Bussiness/Commerce

Developing entrepreneurial skills, investment opportunities in old Aguata

The reoccurring phenomena in the Old Aguata have been the problem of poverty, and the greatest challenge has been on means and ways of empowering the people to be self reliant. PROF. BENJAMIN OSISIOMA, who was a resource person at the Old Aguata Day celebration 2015, in this paper he presented at the occasion, addresses this and other challenges facing Old Aguata and the way forward.

Introduction
The United Nations (UN) has time and time again, mobilized global resources for the socio-economic and developmental challenges of our times. In 2000, the goal was the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); in 2005, the world had metamorphosed into a new global challenge, the     Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The bottom-line however, revolves around the trinity of problems – the core and critical factors of poverty, ignorance and disease. As disparate as these problems are, they touch on the crux of the global developmental problem, which is the need for wealth creation and the improvement of the quality of life of the ordinary people.
      Poverty is deprivation, destitution, debasement, inferiority, cheapness and dearth of resources to live at a level considered normal or comfortable. The North-South divide at the global level is a wealth poverty divide. The rich and more naturally endowed South has provided the brawn-hewers of wood and drawers of water for the far less-endowed but more developed North. It was the late United StateS President, J. F. Kennedy, who warned that a free society which cannot feed the many citizens who are poor, will not be able to protect the few that are rich. The rich and mighty in society cannot sleep because the poor are hungry and awake. The challenge for Nigeria (and indeed the Old Aguata Union OAU), is how to redress the problems of poverty, ignorance and disease, and acquire the knowledge required to improve the quality of life of our people. The urgent task is to employ the entrepreneurial tool in the venture of creating, nurturing and prospering in wealth.
     At the outset, we need to identify some basic assumptions that underline the quest for wealth creation:

• Wealth is measured by a person’s ability to survive so many day forwards without working;
• The world is filled with talented poor people; they are not poor because of what they know, but because of what they do not know.
• Schools are designed to produce good employees instead of good employers. So children spend years in schools, studying subjects they will never use, preparing for a world that no longer exists;
• Most people if given more money, will only get into more debt. Skills in making money are not nearly as important as skills in keeping money;
• The rich buy assets; the poor only pay expenses; the middle class incurs liabilities;
• Long hours and hard work are good; but they do not necessarily translate to wealth and riches;
• The battle to get out of poverty begins with a change in mind-set;
• Enterprise is the workshop that turns out riches.  Enterprises skills are required to convert dreams into reality, and ambition into achievement.
  Certain questions need to be asked! Is there anyone who deliberately prefers rags to riches? Is there a short-cut to wealth? Can schools teach wealth/value creation?  Can an employee in a corporation really be wealthy?
     This paper shall attempt to identify entrepreneurial skills that will aid in the inculcation of wealth-creating capacity among our people, and lead in the definition of approaches to gainful investment.
       Entrepreneurship defined
  Entrepreneurship is:

• The combination of initiative, innovation and calculated risk-taking associated with identifying market opportunities, mobilizing resources and managing them efficiently in the operation of productive, viable and socially-responsible enterprise;
• The result of a disciplined, systemic process of applying creativity and innovation to needs and opportunities in the marketplace. It involves applying focused strategies to new ideals and new insights to create a product or a service that satisfies customers’ needs or solves existing problems;
• The dynamic process of translating dreams, visions and ideas into economically viable entities.
      It involves casting the vision and defining the path to the future, refusing to accept the status quo and taking risks in the pursuit of over-arching goals. Entrepreneurship is not a project or a mission. It is first and foremost, a mind-set, a life-style - a process of creative destruction with an eye on profit, a value adding and wealth-creating process. There are various spin-offs to the entrepreneurial drive: intra-preneurship, which is corporate entrepreneurship, co-preneurship, referring to a partnership of entrepreneurs, cyber-preneurship, referring to the repeated commencement and growing of new businesses to sustainable size before striking out again to fresh fields, and agir-preneurship,  the application of entrepreneurial skills in the area of agriculture.
       The entrepreneur creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertaintly for the purpose of achieving profit and growth by identifying significant opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on them. He shifts economic resources out of an area of lower, into an area of higher productivity and great yield. He causes resources to undergo a level of manipulation to achieve set goals – invent new products and services, develop new technology, discover new knowledge, improve existing products or service, and find different ways of providing more goods and services with fewer resources.
       Indeed, the hallmark of entrepreneurship is finding new ways of satisfying customers’ needs; inventing new products and services; putting together existing ideas in new and different ways; creating new twists on existing products and services.
       Linda Turner was in an exercise class where she noticed a pregnant woman struggling to keep up with the pace of the exercises. She began to wonder about practical underwear for pregnant women that would meet the problems in hand. After hours of extensive research and countless interviews, she decided to try out combination of two products: a jog bra and a heavy girdle. She sewed them together to make what she called Bellybra. It looked ridiculous, but it worked. And as prominent women magazines gave her product rave reviews, she took out a patent on her product and began production. She created a successful business by taking two everyday items that have existed for many years and combining them in a different and unique way.               
      The entrepreneur brings to light a differentiator, something unique, which represents values in the eyes of the buyer or customer; he sees change as normal and healthy - searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
         In the 1940s, the Swiss had over 80% of the market in wrist watches sewn-up. They made and marketed the best watches, and their industries employed over 80,000 employees. A manufacturer approached the Swiss watchmakers with a new product in the 1950s: the digital watch. He offered them the new product. They rejected it. They already had the best watches globally. The man went elsewhere with his invention, and sold it to Seiko of Japan. Today 80% of all watches are digital, and the famed Swiss watch makers are left on the fringes, and with a dwindling market. Today, their industries employ less than 18,000 employees while the boom has gone elsewhere. Firms which refuse to change, choose to die.
       He perceives or senses opportunity where others fear rejection and failure. He talks not of obstacles but challenges. His mind-set is tuned to success. Though he is aware of possibility of failure, he does not allow it to pre-occupy him.
       The entrepreneurial model seeks to create a dynamic fix among four inter-related components – people, context, deal, and opportunity.

• People - These are those who actively participate in the venture or contribute resources to the venture. They provide the skills, attitudes, knowledge, contacts, goals, and values which provide the resource mix critical to ultimate success. With their multiple motivation and capacities, they create the energy and determine the nature of the outcome. 
• Context - These are elements outside the control of the entrepreneur, yet are active determinants of success or failure of the endeavor. They include the macro-economy, tax and regulatory structure and socio-political environment – specific contextual factors that can frame the opportunities and the risks that a new venture faces.
•   Deal – This is the substance of the bargain that defines who in a venture that gives what, who gets what, and when deliveries and receipts will take place. They include economic benefits, social recognition, autonomy and decision rights, satisfaction of deep personal needs, social interactions, fulfillment of generative and legacy desires, and delivery on altruistic goals.
• Opportunity - This is any activity requiring an investment of scarce resources in hopes of future return. Stevenson defines entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity, beyond the tangible resources that one currently controls. Thus, the entrepreneur needs to know how opportunity can be recognized, the process of committing to an opportunity, gaining control over the resources, managing the network of resources, and the reward system for  all stakeholders. The entrepreneurial organization thus, focuses on opportunity not resources.
       Opportunity in terms of business entrepreneurship refers to circumstances of the moment which lend themselves to profitable and beneficial appropriation for a business man who has an eye for gain. It is an occasion, a business opening, a sudden economic development, which offers the possibility of a successful application of industry, which a sharp business man can utilize to his benefit. Thus, opportunities abound in terms of: 

• A product needed in a locality, but is not being produced or sold;
• A market niche not filled by any entrepreneur;
• A technological breakthrough which may improve the efficiency of production if properly applied:
• An abundant source of raw materials not used or exploited by any producer, but which can offer advantages to an entrepreneur.
        The law of opportunity holds that opportunity offers itself to men in direct proportion to their ability, their will for action, their power of vision, their experience, and their knowledge of business. The only men who consistently cannot find opportunities are those who are unprepared to take advantage of them. Thus, it has been said that there are three kinds of persons in our world today: those who see problems in every opportunity, those who see opportunities in every problem, and those who do not know the difference between problems and opportunities.

• Wealth creation involves making the most of the opportunities available to us.
• Beyond that, it involves creating our own opportunity
• Good things do not just happen; people make them happen.
• Be creative. Originate ideas for new products, new method of distribution, increased productivity, labor-and-cost-saving devices, better handling methods and improved information storage.
• People who provide these ideas, get recognition for their contributions.
          Prof. Benjamin .C. Osisioma, is a professor of Accountancy, and lectures at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State.