and the practical applications to real life. So I probed further about some of his earlier work.
“We did a research paper years ago in 2010 when I was in Abu Dhabi and this was about global food logistics delivering food from one place to another. That’s a big thing right? I’ve seen a lot of destroyed products in Lagos. I saw a sea of mangoes destroyed. I said what is this? This happened because they didn’t know how to handle it, they didn’t know the logistical part, they don’t understand it, they took mangoes from Benue to Lagos and 99% of them were ruined by the time they got there and that affects the price of the 1% that was left. Who do you think will pay for it, the supplier? The producer? No, you the final consumer. Those products costs are going to be passed on to you because of poor decisions in the supply chain network. Those are the kind of areas we are trying to work on now. Social media marketing influences, particularly with respect to business to business sales, not business to customer (B to C), B to C is more intense, business to business is a little more doable because professional people are making the decisions.” He said.
Across campus, Dean Mbah has earned a reputation for being conscientious. This does not always go down well with everyone. However, his students do appreciate his thorough processes and attention to detail. 4th-year Business & Entrepreneurship major, Patience Edward, believes in his particular methods.
“ Dean Mbah is a very nice person and a very pro-active professor. I like the way he teaches, he is punctual, he breaks down his points and makes sure that you understand bit by bit what he is teaching. He is the type that does not want distraction while he is teaching. He wants his class to be active, everyone should contribute like a discussion class. I like the way he speaks while presenting a topic. He usually gives assignments. We write a lot in his class and submit hard copies. He reads all the papers and goes through them bit by bit, and if there is any mistake or plagiarism he will detect it immediately.”
At the home front, Professor Mbah is happily married to the love of his life, Mrs. Suad Mbah and they have two lovely children. In the coming years, Dean Mbah is looking to co-opt future research collaborators from the production industry. He is quite optimistic that manufacturing will make the trifecta of sales, marketing, and services complete.
Reported by the Office of Communications