BANKING REFORMS'LL NOT AFFECT ECONOMY – MMS BOSS

By NBF NEWS

The Managing Director, Media Monitoring Services Nigeria Limited (MMS), Mr. Uche Aligbe, has said that the on-going banking reforms would not impact negatively on Nigeria's economy.

Aligbe who said this at the press conference on the company's 15 years anniversary held in Lagos, said that hiring or firing of staff in banking industry should not affect the economy positively.

Speaking on the company's celebration, he said that MMS had been monitoring media business for the past 15 years in Nigeria and also pioneered the concept of tracking electronic media transmissions and exposures on the other media in the market.

According to him: 'we are surprised by the level of creativity and innovation that we have managed to build up within these years on a terrain we entered without prior cognate experience. We virtually overcame our environmental challenges and have developed top class service products that compare with others anywhere in the world.'

He maintained that it was easy for media managers, media planners and advertisers to read and understand their operating environments inside out and take cost effective decisions in marketing communications based on the company's services.

He said that MMS was also celebrating continuous success in the face of foreign competition, adding that most producers of goods and services in Nigeria would ask for protection against incursion from foreign brands, which come most times with superior appeals and abundant resources.

Said he: 'we are celebrating our vision into the future, a vision developed with the benefit of a rich hindsight gathered through tenacious commitment to making a difference in an industry starved of vital operational information up till March 5th, 1995, when we started media monitoring services in Nigeria. We started by monitoring about 10 electronic media stations, a few newspapers and outdoor billboards in Lagos.'

He said that the company now monitor offices in 14 strategic locations in the country from where it monitors over 156 electronic media stations; all the outdoor billboards pan Nigeria and all the national newspapers. MMS developed various information service products for all sectors of the media industry and establish a positively robust reputation for media among practitioners.

He added: 'we are celebrating our stakeholders, board of directors, investors and staff for persevering in the struggle to break through the initial Berlin wall of resistance to the concept. We also celebrate our numerous clients consisting of multinational and local marketing companies.

He said that the company's Stakeholders' Forum would come up on April 27th and 28th 2010 and would be used to open the company's score cards of operation for practitioners to evaluate and appreciate the company's efforts in the past 15 years.