Small business: setting a viable agenda for 2008
If there is any tool that can build a wealthy nation faster than a spider can spin webs it is entrepreneurship.
entrepreneurship is a platform on which economic rights like rights to property, healthcare, adequate standard of living, housing etc. are profitably appreciated and
free enterprise expressed. The Micro,
Small and
Medium Enterprise is a platform for the humble beginning of the ordinary man in the quest for economic and financial excellence and therefore no doubt that it has answers to the economic decadence of any third world nation. According to Taiwo Aknilami, these facts have been established in countries like Pakistan, Thailand, Mauritius, Philippines, Malaysia, India and Taiwan.
It is however important to note that free enterprise thrives on the existence of the following three factors:
The people must take responsibility for the direction of their economic earnings
The people must be committed to self improvement in every area of human development and their chosen field of endeavor.
The
government must create a suitable environment for the survival of the entrepreneurial quest of the people. “Suitable environment” in this context can be achieved in two ways:
a. Enactment of pro-entrepreneurial laws and policies by government and its agencies
b. Creation of suitable regulatory bodies that can monitor the performances of these policies.
A good step in fulfilling the last point would be encouragement of self improvement programmes by the government.
On the part of the generality of the people who are involved in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise the following short comings should be taken into consideration if they must increase;
1. Lack of entrepreneurial drive: Passion! Pure passion propelled by the spirit of enterprise. An entrepreneur is not just the totality of his assets, physical and intellectual traits he possesses or how he can combine land, labour and capital to produce profitable results but the mindset is what counts. Who is the man inside of him? His spirit of enterprise is what drives him to get what everyone else wants and not necessarily do what everyone else does. This attitude guides his investment and approach to risk. Any entrepreneur who lacks this drive is well not on his way to doing exploits. According to Taiwo Akinlami, today’s entrepreneur is driven by hunger and nor passion.
2. Lack of organizational structure: often times the cry for lack of fund by entrepreneurs often a case of misplaced priority in the sense that the most prominent problem is always lack of structure and zeal for excellence, in fact, this lack of organizational structure is most times responsible for their lack of fund. For instance, many SMEs cannot access the fund available to them under Small and Medium Industries Equity Investment Scheme (SMIES) due to inability to meet their requirements.
3. Neglect of experts’ advice: many small and medium enterprises run their daily operations, taking minor and major decisions without experts’ opinions. This may be a major reason for their failures.
4. Non compliance with regulatory bodies: the advantages of co-operating with bodies like the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and others cannot be overemphasized, so also the need to file annual returns as this goes a long way in helping to regularize documents when the need arises.
5. Lack of respect for intellectual property e.g. copyright, trademarks etc.
6. lack of documentation culture: an organization that is to go far and expand in all facets cannot but document every single transaction from employee/employer relationships to landlord/tenant contracts to partnership contracts etc.
It is also important to look at the inefficiency or neglect on the part of the government.
The government has failed to inculcate the entrepreneurship culture into the educational system at all levels knowing how this would go a long way in creating entrepreneurial orientation to the generality of the people. This particular act can create, develop and refine raw entrepreneurial skills from a very early stage of life and thus entrepreneurial tendencies are reawakened and it doesn’t have to be a struggle to think and operate a profitable free enterprise.
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