To the Head, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation’s Investment and Technology Promotion Office in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Dr. Hashim Hussein, the Nigerian business environment has all it takes for any Small and Medium Enterprise to grow, but for basic business models. The SME expert, in a chat with ABIOLA ODUTOLA, urges the Federal Government to implement certain business survival strategies to boost the operations of MSMEs across the country. Excerpts:
How would you assess the Nigerian economy, in relation to the performance of Small and Medium Enterprises?
I believe the Nigerian economy can do well with SMEs, because the environment is very positive, but it lacks a very good ecosystem. You have a big and stable market, government should, therefore, ensure that it has a well-integrated homogeneous system for small businesses, and this is the reason UNIDO has been trying to impact knowledge
in the operators of small businesses with its just concluded Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion workshop in Nigeria.
What other issues is the workshop designed to address? The workshop, which had about
35 people from different agencies,non-governmental organisations and entrepreneurs in attendance, was designed to equip trainers and entrepreneurs with skills to develop a programme in Nigeria to support enterprise creation and innovation in entrepreneurship.
This is a model we had implemented in the Kingdom of Bahrain and over 48 other countries across the world. Now, we are equipping young entrepreneurs with skills to
start their businesses across different fields.
Is funding involved in the training?
No, rather we are going to work with a number of financial institutions, incubators, universities, among others, to address inability of SMEs to access funds to grow their business.
Today, we have finalised a national strategy for entrepreneurship and innovation in Nigeria from different stakeholders. We will start implementation as early as January 2017. Already, we are starting with a global portal for entrepreneurship and Nigeria will be the first country we are test-running the portal.
With the portal, it means we can do all our training and business counselling online. But this is coming at a time the nation’s economy is in recession.
How can micro and small businesses implement the skills when their businesses are battling for survival?
There is recession in Nigeria, but that should not affect the activities of SMEs, because there are always young entrepreneurs (not only young in age, but also in business)
with ideas to start businesses. This has nothing to do with recession, because every day, you have a market and demand for small businesses to develop and grow.
The recession generally affects big businesses and not small and medium businesses, if they have good strategy, policy and programme to support them, they will always have
a niche in the market, and this is what we are trying to do in Nigeria.
We are trying to build and follow an ecosystem for micro and small businesses, which even in recession, they can easily adapt to and succeed.
Why do you say micro and small businesses are not affected by recession when big businesses are shutting down?
Micro and small businesses can easily adapt to changes in the economic system. If the
country has entrepreneurs that are creative with ideas, required systems and supportive
policies, recession cannot cripple their operations.
The businesses will be sustained and grown in any environment, even if there is recession or not. A lot of Nigerian small businesses can liberate the country from the claws of the current economic recession, but they are ignorant of certain investment and technology skills to achieve such feat.
The Federal Government and stakeholders should invest massively in infrastructural
and technological development in order to take Nigeria out of recession. It appears SMEs are doing better in the Kingdom of Bahrain with a population of 1.5 million than in Nigeria with a population of about 170 million.
What are the factors responsible for this development?
Nigeria is a big country with huge market and SMEs always need huge market to grow their businesses, because such environment is always more conducive for a starter.
What I see in Nigeria is that the country has all the ingredients to grow SMEs, therefore the government should ensure it is doing the right thing to grow these businesses. The Nigerian market is huge, but what it lacks is the coordination of the support institutions for SMEs, as that is how you can bring them under one umbrella and the target should be the entrepreneur, from business training, counselling, mentoring, access to finance and incubation.
These are the things the SMEs lack in Nigeria. All these should be under one umbrella. If that is done, Nigerian entrepreneurs can liberate the economy from recession. A lot of Nigerian SMEs find it difficult to outlive their founders.
What do you think could be responsible for this development?
That happens most times with family businesses, and that is a big problem. Entrepreneurs need counselling and mentoring and that is why we are addressing the issues now.
Most of the family businesses are not managed by right people. For example, they need to have a marketing expert and not the son of the owner. Businesses should be run by experts and not necessarily by children of the owners or relatives.
In most industrialised nations, such businesses are listed on the stock exchanges to ensure that they outlive the owners. If your businesses are doing fine, list on stock exchange to secure their future. This is not only in Nigeria, but also in most developing countries.
If they have good strategy, policy and programme to support them, they will always have
a niche in the market, and this is what we are trying to do in Nigeria
Experts have warned that SMEs operators should not rely on grants to grow their businesses. What is your take on this?
It depends. Sometimes, there are some key sectors that require grants. Grants should not just be granted across board. You have to know how important the business is to the economy, who are the entrepreneurs behind those businesses, because you cannot just give grants to any company to avoid problems for entrepreneurs. You have to investigate if the operators really deserve the grants or not.
