Why businesses fail – Expert
The immediate past President and Chairman of Council of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Mr. Idy Enang has given an insight into why businesses fail. He said many of the businesses collapse because of lack of understanding of basic marketing. Enang, a former Managing Director of Samsung Nigeria in a chat with […]
The immediate past President and Chairman of Council of the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria (NIMN), Mr. Idy Enang has given an insight into why businesses fail.
He said many of the businesses collapse because of lack of understanding of basic marketing.
Enang, a former Managing Director of Samsung Nigeria in a chat with Daily Trust said to build a sustainable business, marketing must be at the driving seat.
“If you want a business that is sustainable, marketing actually is the soul of business. Marketing is a driver of business, marketing is business, business is marketing. Marketing should be at the forefront of ensuring that people understand the nexus and the connect,” he said.
Enang, a motivational speaker and business coach recently handed over the reign of leadership of NIMN at the Conference and AGM held in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital which happened to be his home town.
The conference examined the theme of “Leveraging ESG in driving value across generations,” reinforcing the role of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) in businesses.
According to him, while big organisations incorporate ESG in their business practices, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) care less about ESG.
He said, “ESG is the current idea, concept for sustainability and leveraging it and speaking about it, letting companies, organisations know that today’s consumers, today’s business requires you to be sensitive to the environment, understanding that you don’t just do what you want to do and how you want to do it but you must also understand the endemic consequences.”
He stated that many SMEs are accidental and so they failed to put marketing at the soul of what they do.
“When you call an SME, why are you in business? What problems do you want to solve? That is the underlining part of marketing. Many SMEs are accidental,” he added.
He advised SMEs to be wary of what he called the “growth trap,” saying, “A lot of SMEs out there are obsolete because they do not embrace newness, innovation and that could be technology, it could be anything.”
“Also there is the lack of understanding of basic marketing. Why are you in business? What do you want to sell, what is the opportunity? What is the value at stake? These are necessary questions you must answer but without these, once you get into the poor, you would sink.
“Businesses are sinking today. It is not the tax reform that is going to help them. Everybody thinks it is tax reform. What will help them is knowledge,” he stated.
Enang stated that every industry is confronted with its challenge , saying to avoid sinking SMEs must seek knowledge.
“What is going to build a sustainable pathway for businesses is knowledge. So if you want to get into a space, you need to have acquired something that allows you to be able to do it. As you move you begin to learn. It is a ripple effect and it begins to open up,” he advised.
He warned the people practising as marketers without the requisite certification, saying the law will soon catch up on them.
“There are many people out there that are brand managers, marketing managers, marketing directors. It is a matter that you want to ask yourself, we pursued this in a way through advocacy, we would pursue it through some other means but there will come a time when the rule of law will truly take precedence in our life,” he said.