A university don has stressed the importance of developing a strategy for curbing the persistent failure of small businesses in Africa.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation, Strategy and Administration), Caleb University, Prof. Olalekan Asikhia, gave the advice at the ongoing International Conference on Global Business Rescue and Resilience, in Durban, South Africa.
The research professor in his paper on: “Business Resilience Determinants and Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises,” noted that “organisational factors like effective proactive management skills, flexible organisational structure, marketing and environmental scanning skills must be developed to stem business failure.”
The outbreak of COVID-19 and the concomitant failures of businesses across nations of the world showed that several firms were not proactive enough to predict their environments and reconfigure resources and capabilities to arrest the plunge.
Accordingly, the fundamental objective of the Conference is to address and proffer solutions to the alarming rate of business failure in Africa, ranging from three months to five years across nations the Continent.
Themed: “International Conference on Business Resilience, Continuity and Regeneration,” participants stressed the need to constitute a team across nations of the world to assist stem this dangerous trend.
The Rescue Team is to consider the need for intensive diagnostic tools and processes that will rightly identify the different degrees of ailments bedevilling different organisations, before attempting a prescription.
The team agreed that the concept will not be “one method solves all”, given the environmental dynamism in which businesses operate from one country to the other.
Organisational factors like effective proactive management skills, flexible organisational structure, marketing and environmental scanning skills must be developed to stem business failure.
