Mr Bawalle Ali, Principal Business and Management Consultant,
Centre for Management Development, has said that capacity development of Nigerian entrepreneurs would reduce the rate of business collapse in the country.
He gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
He said that while many factors such as easy financing, conducive business environment, state of infrastructure, among others were important variables for business to strive, capacity building for business owners was also necessary.
According to him, capacity development programmes for entrepreneurs is germane as it provides platform for entrepreneurs to acquire needed knowledge, skills, attitude and competencies to drive their ideas.
“A significant number of entrepreneurship businesses are collapsing within five years of commencement not because of basic infrastructure, supportive business ecosystem, financing gap, among others.
“Rather, they are collapsing due to lack of entrepreneurs’ capacity, capability and competencies to growth and to sustain the business.
“No doubt, significant proportion of entrepreneurs lack soft skills, like financial literacy, organisation management, marketing, inter-relationship, communication, records keeping and many more.
“Gap in soft skills is inevitably the precursor to collapse of many fine and highly profitable enterprises.
He added that to avert the situation, the government and agencies saddled with responsibilities of entrepereneurship support, need to collaborate with capacity building institutions to avert the menace.
“It is imperative to note that without the right mix of entrepreneurs’skills, billions of public funds appropriated to entrepereneurship development will continue to evaporate.
“As a matter of priority and policy, the government should budget not less than 10 per cent of her annual budget for youth entrepreneurship and capacity development.
“This will ensure that even before accessing the funds, entrepereneurs would be made to under go a well conceived skills enhancement training with recognised training institutions.
“This kind of arrangement will not only provide entrepreneurs with requisite skills and competencies required for business sustainability but will accelerate productivity in the long run,” he added. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)