Nigeria needs Sustainable Businesses, let’s start building them by Abosede George-Ogan
This article is a guest post by Sustainability expert; Abosede George-Ogan who have over a decade Multi-sector experience and a CSR and Sustainability professional.
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I will be the first to admit that starting and running a business in Nigeria is tough, my husband owns one. With the electricity challenge, high cost of raw material if applicable to your business, attracting skilled work force among other challenges too numerous to mention; starting a business in the Nigerian context defies a lot of the text book theories that business strategists propose.
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However, if you have taken the bold step as an entrepreneur to start a business in Nigeria knowing how tough it is, you could as well give your business the best chance for success. As a lover of business television shows especially the America ones, you know Shark Tank, The Profit and Undercover Boss; I am always amazed at the good percentage of businesses that were in their fourth generation life span. You will hear interesting stories about how the business was started by their great grand fathers and/or grand mothers who put in place the right systems though crude to ensure the business outlived them.
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Unfortunately, this is not the case for our Nigerian businesses. With my limited knowledge of the history of businesses we have operating in Nigeria, I struggle to give one example about a business that has lasted beyond two generations but I hear a lot of people talk about Dantata and Sawoe. I am by this article advocating that we start building sustainable businesses and provide some pointers below on how we can do this using the concept of Sustainability which I define as the ‘ability to preserve a thing in a way that it creates benefits for everything it affects with very minimal negative impact’.
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Have a Governance Structure in place
I hear you say you are running a small business but even if it is a sole enterprise, establish some form of accountability structure that can serve as a check and balance on your affairs. This is usually a board of directors but an important factor to consider when doing this, is identifying credible people to approach with a high level of expertise in your area of need but most importantly, people with integrity that can guide you in the right direction.
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Focus on the Internal
Most organizations focus on the external perception and reputation of their organization which leads them to act in a socially responsible manner or create social conscious campaigns that have a human appeal. However, they do not realize that what you do internally is as important if not more important than what you do externally. This ranges from the way you treat your people, to the opportunities you provide for them to grow, to the structures you put in place to help them be the most productive. Examples are having a health and safety policy in place, having an equal opportunity employment policy that ensures gender equity and having a medium to report bad behavior like subordination, sexual harassment and/or corruption.
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Be conscious about the impact of your business activities and operations
As a business you exist within a community and a larger society. Is your environment better or worse because of your presence there? In Nigerian parlance, who have you helped? Are you polluting the environment with your waste or you have created employment and expanded the opportunities for the locals around you based on your business. Depending on what business you do and which industry you represent, the impact can be varied but the fact you are conscious makes you adaptable to ensure you are having more positive and sustainable impact than negative.
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Care about your Stakeholders
This point cannot be overemphasized. You have people who are directly and indirectly related and impacted by your business ranging from but not limited to your employees, suppliers, shareholders and customers. They all matter, find a way of staying connected to each group and making sure within reason you are meeting their expectations of your business.
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Report/Communicate
As a business, it is important to provide update on different parts of your business ranging from the financials to non-financial activities to your stakeholders. It helps to promote confidence amongst them for your business and serves as an opportunity to get feedback that could help the business improve. A report should never be based on one way communication but two way, leave an email address that people can share feedback with you so you can track your progress overtime.
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The Article was written by Abosede George-Ogan and she will be one of the Facilitators on our up-coming Up-level program and has an upcoming workshop scheduled to hold Saturday, June 18, 2016 to learn more. For enquiries, send a mail to abosedegeorgeogan@gmail.com.
