SMALL SCALE BUSINESS AS A STRATEGY FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In every business there is a way of doing things or a system adopted by the firm in order to achieve its objectives and goal leads to their growth, which is also a means of promoting entrepreneur practice inNigeria. This practical entrepreneur development inNigeriais the main target of every nation and the impact of business to realise this growth is the subject of small scale business management. For any business to work towards achieving any objectives it must work towards developing strategy which will be a guide to achieve the goal.
Strategy have beens defined by many authors, Mr. Ojemba G. Agbo he defined strategy as a general programme of nation and a deployment of emphasis and resources towards the attainment of the overall objectives. It is defined by Kenneth and Hatter as a process by which an organisation formulates objective and is managed to achieve them .strategy is seen by another author as the pattern of objectives purposes or goal and major policies and plans for achieving these goals state in such a way as to define what business a company is in or to be in and the kind of company it is or to be (christerst Andrews and Bower).
However, strategy is seen to be a planned skill in managing any affair or achieving any objective and this make small scale to be seen as a strategy for practical entrepreneur development. However many developing countries have failed to adopt this strategy owing to their belief that it is slow process of industrialization which may not be very computable with their desire to catch up with the industrialized countries. Many countries of the world that are advance in their industrial development consigning practical entrepreneur practice. Started with small scale business. In Nigeria, both federal and state government are now placing much emphasis on the promotion of indigenous small scale business enterprises with a review to encouraging entrepreneurship.
A business is defined as a human organisation which produces and market product (target market) it aims to serve. It can take place anywhere and involve receiving and giving process. (Odo P.C.). Monughton Etal in his introduction to business enterprises defined it as the sum total of those activities that have their main purpose of creating, maintaining and extension of a concern continue to exist because it earns profit or other benefit for it’s owner. Defining what constitutes small scale business entrepreneurship bring out a lot of entrepreneur which varies from country to country, from institution to another but generally speaking a small scale business entrepreneur is independently owned and managed but is not dominant in it’s field of operation. It is independently because it is wholly owned by an individual or party and managed by them without outside supervision on it’s management and extra case is taken in it’s management and this help in developing the economy of state and nation as a whole.
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY.
Entrepreneurship started when people produces more products than they needed, as such they had to exchange these surpluses with others who wanted to dispose of their surpluses. For instance, if ca blacksmith produced more hoes that he had not but needed. May be needed some yams or goat etc, he would look for some one who needed his products to exchange with. By this way producers came to realise that they concentrate in their areas of production to produces more and then exchange with what they needed. So through this exchange of products, entrepreneurship started.
A typical Nigerian entrepreneur is a set made man who might he said have strong wholly to succeed, he might engage the services of other like friends, mates, in-laws etc to help him in his work or production. Through this way,Nigeriais in the olden days were engaged in entrepreneurship. Early entrepreneurship is characterized with production or manufacturing in which case, the producer most often started with a small capital, most of it from his own savings. Early entrepreneurship started with trade by barter even before the advent any form of money.
Modern entrepreneurship inNigeriastarted with coming of the colonial masters, who brought in their wears and made Nigerians their middlemen. In this way, modern entrepreneurship was conceived. One of the major factors that has in many was discover aged the flow of entrepreneurship development inNigeriais the value system brought about by Forman education. For many decades formal education has been thee presence of the priviledge. With formal education, people had the opportunity of bring employed in the civil services.
The value system discouraged entrepreneurship inNigeriafor colonial masters to sale their goods because if Nigerians continue to be enterprising, they would not have had market for their goods. As such, the system made Nigerians to be dependent on the colonial masters to supply her with the needed products. Again the contract between Nigerian entrepreneurs and foreign entrepreneurs during the colonial era was very detrimental and the competitive business strategy of the foreign entrepreneurs was ruinous and also against moral standards established by society. They did not adhere to the theory of live and lets live. For instance, the united Africans company (UAC) that was responsible for a substantial percentage of the import and export trade ofNigeria, had the policy of dealing directly with producers and refused to make use of the services ofNigeriaentrepreneurs.
The refusal of the expatriate to utilize the services of local businessmen inhibited their expansion and acquisition of necessary skills and attitude. Because of this, many eventually folded up. Those that folded built up a resentment against business which became very demoralizing to other prospective entrepreneurs. But with more people being educated and the fact that government could no longer employ most school leavers, economic programmes to encourage individuals to go into private business and be self eliant were initiated (theodore Gieger etal in Nwalnnkwv u) (mrs. Ani, Nnenna B.).
1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
There have been concerted effort by the federal and state government to encourage young school leavers to enter into small scale business entrepreneurship development in Nigeria by establishing some banks, bodies and lending institutions who will be lending funds to young school leavers, consulting them on how to choose a particular business that will yield them much profit, and thereby bring an increase in our gross national product and creating self employment opportunity for themselves, in order to reduce crime growth rate in our country. Apart from employment opportunity problem and the increase in our gross national product (GNP), it also accelerate the development of both the urban and rural areas. With more enterprises in the community mere infrastructural facilities are attracted, like good roads, electricity, they are able to better their standard of living and save for investment. All these, accelerate development both the urban and rural arena. Without government encouraging practical entrepreneurship development inNigeriaeconomy, instead there will be violent occurrences here and there such stealing 419 and son on. This study also intended to examine constraints encountered by small industries by small industries and affect of government policies on them.