Entrepreneurs express confidence in business growth fuelled by reforms

Despite the difficult operating environment in the country, entrepreneurs have expressed willingness to start a business in the country, as optimism rises on economic potential and improved power supply.

The entrepreneurs under the aegis Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), a global network of more than 11,000 business owners in 49 countries with an average revenue of $52.3 million and a combined US$565 billion in annual revenue, yesterday, expressed this confidence in its twice a year Global Entrepreneur Indicator survey results that was released to the media.

The survey which is in its 5th year -held from 1-31 August 2015- aims at predicting the economic outlook and business landscapes in its chapters in 49 countries as well as identifies economic trends and highlight fiscal growth.

Globally, 3,670 entrepreneurs participated in the survey, including 1,356 responses from the U.S.
“Entrepreneurs and their businesses drive the global business landscape. Tomorrow’s jobs and innovations begin with today’s business owners. The Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Global Entrepreneur Indicator taps into the minds of the world’s leading business owners to identify trends in the world economy” explained the President, Lagos Chapter, Vincent Brown, who is also the Managing Director of Nigsa Petroleum Nigeria Limited.

The results of the GEI survey released indicates a positive outlook from Nigeria’s entrepreneur community with a 100 per cent of the respondents showing strong willingness to start a new business in the current economic environment as they expect the country’s economic environment to improve tremendously during the coming six months.

In the same period, all the respondents (100%) also expect business revenue and net profit to grow exponentially with none of the respondents expecting either any of business revenue or net profit to decrease or remain the same.

Similarly, all respondents in the survey see an increase in the number of full-time employees in their respective businesses.
63.6% of EO members in the country expect an increase in access to capital, none expects a decrease in the subject while 36.4% feel they will maintain current level.

On the use of debt instrument, 45% of respondents see an increase, 18.2% feel it will decrease just as 32% say it will remain the same in next 6 months.

The economic outlook for the future shows an improvement over the aspect of survey which also assessed the past six months.
The analyses for the last six months reveals 63% of the sample increasing their full-time employees, 54.5% showed business revenue increased and 45.5% reported increase in net profit. Still within same period, only 9.1% indicated that Use of debt instrument increased.
On the global scale, the result shows that 81.5% of EO members expect business revenue increase while only 5% think a decrease is imminent while 13.5% says it will stay the same way.

Net profit on the global level according to 76.4% of members surveyed will witness an increase while 6.9% sees a decrease and 16.7% project it will remain same over the next six month.

On access to capital, only 36.4% of the surveyed sees an increase in the next six months, 2.9% expect a decrease while 60.7% of the population will maintain the status-quo.

On the whole, the EO GEI economic outlook sees 81.8% members predicting an improvement in the Nigerian economy far ahead of the global average of 37.7%. Only 18% of the members predict deterioration in the country’s economy against the global average of 28.8% and none believe the Nigerian economy will be at the same level against 35.5% which believe the global economy will likely stagnate.
Rationalising, the survey report, Chair, Learning, EO Lagos and MD/CEO, Fuel Communications, Tunji Abioye, and Chair, EO Marketing & Communication, Sam Fadiora, explained that compared with global average, Nigeria is about 50% ahead of other countries.

The duo noted the goodwill and optimism being enjoyed by the current government has a way of affecting the expectation of the people.
“Proper leadership, sincere effort at taming the corruption monster and the ability to stand for what is right are seen as major pointers that give optimism as business is driven by a sense of hope and feeling of optimism” says Abioye.