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Business Courage
Monday, October 21, 2013
National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
ThebuddingEntrepreneurs
With many companies closing up, workers retrenched almost on a daily basis and the rate of unemployment on the rise; Ogunmuyiwa Adewale Adisa, a graduate of Industrial Chemistry chose not to join the labour market in the same way most of his friends did- rather, he opted to create job for himself and many others By Biodun Alade
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isturbed by the increasing spate of unemployment and retrenchment in the labour market, especially among graduates occasioned by the harsh working environment that has forced most companies to either shut down or relocate to neighbouring countries, Ogunmuyiwa Adewale thought of how to address the challenge and better his own lot in the process. Unlike most of his peers, his approach to earning a living was distinctly different from those of his peers. Rather than seek for the jobs that were not readily available or live in the fear of being sacked or retrenched because the company can no longer continue in business; he decided to be an employer of labour, thus becoming an entrepreneur. “What motivated me was the desire to employ people, contribute to the economy and reduce the unemployment level in the country,” disclosed Ogunmuyiwa Adewale in an interview with Business Courage. The graduate of Industrial Chemistry from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), added that so many things convinced him not to seek paid job. “As an industrial chemist, I discovered that we have a lot of challenges in this country especially infrastructural deficiencies which has more or less led to the shutting down of industries. “So I asked myself what
do I have, what can I do with it and how do I put it to best use? I discovered my talent as a creative person and that is what has empowered me as an entrepreneur,” he added. He then concluded that rather than seek for job, he will seek out his talent and abilities- what he finds joy in doing and that is well received and appreciated by his environment. To him, it is an asset that has been deposited in every individual and the finetuning of the talent is imperative to self-empowerment. Ogunmuyiwa did not wait to graduate before putting his creativity to work. As an undergraduate, he was always sought out to design proposals and most graphic works in the school, earning little money from it to support himself. During his mandatory one year of National service, he took a step further by serving as an industrial chemist consultant for cottage industries within his domain and today, he is the Chief Executive Officer of Starworld Concepts, dealing in multimedia production, including publishing, web design, animation for movies and montage. The company also offers business support services, advertising and promotional materials inclusive with the aim of helping companies to reach their target customers and clients. “It gives me joy that apart from empowering myself and employing a good number of people that might have been otherwise jobless, I am helping a lot of companies to stay in business while we have also been able to rescue others
Adisa
from going down through our business support services,” he said in an interview. He acknowledged that there were challenges but he never permitted fear to ruin his dream, stressing that rather than give in to the challenge, he always look out for the solutions to the challenges. Like most startups, his initial challenges were finance and training. The challenges were enormous and there are still challenges as at today,
but he said that he has come to realise that challenges are part of every business and your ability to overcome will position your company rightly. “At inception, there was the challenge of finance and training. On the issue of finance, I was able to tackle it because I have read volumes of books on how to start a business, how to start business with other peoples’ money, raising money for business, starting small among others; so I will
say I have loaded myself with enough materials and I just went back to my study room to map out the solution to the challenge. “I decided to divide my needed capital to ten small parts, identified people that can help me out with it and I approached them. The money was small that most people helped while some did not. I am grateful to those that responded then while others that did not respond then marvel at the success I have recorded so far. “In every business, there is always financial challenge and you must solve it. On the aspect of training; I did not have a background in commerce or financial related issues, so, I bought professional books on management, accounting, and marketing and study them. I then practicalise them by applying them to the business and today, we have clients in Nigeria, UK and other parts of the world,” he said. Ogunmuyiwa stressed that it is the duty of every entrepreneur to make his or her business to work by working hard and smart. “It is not enough to work hard, you need to work smart as well because things will not work except you make them to work, that is why I marveled when people think that luck determine the success of a business. You must not keep working hard at a direction that is not yielding the desired result, there might be the need to re-strategize and that is what I called working smart,” he noted. He recalled that when he started, some of his friends
Management Principles
How to develop a Risk Management Plan
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eveloping an effective Risk Management Plan is an important part of any project, but unfortunately, is often viewed as something that can be dealt with later. Issues often do come up though and without a well developed plan, even small issues can become emergencies. There are different types of Risk Management and different uses that include calculating credit-worthiness, determining how long the warranty on a product should last and calculating insurance rates. In this document, we will look at Risk Management from the standpoint of planning for adverse events. Understand how Risk Management works. Risk is the effect (positive or negative) of an event or series of events that take place in one or several locations. It is computed from the probability of the event becoming an issue and the impact it would have (See Risk = Probability X Impact). Various factors should be identified in order to analyze risk, including: Event: What could happen? Probability: How likely is it to happen? Impact: How bad will it be if it happens? Mitigation: How can you reduce the Probability (and by how much)? Contingency: How can you reduce the Impact (and by how much)? Reduction = Mitigation X Contingency Exposure = Risk – Reduction After you identify the above, the result will be what’s called Exposure. This is the amount of risk you simply can’t avoid. Exposure may also be referred to as Threat, Liability or Severity, but they pretty much mean the same thing. It will be used to help determine if the planned activity should