Boye-Ajayi: With AfCFTA Female-owned Startups Require More Support

Boye-Ajayi: With AfCFTA Female-owned Startups Require More Support

The Founder/Chief Executive Officer, The Ark Coaching Company, Olori Boye-Ajayi in this interview speaks on the risks and opportunities the African Continental Free Trade Area presents for micro, small and medium scale enterprise. Hamid Ayodeji presents the excerpts.

What is the mission and vision of The Ark Coaching Company?

The Ark Coaching Company is not just all about business activities, rather we are generally dedicated towards elevating the capacity and minds of Africans by helping such individuals attain more than what they are told they can achieve by the society. Hence, our mission is to enhance the skills and knowledge of our people in order to enable them navigate through the challenges of being in the third world and also use the infrastructures and opportunities on ground to get what they want. Owing to this, we offer multi-level programs which ranges from issues that deals with the mindset of individuals, initiatives that deal with detoxification in areas of finance and values.

Over a period of operating we have learnt that the reason why some people are not positioned for empowerment is because their values do not have roots. So, all of the things that have to do with a person’s value system and belief systems are the sort of things we treat at The Ark Coaching Company through our multilevel schemes. In addition to these, we recently just added an initiative called, ‘The Money Ring’ to our program which highlights how individuals can participate in schemes that can help generate wealth, methods to manage wealth, and also how to multiply wealth. This, is going to be one of our signature programs because we have learnt that only two percent of investments come to women of colour. Thus, as part of efforts to change this narrative was not solely to find out how to get more investment to women. But, to enrich them rather than sitting around waiting for aids. This program is going to be a year-long campaign of us training a batch of twenty five persons.

Your organisation recently launched the ‘Borderless Trade Network’ program, can you shed more light on what it is about and how impactful and receptive it has been in the society?

Borderless trade seeks to help different levels of women in business such as, the woman behind the business, the woman in transition and the woman that wants to go borderless. But in order to go borderless you need a borderless mindset. Hence, Borderless Trade Network helps female business owners tell their stories in fascinating ways by partnering with various technical partners that are experts in branding and eventually help in structuring their businesses. Thanks to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement the continent is now borderless in terms of trading so if we do not provide female-owned startups with the support they need to develop and sustain their businesses the competition coming externally would crumble their businesses.

So, we are doing our best to position them for the inevitable market penetration that is coming from other African countries; which is the reason why we set up this initiative. Meanwhile, the program has been able to impact positively on the environment already, as the women have been able to connect with consultants within the first few weeks of its creation. We are more practical oriented rather than theory as we have set up internship programs for the women in different organisations. An individual that collects fifty million naira without having experience of running a business the chances are most likely that the funds would be squandered. So, what we have done is create a relationship with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) to help us identify textile and garments manufacturing firms, petrol chemical firms, agricultural firms, technology firms, pharmaceutical firms in order to enable us send these business women on internship programs at these various sectors so as to prepare them for entrepreneurial activities.

Can you explain further the opportunities and risks the AfCFTA presents for the entrepreneurship ecosystem of the country?

Looking at the opportunities; If MSMEs used to have ten million as market size within Nigeria to service, what the AfCFTA now means is that such organisations now have over one billion in market size to harness. However, in order to harness such an opportunity the business has to be able to compete at an International scale. The second opportunity it provides is borderless collaboration with the removal of tariffs, custom duties, border restrictions. So, businesses can effectively join forces in order to export their products to the African Union markets and the rest of the world. In addition, this initiative enables every entrepreneur to earn in other currency asides the naira. Regarding the challenges it present; part of the negative mindset of some entrepreneurs in Nigeria is the fact that they settle for less when they are producing their products or services to consumers, rather than aiming for the best result.

Also, a lot of this MSMEs do not know how to brand their products in ways it would be able to meet the global market standard. Owing to this, we are partnering with the Institute of Packaging to help our startups with their products in order to make it equal standard to those that have been imported from other countries. Furthermore, another factor that could serve as a huge risk is that Nigeria was not ready in terms of infrastructure for the ratification it signed recently. We do not have efficient trade infrastructure and policies to support a borderless trade economy.

If we do not accelerate our trade and production facilities and policies we would face challenges competing with other countries. In addition, a lot of our start-ups do not meet the required workforce of a standard micro business which should comprise of a minimum of eleven individuals working for the organisation. So, the organisation with larger workforces would come into Nigeria and wipe out the smaller micro business by meeting higher demands. However, the solution to this would require us establishing trading houses in order to bring several MSMEs together and form a giant organisation with a large number of workforce and increased productivity.

From your experience as a serial entrepreneur how crucial is the role access to capital plays towards the development and success of any business?

What i have gathered is that if you ask business owners this same question in developed parts of the World such as, America and Europe, they would not tell you that capital is the most vital part of establishing and sustaining a successful business, rather they would mention other key factors like access to mentors, programs that could enhance their technical know-how, before eventually mentioning access to capital. Meanwhile in our part of the world here in Africa, due to the rate of poverty a lot of MSMEs think finance is the most crucial factor of establishing and developing a successful enterprise. In view of this, i think that access to capital becomes a viable issue when the concept of the business is bankable and proven. That is because a lot of people have ideas and then want to borrow money based on these ideas at an early stage without considering the fact that they have more problems like, ensuring they have market demand and ability to penetrate the market which is a bigger problem than getting loans and capital. However, in defense of the MSMEs institutions such as the Bank of Industry and other stakeholders can actually do more towards ensuring they mentor and follow up in more efficient ways thereby, ensuring startups they fund generate more success stories.

Due to the negative impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the various sectors of the country’s economy how crucial and impactful would the diversification from the oil and gas sector to other sectors such as agriculture, technology and entrepreneurship be towards the sustainable economic recovery of the nation?

I would advise that adequate and efficient funding by both the government and private sectors go directly to sectors such as, agriculture entrepreneurs so that they can expand their productivity and create more employment within the ecosystem. According to the National Bureau of Statistics unemployment rate as at 2020 was at seven percent. So, considering this, one of the effective ways to achieve economic recovery is by investing in our citizens skills and technical know-how which would enable us emerge as a nation with individuals that have adequate skills thereby, generating solutions to economic problems. In addition, the private sector needs to do more in terms of driving the economic recovery because they are the engine of the economy. Our economic recovery does not only boil down to the government. The private sector also has a major role to play. So every stakeholder needs to do more in other to drive the economy of the nation.

What sort of policies and regulations do you think can be enforced in order to make access to loans by entrepreneurs be more favourable and effective to entrepreneurs?

First, we should not compare ourselves to developed economies either in ways they give loans or the way they produce the products nor the facilities they possess for their market. We need much more grant oriented schemes to boost our ecosystem. Loans should be giving to the medium and large enterprises, at the micro and small level they need interventions that would help them acquire not to lose or to give back. The loan policies should be accommodating to the inefficiencies of our infrastructure. We should provide loan facilities that would not get people in trouble. Meanwhile, loans policies are not in isolation because there are issues of security lurking there as well. For example; i know of an agriculture entrepreneur that got a loan of fifteen million from an agency. But little did the entrepreneur know that Covid-19 was on the way. In addition to the devastating effect of the Covid-19 the individuals’ farm which was supposed to be used to pay back the fifteen million was also ambushed and destroyed by herdsmen. Thus, there are major security issues to be identified for entrepreneurs. Also, loans should have insurance policies to protect entrepreneurs from unforeseen events and natural disasters that could crash and hinder the success of the business.

What sort of work philosophy is The Ark coaching company built on?

Leadership, as we believe self-leadership is one of the quickest ways to elevate the mind. When you are able to govern yourself you would be able to govern your business, your family, your community and then a nation.
Also, we believe in community because when you want to change a system that is bigger than you it is done through the power of community. Hence, we value community in order for us to change the course in ripple effect and also in compounding ways. When ten people come together to address a problem we generate faster and more efficient solutions. Furthering more, spirituality. We believe that man is not just a physical being as he is governed by his values spiritually. So, we take a lot of our values from the Christian doctrine. We allow the almighty God take charge spiritually, whilst we play our part physically to the best of our knowledge.

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