Okeowo: I’m Passionate about Developing Nigeria
How old is your company, Enterprise Hill?
Enterprise Hill is three and half years old. We started January 2015.
How has the journey been over these years?
The journey has been super interesting. As I said earlier, we started January 2015 and worked hard at growing organically. Eight months after we started, I got the opportunity to audition for the Next Titan, four months later, I won the show. Then by January 2016 we started afresh with a new focus; reached out to more people, grew our team, invested in ourselves and our business process. The journey has been really great because our turnover has doubled year on year, we’ve also increased our clientele and we’ve worked with over 30 businesses, and the employees of those businesses have gotten job security based on the work that we do. So it has really been an amazing journey of impact, of growth, of revenue, and of business structure building. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt along the way is; if you build business structures, then you’ve prepared your business for sustainable growth.
What is the main focus of your company’s service to MSMEs?
Essentially, our primary focus is ensuring that the businesses we work with – Micro, Small and Medium scale Enterprises get properly structured, and the way we attack structure is to start by helping them develop strong accounting systems and processes. Thereafter, we move on to other areas of business structure. In addition, we help them ensure tax compliance and also facilitate the separation of their personal finances from their business finances.
Why is structure important to this category of businesses?
It’s very important because without proper business structure you can’t scale your business. For example, the human body cannot stand without the structure that is within it: the skeletal structure, the muscular structure, all of that. If there is no structure or framework, there is no sustainable foundation to build on. Without structure, any form of pressure (too much client, too much employees, too much business), will harm rather than help the business. A business without a structure is nothing but a hustle. Lots of people run hustles, some others run businesses; the difference between both is that those who run real businesses have proper structures.
You have a background in accounting, so how do you also provide legal structure to their businesses? Do you have legal partners for this?
What we do is to start with accounting structure because the scores in business is mainly measured in monetary terms, and I feel personally that it’s the most important part of structure. Thereafter, we provide advisory and recommendations on how to improve other areas of their structure; one of which is the legal structure. We partner with other businesses that provide such services so as to give more value to our clients.
How do you reach out to these MSMEs for them to know what you do?
Generally two things: First, I go to a lot of entrepreneur-related events, and then I try as much as possible to network and meet with other entrepreneurs to tell them what we’re doing. That is very deliberate because entrepreneurs who go to events and seminars and conferences are entrepreneurs that are looking for ways to grow their businesses. So they don’t need to be extensively sold on the need to have proper structures as a means to growth because they’re already looking for growth. The second way which is the biggest way we get clients is by referrals. People that we’ve worked with, that have seen the quality of our work, always refer us to other entrepreneurs.
How do you assess the success of your service to your clients?
For those we’ve helped build structures, we know that the structures work because a lot of them are still our clients. So having built the structures, they retain us to help them maintain it; thus making it easy to track their progress and monitor the effects of the strategies we have proposed.
From your interaction with these SMEs, what do you see as the major challenge facing them in Nigeria?
I feel that lack of proper business structure is one of the biggest challenge SMEs face. The second biggest challenge that SMEs face is finding the right people. While a lot of entrepreneurs might think lack of finance is the major problem, I believe that a well-structured business will attract finance, not chase it.
The second problem which for me is a big problem is that entrepreneurs in Nigeria find it hard to get quality human resources to help drive their businesses forward. And this is a problem that was highlighted for me last year when I read the World Economic Forum Human Capital Index, which ranked 130 countries of the world by the quality of their human capital. Our dear nation, Nigeria ranked 114 out of the 130. Ghana that we did ‘Ghana Must Go’ for ranked 72. That brought to the fore the underdevelopment of our massive human capital and created in me a drive to help solve the problem.
For the most part, we’re not yet developed as a people. A lot of this problem has to do with our educational system, our culture, our values, and this is a major problem for businesses. It’s the major reason why I created a new company called Competence Africa, which is a social enterprise that is set up with one mission; improving the quality of Africa’s human capital. Our flagship programme is called The CASA programme. The CASA programme is a competence development programme that we administer to undergraduates. Essentially, what we do is, we go to universities across Nigeria, and train undergraduates on how to make use of technology-driven business tools. We are currently training undergraduates in faculties of management and social sciences on how to use cloud-based accounting software. It’s beyond the training on the software tools though; we also train them on workplace readiness, and value-based leadership. Furthermore, we provide our students with internship opportunities as a means of strengthening their practical knowledge and experience.
The CASA program creates value for four major stakeholders. The students get massive improvement in the quality of their person. The makers of the software packages we train on get extended market access. The businesses we post our students to, for internship get top quality, well-trained people, without having to spend much. Then we, Competence Africa, generate revenue to sustain our operations. We also plan on the long run to have other social projects, where we go into communities across Lagos for Competence Development Boot Camps; helping people in Lagos communities to improve the quality of their person.
What is the duration of the programme?
CASA programme runs over a one month period. We begin with a two-day intensive live training and then follow that up with a three-week case-study application process using real business cases. Thereafter, they go through our workplace readiness and valuebased leadership training, after which they are awarded a certificate of competence and that completes the one month cycle. Thereafter, they get posted on internships. In addition, we host an annual Alumni Boot Camp, where we bring together all the students who went through our programme that year across all universities, for a day of networking, learning, and fun.
We tested the model in University of Lagos, Lagos State University, and Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta. And now that we have solidified our model, we are working to get into more universities. Our plan is to run the programme twice in a year in each university.
How would you assess the interest of the participants?
Well, it has been a really, really rewarding experience because the feedback from our students has been really amazing. For instance, one of our students that we trained at the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta is currently on an internship where he handles the account of one of Nigeria’s Indigenous Sneaker Manufacturing Business. It is deeply satisfying to watch him grow through the process and there are many more students like that. Across the three universities where we’ve trained –UNILAG, LASU and FUNAAB, we’ve trained a total of about 60 students. We are constantly engaging them, tracking their growth and their progress.
How affordable is the programme?
The programme is very affordable. So for all of these value that they get: they get training on a skill; workplace readiness, value-based leadership, internship opportunities etc., they pay only N10, 000. Like I said, it’s a social enterprise; so we’re only charging these fees to be able to cover our cost and to also run the other social projects that we have in mind.
Looking at the SME space in Nigeria, how do you see the future of this category of businesses in the country?
Yes, there is a huge future and huge potential in the space because places with the biggest challenges are places with the biggest opportunities. Take, for instance, we identified that lack of top quality employees as a problem for SMEs; we created a business out of it which is beginning to positively impact on a lot of people. So the SME space in Nigeria has a lot of potential. I think about 85 per cent of Nigerian SMEs are focused on the very basic level of business. They provide value that serves the basic needs of man; that is food, fashion, transportation, and housing. If you look at advanced economies, not only are their basic industries thriving, they are also thinking of businesses in much more advanced sectors: they are thinking of telecoms, robotics, artificial intelligence, tech-driven machinery, alternative energy, space travel, innovation engineering among others.
Thus, we need more Nigerian SMEs to go into these advanced sectors and create innovations that will exhibit Nigeria to the world; not only innovations that will start with Nigeria and serve Nigerians. Remember that it’s now a global market, a global competition. So we need to start and grow businesses that will move from Nigeria to the world. That is the reason why I believe there’s a lot of potential in the SME space. Even with the basic businesses that I referenced earlier – fashion, food, transportation, and the likes, there’s still space for growth and advancement because our population is increasing rapidly. Global estimations now suggest Nigeria is going to be the most populous country in the world by 2100. So as our population continuously grows, we need more businesses to serve those basic needs of our population.
But at the same time, we need more businesses to create higher level of innovation that will solve not only Nigeria’s problems but, Africa’s and the World’s.
How do you combine these businesses and programmes, considering that each of them requires your time and attention?
I have been an entrepreneur full time for four years now, and within that time, I have extensively developed my personal capacity. I’ve learnt how to better maximise the use of my time so I prioritize fairly efficiently. Asides Enterprise Hill and Competence Africa, there’s a third venture which is my personal brand. As Davies Okeowo, I train, I mentor, I coach, I give keynotes, I facilitate sessions, I organise capacity building events among other things. So I’ve learnt to manage my time better; I’ve learnt to prioritise better.
Most importantly though, what has enabled me to function effectively across all three businesses are the structures I have built across all three businesses. If you run a business without structure, the business completely depends on you. So if you (being the founder, the owner, the CEO) leave the business everything else will crumble. But because I’ve built structures in all of my businesses they can function independently of me. Of course, I’m still there because I want to grow them, we’re still very small, our financial level is still very small, we want to hit numbers in hundreds of millions and billions of dollars.