Joël Sikam
Interview with Joël Sikam
FOUNDER and CEO, FISCO INDUSTRIES
Lives in: Douala, Cameroon
Joël Sikam is the founder and CEO of Fisco Industries, a producer of residence and private cleansing merchandise in Cameroon. His ambition is to construct Africa’s equal of Procter & Gamble, the American multinational behind family staples akin to Ariel, Pampers and Gillette.
At this time, Fisco produces about 4 million litres of cleansing merchandise a 12 months and sells over 40 objects throughout two manufacturers: Simad, for homecare merchandise like laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, bleach and ground cleaner; and SimPharma, for private cleansing merchandise akin to hand sanitiser, bathe gel and shampoo.
From finance to manufacturing facility ground
Born in Cameroon, Sikam left for France as an adolescent to finish highschool, later transferring to america. He started at a neighborhood school in Dallas earlier than transferring to the College of North Texas, the place he earned a finance diploma in 2010.
He joined Saxon Mortgage, then owned by Morgan Stanley, managing mortgage accounts for banks and householders.
However as extra Africans from the diaspora started returning residence, Sikam determined he didn’t need to watch from afar. Cameroon, he believed, provided better alternative than the mature US market.
In 2011, he deserted his inexperienced card utility and returned to Douala, Cameroon’s business capital.
His entry into the cleansing merchandise enterprise got here via contacts in Texas, a hub for the US oil business. A few of his former classmates labored for worldwide oil firms working in Africa. They related him to their regional representatives.
By these connections, he discovered find out how to register as a provider. Offshore oil rigs and vessels – the place crews dwell for months – want a gentle provide of cleansing items, typically sourced via tenders. Sikam started submitting bids and finally received contracts.
Then the 2014 oil worth collapse hit. Crude plunged from over $100 to beneath $30 a barrel by early 2016. Exploration in Africa slowed sharply, wiping out most of his enterprise.
Sikam noticed a strategy to adapt. The commercial cleansing merchandise he had equipped to grease firms may very well be reformulated for households.
In 2015, at simply over 30 years outdated, he based Fisco Industries to fabricate reasonably priced, mass-market cleansing merchandise.
The corporate began small, financed completely with Sikam’s personal capital. Fisco’s preliminary vary included seven cleansing merchandise, amongst them bleach, dishwashing liquid, and ground cleaner.
However early on, the corporate bumped into a serious drawback: its cleansing merchandise saved popping out watery. The staff adopted the formulations fastidiously, however the outcome was the identical every time. Uncertain of the trigger, Sikam introduced in a marketing consultant from Poland to research. By that stage, the corporate had already put a major quantity of its restricted capital into uncooked supplies – solely to search out that the completed merchandise couldn’t be offered. “I misplaced some huge cash as a result of formulation,” Sikam says.
The marketing consultant instructed that they take a look at the water utilized in manufacturing and located that Douala’s provide had a really excessive iron content material, which interfered with the formulations. In addition they found that the town’s excessive humidity was affecting the product. In response, the corporate purchased a demineraliser to deal with its water and made slight changes to the formulations. Sikam estimates these manufacturing setbacks price him practically a 12 months.
At first, manufacturing was restricted to about ten packing containers a day. Gross sales have been largely to individuals Sikam knew – household and pals who purchased the merchandise partly out of help, for the reason that worth was reasonably priced.
A collection of cleansing merchandise manufactured by Fisco.
Breaking into retail
As soon as Fisco had its manufacturing up and working, the corporate started approaching casual retailers working in conventional markets – the bustling marketplaces discovered all through Africa the place customers can cut price over costs. Sikam estimates that in 2015, these distributors accounted for as a lot as 70% of retail gross sales in Douala. On the time, he says, there have been solely about ten fashionable, air-conditioned grocery shops within the metropolis.
Working with casual distributors, nevertheless, proved troublesome. Many shopkeepers didn’t preserve correct stock information and made little effort to advertise Fisco’s merchandise, which have been nonetheless unfamiliar to clients. As an alternative, they targeted on pushing well-known manufacturers that customers already recognised.
It was exhausting for Fisco to trace what costs distributors have been charging. As a result of the corporate’s merchandise weren’t but established, most insisted on paying solely after they’d offered the inventory – and amassing these funds was typically a battle. When Fisco’s gross sales staff visited to gather fee, distributors would regularly declare they didn’t have the cash, typically citing household emergencies, and ask them to return the next week.
As challenges with conventional retailers endured, Sikam steadily shifted his focus towards fashionable grocery chains, a lot of which nonetheless sourced their detergents from overseas. However working with them offered a brand new set of challenges.
His first cease was certainly one of Cameroon’s largest grocery store chains. When he met the buying supervisor, she turned him down.
Nonetheless, Sikam refused to surrender. He approached one other foreign-owned grocery store and determined to current a stronger enterprise case. He provided the retailer a 30% revenue margin between his promoting worth and their retail worth, together with 60 days to pay. These phrases have been much more enticing than these for the Asian detergents they’d been importing on the time, which required full fee upfront, adopted by a 30-day manufacturing interval and one other month for delivery by sea.
This time, his persistence paid off. A number of days later, the buying supervisor’s assistant referred to as and requested him to come back and gather his first buy order.
That first order proved to be a turning level. As soon as Fisco’s merchandise appeared on the cabinets of a well known grocery store chain, it turned far simpler to strategy others. The affiliation with a good retailer gave the corporate credibility, and shortly some supermarkets started contacting Fisco instantly.
Regional ambitions
In pursuit of his objective to construct the Procter & Gamble of Africa, Sikam has solid his ambitions past Cameroon. A lot of Fisco’s early worldwide growth occurred organically. As Douala serves as a business hub for Central Africa, merchants recurrently journey there from neighbouring international locations akin to Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the Central African Republic, and Gabon to purchase items in bulk and transport them residence. Many found Fisco’s merchandise this manner, serving to the model attain new markets with little direct effort from Sikam.
Now, Sikam is pursuing a extra deliberate regional technique. In 2023, he accomplished the Stanford Seed programme at Stanford College, which offers coaching and help to African entrepreneurs. Through the programme, he met an entrepreneur from Côte d’Ivoire, with whom he has partnered to launch Fisco’s detergents in that market. The corporate is already distributing there on a small scale, with plans to start native manufacturing within the close to future. Sikam has additionally recognized a possible companion within the Democratic Republic of Congo and is exploring alternatives there.
Sikam says his technique for increasing into new markets is to first discover native companions, then start exporting from Cameroon to construct model recognition, and, as soon as the merchandise acquire traction, to ascertain native manufacturing via joint ventures.
Fisco CEO Joel Sikam’s contact info
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