Undoubtedly, the core vision of every business model is driven by profitability, but in a world where technology has democratised many processes, Techpreneur Eniola Adenuga proposes that for businesses to thrive, they must adjust their visions to accommodate ways to improve their sustainability through the impact they make.
“It’s not enough to build a profitable business, you have to think of sustainability and positively effecting change,” he notes.
At such times when every entrepreneur is tasked with the herculean task to stand out by coming up with new ideas and executing them in a sea of competition, it’s often difficult to assess the impact made on society. Adenuga, however, believes that there is a market-oriented form of value creation that factors in environmental and social impact.
“The idea is to be conscious that as you build your business and make a profit, you are also mindful and play some role in addressing a social, developmental or environmental problem in your primary area of operations. Businesses must be able to integrate sustainability practices into their goals, as well as inspire and empower their teams, competition and industry to do the same,” he says.
While he has interests and businesses in several sectors, he has been actively concerned about the protracted power crisis in Nigeria and how it militates against the efforts of businesses. To create impact, he took steps to acquire a solar power generation license in Nigeria, an acquisition that required him to shell out over $500,000 amidst other setbacks stemming from bottleneck processes.
Within the last three weeks alone, the national grid has collapsed three times, with a significant economic loss to businesses. Nevertheless, Adenuga still believes strongly that by fixing the power problems, the economic crises of Nigeria will be partly averted.
Relentless, he has also dialled up financial inclusion through his digital services company, VTel, by leveraging the vast reach of mobile telecommunications.
His ambitions with VTel are akin to the early days of Elon Musk’s entrepreneurship journey. And just like Musk, he has maintained a strong focus on sustainability by impacting businesses positively to grow revenue and profit for businesses.
In a nutshell, Adenuga asserts that profitability and sustainability do not counteract one another.
“Surely, there is a responsibility to shareholders that entrepreneurs need to be keen about profits, but they ought to also be mindful of society, nature and future generations. For a nation that has suffered so much deterioration over the past couple of decades, it should be at the back of the minds of many Nigerian entrepreneurs that whatever we build and sell, should propel us and not further sink us,” he concludes.
To Attain Sustainability in Business, Impact Trumps Profitability, Says Techpreneur Eniola Adenuga
