Business and marketing experts have tasked budding entrepreneurs in Nigeria to adopt modern and technological tools and techniques to build their businesses that would ensure business survival with or without them in charge.
The charge was given at the inaugural Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Business Summit in conjunction with The SME Mall in Lagos, as part of the activities to the ADVAN Africa Excellence Awards scheduled for November 20th, 2022 in Lagos.
Addressing the meeting, president of the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), Osamede Uwubanmwen, who spoke on the theme: “Marketing As A Tool For Sustainable Business Development,’ said, “Most entrepreneurs build a business around their own skills, abilities, and vision. They don’t consider their business to be a separate entity.
“As an entrepreneur, you have to pay yourself and make sure your business is separate and distinct.”
While speaking on business structuring, the marketing expert disclosed that the types of business structure which include; capital, business, functional and organisational structures are key to success in business.
According to him, “Every entrepreneur must inculcate the habit of record keeping so also have functional organisational structure through which activities of the business will be monitored and evaluated for the sake of performance assessment.”
Speaking further, he pointed out that, “you need to find out what’s obtainable in your industry, determine where your strength is and where you need help, constantly review your structure, and always ensure you are ready to adapt to change.”
On his part, a marketing professional Samuel Akinrimisi, who spoke on Building Sustainable SME Brand said, “Every entrepreneur whether big or small should consider his or her business as a brand and work toward building it.”
According to him, what makes one’s brand different from another person’s brand is the name, logo, symbol, design among others, noting that the kind of message the brand owner sends out to the target audience is very important.
Earlier in her remarks, chief executive officer, Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), Ediri Ose-Ediale, said the event is the initiative of ADVAN.
According to her, the ADVAN is an umbrella of business people that showcase their goods and services to their target audiences through the media, adding that ADVAN controls about 90 per cent of marketing spend in Nigeria.
“Before now, ADVAN members have been multinationals but we have decided that we need to also support SMEs to become global brands. We will be providing entrepreneurs with insight on how to build a global brand and a sustainable business,” she added.
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