Participants Commend Diamond Bank on SMEs

Diamond Bank Plc has again reiterated its support for SMEs in the recently organised SME Seminar held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. .The increasing need for financial freedom and entrepreneurship in the south-south was demonstrated when hundreds flocked to the business seminar organised by the Bank at Atrium Centre on Stadium Road in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

 Speaking at the event, head, emerging business of Diamond Bank, Mark Ifashe, said all hands must be on deck to groom business owners to cut down on the high mortality rate of new businesses. He said new business fail because of wrong practices. This, he said, prompted Diamond Bank to always bring entrepreneurs together for teaching and grooming to reduce casualty syndrome. 

To drive home their passion for SMEs and their commitment to entrepreneurial development, the South-South regional head of Diamond bank, Mkem Okoro, welcomed participants, saying the seminar was deliberately made free to help them grow their businesses, imploring them to “Make sure you take something home to implement in your business”. 

The event had in attendance different participants from different industries ranging from full time business operators to professionals in the health sector including medical doctors, pharmacists and full time employees who also own their own businesses and desire to move their business to viable corporations.

 A pharmacist and CEO of Kingzy Pharma Limited, Kingsley Amagba, commended Diamond Bank for their sustained passion for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and for their loan policy that boosts business operators. 

One of the Speakers at the event, Eugenia Marcus, CEO of Truffles Global Resources, said the huge crowd was a sign that a paradigm shift has occurred, adding that it was gratifying that educated youth were taking over the business scene. She said it was the educated entrepreneurs that would move a business from SME and enterprises to corporations and conglomerates in the coming years.

 

She also harped on need for systems and structures that would carry a business so the business owner would not need to be present all the time. “You must build your business such that you could go away for months and come back to meet same business”. She mentioned the following as steps and structures of a viable corporation: Market penetration, market expansion, product expansion, diversification, and acquisition/mergers.

 

Marcus said she started off baking cakes in her garage but now has a thriving corporate centre in the Government Reserved Area (GRA) in Port Harcourt, employing many workers in cakes, bread, food, make-up, beads, etc. “My target is to build a corporation and I must get there”.