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Developing sustainable small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurship pursuit, as part of corporate social responsibility, has been identified as part of strategies aimed at developing the indigenous people, curbing restiveness, ensuring conflict resolution and guaranteeing peaceful co-existence between international oil companies (IOC) and their host communities in the Niger-Delta region.
This was the consensus as Total Exploration and Production Limited (TEPNG), in collaboration with Fortis Microfinance Bank (MFB), organized a one day business mentoring seminar in Port Harcourt.
TEPNG’s Business and Enterprise Development manager, Philippe Desriac, in an address at the event, said the seminar was to further equip beneficiaries of the Total loan scheme for SMEs and update them on new ideas and strategy to sustain their businesses.
He said Total had worked hard over the past two years to establish a strong valuable loan program for Egiland, one of its host communities, adding that the company’s mandate has always been the promotion of economic development of the Egi community and creating valuable dialogue with Egi people and to tear down local and global barriers and build bridges between Total, Egi men and women.
“We all have both the ability and the responsibility to make a great deal of difference by promoting development and economic empowerment, providing the knowledge needed to face challenges, by achieving sustainable development and breaking the barriers to economic growth. This is exactly what this program is all about”, he said, adding that as borders disappear, the freedom of movement of people and business can grow at a spectacular pace.
“In today’s open society, Total and Fortis can and will play the crucial role of developing and providing the latest knowledge that is needed,” Desriac said.
Making a presentation on the topic: ‘Day to Day Cash Flow Monitoring,’ Fortis MFB’s Executive Director Business Development, told participants that in business we don’t need the money but what we need is financial discipline. He said how we manage our cash flow affect our business, adding that 82% of businesses fail due to poor cash flow management.
He said if a business must survive, we must employ those that add value, discard things that are not relevant, reduce any overhead cost, build partnership, finance from microfinance institution and organize your cash inflow activities.
President of the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce (PHCCIMA), represented by council member, Mrs Edughom Hanson, making a presentation on ways to develop new businesses and access new markets, said the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce has a major objective of also mentoring and ensuring that businesses thrive.
Elaborating on ways to develop a new business, she said business has become a career path and it is important to know that everyone goes into business to add value and to meet a need. According to her, if we lose this fact our business loses.
“We must identify opportunities, be committed to our business, be prepared to take risk and continue to develop new ideas, new capacities to be more effective and efficient and build on the old ones,” she said, adding that a very successful business must have passion and be imbued with integrity.
Mrs Hanson explained that “we must belong to relevant organizations like the chamber of commerce and industry, source for business information, collaborate and build partnerships, leverage on new contacts, deliberately plan, focus on new capabilities and consistently deliver on promises and implement our plans.”
Mr Ofon Udofia of the Institute of Export Operations and Management in his presentation titled ‘Access to new market and business development’ said the best investment in the country is investment on human capacity development, especially on rudiments for developments of SMEs. According to him, SMEs is key to providing unemployment solutions and provides sufficient potentials for growth and stimulation of the economy, even as he emphasized on taking advantage of the potentials in export business.
Udofia reiterated the huge potential in export, but maintained that “you don’t just crash into it, you must go through statutory and required ideologies to build capacity, develop products to breach the need and take advantage of the need value.” He said we must focus on the need for quality and competitiveness of goods to meet global standard, harp on specialization to encourage expertise and also adapt to the needs of the environment in packaging our products.
He further listed challenges confronting export to include huge gap in infrastructure, cost of energy among others, however adding that the benefits are huge and enormous if one leverages on the opportunities inherent in the institute of export promotion which makes it more seamless and more educative.
The event featured a cross section of beneficiaries from Total SME Development and loan scheme who testified that the effort of the multinational oil giant is commendable in the area of empowering and supporting the host community.
