By Toby Chuks
In view of the current socioeconomic hardship in Nigeria, business players in the commercial city of Onitsha gathered at a function tagged Onitsha Businesses Hangout organised by Onitsha Business School to brainstorm on business creativity, growth sustenance and succession harping on the roles expected of people to play to be able to develop business, grow business, sustain business and ensure succession whereby the business continues to exist and flourish after the death of the founder. Among the notable players who participated in the program with the Theme: Defying Succession were: Founder GUO Group, Chief Godwin Ubaka Okeke, founder Chrisoral Group HRM Igwe Chris Chidume Oranu, who is the traditional ruler of Omor in Ayamelum Local Government Area of Anambra State.
Others include the founder Onitsha Business School (OBS) Professor Olusegun, Shogbesan, the Director of Public, Private Partnership on Business Development, Anambra State Investment Promotion Agency (ANSIPA), Mr Congo Emeka Ajekwu, Chairman/CEO Tiger Food, Mr Don Ebubeogu, a Board Member Onitsha Business School Mrs Ijeoma Ezeaso and popular highlife musician Chief Ikem Mazeli alias Material among others. The founder of GUO Group opened the floodgate of discussions by giving account of his beginning shortly after the civil war echoing that he started business with his father 404 Peugeot car which he used to start transport business of conveying passengers to and fro Onitsha and Enugu.
According to him the transport business flourished and going forward, he mustered the courage to approach the Barclay bank which is now Union bank to secure loan to expand his business. He gave account of the strategic ideas he applied to convince the bank to give him loan adding that as a young man in his early twenties he left his beard to grow so that he could look like an elderly person in other to convince the bank to give him loan and it worked out for him. He went further to attribute his success to hard working, discipline and foresightedness adding that he over looked drinking joints and women to focus on the growth of his business.
On sustenance and succession of his vast businesses across the country, Chief Okeke popularly known as Onwa said he groomed his children along with his strategic ideas, discipline, hardworking and foresightedness to take over from him and they have taken over because he has retired and handed things over to them at the age of 75. He told the audience made up of mostly Youth that “there is a method you must have to apply to develop business, grow business and sustain business. The method is to have a clear view and understanding of the business you have to do and then you have to ensure that you discipline yourself against spending your money on things that will not bring back money in your pocket.
In his words, the founder Chrisoral Group Igwe Oranu told the audience that he started his business with the philosophy of “work in progress” and till date his business remains driven by same philosophy of work in progress. According to him, there is no destination for arrival of a business, business is a moving train with progress as its destination, the arrival is progress, so to grow and sustain business requires focus on how to make progress. The Royal father explained that one need to pick the right people and fix them in the right place to be able to grow and sustain business as a company. He blamed failure of businesses to lack of right people adding that the most difficult challenge facing business in Onitsha is lack of employable people.
Hear him further, “The most critical thing in business as a company is to lay hands on right people, skilful people who are serious about doing the job, advancing with the job and keeping the job in progress. The problem we have is that most people are not employable. People lack skill to the point that they are not useful enough to stand as building materials, you cannot use them to build anything and that is a problem, so let me thank the organisers of this program and use this opportunity to advice people here in particular and the public in general to endeavour to make themselves useful, make themselves building materials to build business, build companies and again make sure you have a dreams and then anchor the dream on something practical. Have a dream and try as much as possible to anchor it on something practical to be able to transform it to reality”
In his contribution, the founder OBS Professor Shogbesan, told the audience that it takes good ideas bothering or strategies, structuring, capacity, capability and management to develop, grow and sustain business from one generation to the other in succession. The OBS boss at the first blush told the audience that it takes good ideas ahead of money to start up a business. In like manner, he maintained that it takes good ideas to adapt strategies, build structure, build capacity and capability to ensure good management and good monitoring for sustenance and succession of business adding that business is a living thing that requires many things to survive and most importantly to survive the founder. Among what it takes to ensure succession of business he said is structuring business into partnerships with people as stakeholders and shareholders of the business.
According to him, “building business structure by bringing people to partner or collaborate is the most possible best way for succession of business from one generation to another. One of the major reason why businesses die with the original generation is that people establish business without structure whereby the business becomes a one man show. I am of the view that companied that have died if they had a good structure embedded on partnership. One man cannot do it. A situation where everything ends on one table is not good for business survival and succession. A situation where one man makes decision and takes decision is not good for business survival and succession. Let me remark that bringing people to partner or collaborate with you in business doesn’t stop you from making progress and doesn’t stop you from being the owner of the business, you will still make progress and hold up as the business owner via your stake and your share in the business.
In her words Mrs Ezeaso blamed lack of business succession in Igboland to lack of support from government who also do not help in making government business to survive into succession. Mrs. Ezeaso anchored her point on the failure of successive governments of the Southeast geopolitical zone to ensure survival of giant development works put in place by Dr MI Okpara during his days as the Premier of Eastern Region lamenting that the failure to keep Okpara’s giant development works in agriculture is the bane of the Southeast economy today. Hear her “even government is guilty of failure of survival of business in Igboland because all the industries and firms put in place by MI Okpara have died. So it is a big problem both on the side of government and the private sector that need to be dealt with and the time to face it is now, look at many companies that have died and like Prof noted we need to learn how to work in partnrrship. I don’t think Premier Brewery would have died if there was partners well structured for operation”
Also speaking in response to some blame heaped on Government of Anambra State Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo as Governor, from the panelists and the audience for what they termed as lack of measures to help boost businesses in the State, the ANSIPA Director Mr Ajukwe reveal that Governor Soludo has enacted and implemented good measures including massive development of roads, boosting power supply, boosting security measures and all together ensuring enabling environment to boost businesses in Anambra State and not only, that the Governor is poised to develop more cities across the States in partnership with the private sector which will definitely escalate businesses for the good people of the State.
Another panelist and popular highlife musician Ikem Mazeli gave a story of how he started adding that he chose highlife music because he saw that the major players in the industry such as Ostia Osadebe and Oliver D Coque were ageing and needed to be replaced. The Onitsha born musician stated he became a musician by calling of destiny due to the fact that music runs in the family blood as both his father and mother are grifted with musical attributes. He advised the participants to endeavour to discover their destiny and work along with it noting that he has already started grooming his children in that direction. He added “One of the major thing that can help people to achieve succession is destiny. And destiny works when the parents are able to groom their children in the same direction and I think that is what our Daddy and mentor Onwa GUO has been able to achieve. Onwa GUO was gifted for business and he was able groom his children along the line”
In his holistic view of the program, the Chairman of Tiger Food Mr Don Ebubeogu, who sponsored the program thanked both the organisers and participants for making the program a reality noting the program is timely and very interesting one. He said that the topic of the day Defying Succession was well treated by the panelist and the audience and urged the participants to go home and digest on how to put what they have learnt in to practice.
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