Saturday 11 June 2011

role of small scale medium enterprise in an economy:

Small scale medium enterprise is the backbone of successful economies like USA where over 23 million small business employ more than 50% of the private workforce and generate more than half of the nation's GDP.

EUROPE: small scale medium enterprise are seen largely as essential for European employment. Each year one million new Small scale medium enterprise are set up in the euope.Small scale medium enterprise account for 99.8% of all companies and 65% of business turn over in Europe.

TAIWAN: 70% of jobs are generated by production activities that employ less than 20 workers each.40,000 firms account for 75% of its exports.

It is undoubtedly accepted that small scale business forms the bedrock of any nation's industrial take off especially in a typical developing country like Nigeria, in the following ways:

1. Small scale medium enterprise provides more employment per unit of capital invested because they are generally more labor intensive.

2.Small scale medium enterprise would aid larger industries by manufacturing raw material input and generally act as a catalyst to larger industries thereby generating the desired forward and backward linkages required to build a healthy vibrant industrial base.

3.Small scale medium enterprise encourages indigenous entrepreneurship which will help to develop man-power techniques. small scale medium enterprise will also help develop our non oil-sector especially agro-allied industries which may offset rural migration.

4.Small scale medium enterprise will help form the technological base where such industries would start from small units operating and innovating indigenous technology to suit our particular needs and utilizing local value of resources products, equipments and manpower.

5.Small scale medium enterprise generally source their raw materials locally while a good number of larger units rely on imported raw materials. In this era of scarce foreign exchange, industries that source their raw materials locally stand a better chance of beginning more prosperous.

An overall look at the small scale medium enterprise sector will reveal macro economic facts pointing to developments that would enhance more income parity ,raise capacity utilisation of industries, lower inflation by producing more and creating competion.

Further development of small scale medium enterprise would also increase GDP and will overall raise the standard of living of all Nigerians.

developing an entrepreneurial spirit:

The entrepreneurial spirit is often to difficult to define, let alone examine in detail because of its perception as a highly creative and dynamic entity. While it can be applied to a wide range of disciplines and professions, it is perhaps most closely associated with the world of business.
The word "entrepreneur" is French in origin and if interpreted in its literal context means "between jobs"

Concepts that appear intrinsic to what constitute Entrepreneurial Spirit:

1. Uniquness:In a highly developed global business community where new ideas and business models are increasingly in short supply. and the importance of uniqueness cannot be under estimated and those exhibiting an entrepreneurial spirit are often associated with concepts that encapsulate originality and ingenuity.Take for example,Steve Jobs bringing the APPLE IPOD to the market.

2.Creativity:Creativity is highly connected to uniquness but the two are not identical.Individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit are experienced at harnessing the creative process to help them produce a unique product/service or advantage. So whereas uniqueness describes the end outcome, Creativity describes the process of how one achieves it. Those with entrepreneurial spirit are often creative individuals who are ready, willing and able to actively adopt new techniques to get ahead even at the expense of being ridiculed by others.

3.Risk Taking: In a western society that is so often risk averse, those with entrepreneurial spirit embrace risk taking and it is impossible for such a concept not to be associated with entrepreneurs and the often high risk potential involved in following a new cutting edge approach, it must be observed however that risk is not the same as recklessness and those demonstrating an entrepreneurial spirit are likely to be adept as assessing the risks involved in any undertaking.

4.Business Savy:As highlighted previously, those with entrepreneurial spirit should not be considered as reckless mavericks indeed quite for the opposite, good entrepreneurs are motivated by profits and are skilled at identifying a lucrative niche in the market that can be exploited for profit. Take for example Steve Jobs at Apple computers who has successfully navigated a profitable course in the computing and software industry despite the market beign dominated by Microsoft and IBM for a number of decades.In addition, he was the first to spot the potential of utilizing the computing industry to open a new market leader in its business stream. Such action requires great skills and confidence and demonstrates a clear entrepreneurial spirit.

5. Developing Potential:Identifying,investing in an nurturing potential are also very essential to the ideas attached associated with entrepreneurial spirit because of the need to find differing solutions to a business problem. Established business often fail to discover breakthroughs because they stick to a rigid investment formula that has worked for them in the past rather than finding new ways of moving forward.

6.Adaptability:The entrepreneurial spirit is always adaptable and ready to overcome barriers presented by business problems and is usually quicker at resolving those issues than mainstream business thinkers.

7.Leadership:Leadership behaviour,good communication, getting along well with others, responsive to suggestion,criticism,concern for other persons, develops other person.

Challenges of Self Employment for Nigerian Graduates:

In the face of the serious and growing threat of graduate unemployment in Nigeria today,the need for the Nigerian graduate of today to seek avenues for self employment and financial breakthrough,self fulfillment now seems impelling.
In the 1960's the problems of unemployment in Nigeria was basically that of primary and secondary school leaver.One popular explanation then was that these school leavers were ill equipped and lack specific skills to offer the labor market .The explanation however,is now largely irrelevant today as even well equipped graduates in almost all disciplines now find that the Nigerian labor market no longer has enough jobs for them .Thus,rather than employers vainly searching for skills that are not there,the situation has become one of skills vainly searching for jobs that are not there .

It is crystal clear that generally unemployment is unacceptably high and that is here to stay except we do something about it .In fact it is here to increase:

- As universities,polythecnics,monothecnics,colleges of education's satelites,university campuses turn out thousands of graduates every year,The Nigerian economy as it is presently run does not have the capacity to absorb chains of thousands of unemplyed youth.

In other words,the Nigerian graduates of today can no longer rely on the Nigerian Labour market to provide him/her job.He has to invent an alternative source of employment which is SELF EMPLOYMENT.

SELF EMPLOYMENT: In addition to providing avenues for gainful employment offers particular advantage to the self employee

(1) It offers the employee the opportunity of engaging in trade or business talents.

(2) Suceesful self employments creates in the employed a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

(3) The self employed does not need to undergo job selection interviews.He does not need to please big boss or personnel manger in order to obtain good end of your reports and recommendations for promotion.In fact the main external influences he is subjected to occur in his intention with banks when he/she want to borrow money,clients when he/she wants to buy raw materials and sell his products and other similar transactions.

(4) The self employed is thus a creator and master of its fortunes.He/she decides his own works of programmes,work hours,what to produce ,where to produce.In effect he is the sole arbiter of his fitness to establish and run a business.

This therefore,puts a heavy responsibility on him and he has to be a good entrepreneur.the practical challenges which will confront any graduate wishing to establish a business of his own are well known.They are same problems which confronts any prospective business man.They include

(1) Mobilisation of capital

(2) Identifying a potentially viable project

(3) Ability to run the business profitably

(4) Meet stiff competition from other firms in the industry among others.

The unemployed Nigerian graduate who wish to go to business should further more recognize that a business man is a risk-taker.In his business he either makes profit or he losses.

Besides,every firm in its formative years,that is during its gestation period ,invariably make losses,its only later if it succeeds that it eventually breaks even .Thus the most serious challenges that will perhaps face the Nigerian graduate who establish his own business is how to cope with the initial period of loss and how to break even in this critical period..

How to handle customer complaints:

Who is the Customer?
It is mandatory for any businessman to fully understand his customer because the purpose of any business is to create and keep a customer. Your customer is anyone who gets the result of your effort. These include both traditional clients(external)outside your organisation as well as colleagues at all levels.

To handle there complaints an ENTREPRENEUR should:

Listen without interrupting.
Show empathy.
Guide the conversation with open question.
Who/What/Where/When/Why/How?
Write down the information
Discuss the resolution
Agree on course of action
Act to resolve the complaint now: if possible (if not, set a time by which the problem will be resolved)
Ensure the action is carried out.
Keep the Customer informed of progress.

the entrepreneurial skills you need?

Simply having the capital to start a business is NOT enough. There is usually need for skills audit .The process of identifying the necessary skills and assessing their presence is called skills audit.
As a rule of thumb, the smaller the business ,the wider the range of skills that the owner-manager will need to operate the business ,particularly in the early stages of its development.

.Technical Knowledge or Expertise:Knowlege and expertise of goods or services which you plan to provide and how the customers will make use of them .From the customer's perspective ,the supplier is the specialist who is expected to answer all of the awkward questions.

.Marketing Skils:To enable you research your market ,to design a marketing plan to promote and distribute your goods or services.Many owner managers set up a business in an area ,with which they are already familiar,and so have some basic knowledge of their market,but there is still a need to maintain objectivity ,particularly when estimating market share and sales volume.

Sales skills: These are often assumed to be the same as marketing skills, but there is a distinct difference. You may have an excellent product, and a market ripe to take it ,but you still need the skills to persuade your customers or your distributors that it is your product they should be using or retailing, rather than one supplied by a competitor. In the early stages of developing your business, you may not be able to afford to pay a full-time sales person and may have to do the job yourself.


Organizational Skills: The ability to plan and organize yourself and your business, to ensure that your staff,resources,materials,finished e.t.c are in the right place at the right time .Careful planning and attention to detail enables you to make the most productive use of time and resources and to avoid costly waste.

Decision Making:The facility to analyze problems,identify and evaluate options and to make objective and rational decisions including how they will made to work effectively.

Financial Skills: Keeping day to day account is not necessarily the best use of the owner's manager time, as part -time bookkeeper or accountant would probably be much more cost- effective. However it is still important for the owner to be able to understand the accounting procedures.In particular,it is essential to have a basic understanding of budgetary planning and control, in order to keep the business on track and to spot any potential problems. There may also be a need for the owner to be involved in credit control and debt collection.

Customer Service Skills:This is not just the case of keeping the customer's satisfied by providing a consistently high standard of service. For small firms, one of the biggest headaches in dealing with customers is debt collection and persuading your customers to pay their bills on time without the risk of offending them or loosing their business.

Staff Management: The ability to supervise, delegate work, train and motivate staff to get the best out of them. The importance of this is to often under-estimated, and for new-owner managers who have never previously been involved with managing staff. One of the hardest aspects is that of delegation-trusting the staff to get on with their jobs without constant close scrutiny, so that the owner can get on with job of running the business.

the tools of business ethics:

1. VALUES:

it is useful in this text to recognize that business ethics can refer to several different things. Most commonly it refers to ethical conducts in and by business .In this sense, its benefits to business include: doing the right things, which typically promotes achievement of business goals. While doing the wrong things hinders the successive pursuit of those goals.

To recognize which things are the right things however, it is helpful to understand the principles that underlines ethical conduct in business. Accordingly business ethics are the knowledge and study of such principle can also be of value to business.

CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE TO VALUES:
In a given culture at a given time ,there is broad agreement on major values. Most people agree on what is good(e.g. the right value)and what is bad(corruption in government)Not all people or groups of people held the same values, but the values of those in majority will affect the beliefs and behaviour of society.

BELIEFS: The action of business managers are affected largely by their personal beliefs. For example ,managers who are motivated by economic values will tend to stress the importance of growth for their companies. Managers who are motivated by social values on the other hand, might be willing to sacrifice some company growth to improve the conditions of the service of the employees .However, Values are not only factors that influence managers decisions. The specific situation a manager faces will have great influence on or even dominate how a manager behaves.

RIGHTS: Ethical concerns permeate every aspect of business activity. Ethical issues arise obviously in connection with core ethical values, when there are questions for example honesty or justice.
They also are potentially an issue whenever actions or decisions affect other people ,either by helping or by harming them. But ethical issues can even arise when other people's rights and interests are not directly at stake ,Whenever there is a choice to be made between values or a better and a worse way of doing something or a thing deemed to be a good one of its kind ,an ethical judgment is involved .In this broad sense ,most judgments and choices and decisions about goals, standard qualities and priorities are ethical.

Accordingly most business actions and choices, decisions and judgements have ethical aspects :they specifically involves ethical values that help or harm people indicate character or all of the above.

In my own opinion “Hiring and firing ,choosing suppliers ,setting prices, establishing objectives, allocating resources ,determining dividends, disciplining workers, planning schedules, awarding contracts..all involves ethical choices.

Even the most trivial decisions and ones that appear to be made on purely technical or economic groups typically have ethical aspects .It is just not in the fringe areas of "do gooding"that ethical issues occur. but through out all of the business :ethics is inescapable in business as in life.

In order therefore, to know which ethical issues should concern business as business and to resolve ethical problems in ways that are appropriate for business, a clear understanding of business ethics is essential .

if it is a company's responsibility to be concerned with advancing the interests of its employees .Then it will be essential to consider the issue of stability of employment as it is quite apparent that this constitutes one of the paramount interests of most employess.At the very least ,losing his job is likely to cause grave inconvenience.


OTHER TOOLS OF BUSINESS ETHICS

2.LOYALTY:Steadfastness in allegiance to the management of the business enterprise. This implies the commitment on the part of set objectives of the business organization.

3.FAIRNESS: The avoidance of discriminating tendencies in dealing with people of diverse background,endeavouring to treat all human begins as equal and then give each person equal opportunities.

4.PRINCIPLED BEHAVIOUR: The demonstration of a consistent behaviour in similar situations that makes one's behaviour predictable and ensuring the same direction being made in similar situations.

5.CONFIDENTIALITY:Beign discreet in dealing with the publics in a manner that makes the employee to refuse to divulge official information even in the face of financial inducement or inspite of threats to his life.

STEPS IN SETTING UP BUSINESS.

1.Business ideas/objectives

2.Choice of project/scope of business

3.Project feasibility,marketing,technical,commercial viability

4.Project management/Management competence.

5.Business funding.

6.Project take off/Implementation.

Identifying And Exploiting 95 Investment Opportunities In Small And Medium Scale Enterprises..

Many people believe that one cannot engage in business except one has sufficient capital. While this may be true for medium to large scale business, it is not necessarily true for most small scale business which one may embark upon in the comfort of one's home .Many think about the money before the business and since money is not always very easy to come by some people never come close to actually doing any business.

It is sometimes difficult to identify the viable projects ,but that precisely is the beginning of starting a business .we have identified over one hundred business opportunities for small and medium scale categories which covers service oriented ventures,Crafstmanship,Agriculture,Processing manufacturing and commerce e.t.c

SMALL SCALE BUSINESS

1.Firewood supply

2.Growing vegetable during the dry season

3.Packaging of Food items

4.Meat retailing

5.Plaintain production

6.Restaurant(Buka)Service

7.Backyard Poultry raising

8.Rabbit raising

9.Organising Labour Squads

10.Creating a Nursery for Children

11.Child Minding

12.Home Laundry service

13.Arranging foods for parties

14.Arranging drinks for parties

15.Designing and making children dresses

16.Raising of Pets

17.Growing Fresh Maize

18.Distilling and bottling water for laboratories and petrol stations

19.Charcoal Making

20.Piggery

21.Purchasing food and other items for group of friends

22.Sign writing

23.Raising of seedlings and seeds

24.Writing of books for publication

25.Portrait painting

26.Producing beer meat

27.Raising of flowers

28.Landscaping

29.Making baskets and cages from palm fonds.

30.Making brooms

31.Toothpicks/Cocktail sticks

32.Sandblocks/Burnt bricks

33.Taxi driving

34.Cane technology

35.Amateur Painting

36.Organising cooking squads

37.Typing Institute

38.Selling leaves

39.Selling food at building sites

40.Medical practice

41.Supply of logs to sawmills

42.Pallet making

43.Trading in Used Jute bags and papers

44.Litter packing from Poultry houses

45.Production of conference bags

46.Insurance Brokerage

47.Consultancies

48.Oragnisation of cultural groups for occasional performances

49.Performing groups

50.Hiring trucks for movement of goods

51.Selling farm products

52.fast foods

53.Land surveying

54.Telephone operation

55.Veterinary services

56.Running a catering Institute

57.Running approved boarding houses

58.Manufacture and distribution of small farm tools

59.Gifts for special occasions

60.Tailoring

61.Bricklaying

62.Plumbing

63.Tinkering

64.Roadside mechanic cars and motorcycles

65.Rearing of day old chicks to three to four weeks

66.Making gari and other products from Cassava

67.Hunting and fishing

68.Knitting children's sweaters, socks and caps

69.Electrical installation

70.Weaving traditional clothes

71.Making Akara balls

72.Publicity Agent or Public relations consultant

73.GSM Business: Selling recharge cards and phone accessories.




MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES

74.Palm kernel Oil production

75.Soap production

76.Piggery

78.Agriculture/Fish Farming

79.Snail rearing

80.Grass cutter rearing

81.Exportation

82.Chalk making

83.Bone Meal production

84.Foam production

85.Nylon production

86.Concrete block production

87.Garri production/Cassava chips

88.Ice Block production

89.Hair/Body cream products

90.Chemical products

91.Plastic crushing

92.Spark plug reconditioning

93.Professional practice(Law,Accountancy,education e.t.c)

94.Food and Beverage production.

95.Big time rental services:Chairs,Canopies,Cutleries,Plates e.t.c