Don leads international scholars to tackle global business failure

The Deputy Vice Chancellor, Research, Innovation, Strategy and Administration, Caleb University, Imota, Prof. Olalekan Asikhia, recently joined other international scholars to brainstorm how to combat global business failure, particularly in Africa.

The summit, tagged ‘International conference on business resilience, continuity and regeneration,” was held in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa.

The conference was to address and proffer solution to the alarming rate of business failure in Africa, ranging from three months to five years across nations.

According to the organisers, the conference was as a result of the need to put together a team across nations to brainstorm and assist in stemming the dangerous trend.

At the conference, the research professor and grant winner delivered a paper on ‘Business resilience determinants and performance of small medium enterprises’.

Asikhia noted that organisational factors like effective proactive management skills, flexible structure, marketing and environmental scanning skills must be developed to stem business failure, particularly in Nigeria.

The team also considered the need for intensive diagnostic tools and processes that will rightly identify the different degrees of ailments confronting different organisations, before attempting a prescription.

“Consequently, the concept is not one method solves all. The organisers said this becomes important in the light of environmental dynamism in which businesses operate from one country to the other.

“The outbreak of COVID-19 and failures of businesses across nations of the world showed that several firms were not proactive enough to predict their environments and reconfigure resources and capabilities to arrest the plunge.

“Expectedly, the conference stressed the need for continuous monitoring of business environment and business operations flexibility,” the team noted.