FirstBank Sustainability Centre focuses on Business Plan for Women Entrepreneurs

Fisrt Bank of Nigeria Limited, through its Sustainability Centre, engaged women entrepreneurs in capacity building focusing on business plan and other key relevant issues for their business growth.

Pauline Nsa, managing director, FBN Microfinance Bank Limited, told participants at the FirstBank Sustainability Centre that “women need to have clearly spelt out business plans before they go into the businesses. The reason is that when people fail to plan, they plan to fail because money is limited and need to be articulated how to be used.”

She was concerned that most Nigerian businesses do not start with a business plan, saying “if a business plan is well articulated, women tend to be very good in implementation because they are usually focused.”

According to her, being focused in managing men and materials effectively are the key ingredients to succeed in business, as business plan is not engraved on stone; it can be modified in the business environment.

“Business plan is not something you have to get the entrepreneur to do for you because the entrepreneur has the idea. As an entrepreneur you know what you want to do, how you want to do it, the target market you want to address, the products and where to sell them,” she said.

Responding to questions on challenges of entrepreneurship vis-a-vis insurance, Val Ojumah, managing director/CEO, FBNInsurance Limited, said “insurance is not an attractive word because it is always associated with something going wrong before it becomes relevant. It is not a Nigerian or SME thing but a human thing. Nobody want anything to go wrong or expects anything to go wrong but the reality is that things still go wrong, that is when insurance comes in. for the small business owners in particular, they need insurance more because they don’t have the reserve and funding to back up their businesses when things go wrong.

“What I want to do in this workshop is to have a conversation with them to ask them why those who buy in buy insurance are buying and why those who don’t buy are not buying and from that discussion, we can agree on what they should be doing or not be doing. Why should you buy, why should you not buy, what kind of insurance should you buy and what kind shouldn’t you buy.”

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE