‘Government should provide conducive environment for young entrepreneurs’

Eniibukun Adebayo is the President of Enterprise Development Centre Alumni Association of Lagos Business School (LBS). He is an Economics graduate from Ondo State University. He also participated in Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED) Project programme in Stanford University and Harvard Business School, United States of America. He is the Chief Executive Officer of CleanAce Ltd, a laundry and dry cleaning firm in Nigeria. He spoke with ENO BASSEY on business potentials in the country, what the government should do to encourage young entrepreneurs, among others.

What can government do to encourage small and medium scale (SMEs) businesses in Nigeria?
There are incredible and enormous potentials in Nigeria. There is need to give people the space to live out their dreams and potentials. Government has not been facilitating the business process. It should provide conducive environment for young entrepreneurs to succeed. Youths should be encouraged.
 
There are immense opportunities to be tapped. The country should properly engage and guide its citizens, especially the youths. It is unfortunate that as a nation, we only focus on short-term gains. Nigeria is greatly endowed with several potentials, which are not adequately harnessed for its growth and development.

There should be fairness and justice. Nigeria should encourage its citizens. The environment should be conducive for business. There should be reward as well as discipline in the country.

What role can government agencies play in growing Nigeria’s economy?
It is important for government agencies to do their job effectively to support local production of goods. For example, National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) should support SMEs and also protect Nigerians from consuming fake products. This should be the focus of government agencies. The onus is on government to put structures in place to develop local contents production.

Made-in-Nigeria products should be supported through government patronage. Government should sustain and keep business organisations alive. Nigeria needs to wake up and determine its objectives. There is a bigger framework that must govern all of us. In essence, there should be an end to impunity and lawlessness.

For instance, drycleaners were not recognised as essential service providers during C0VID-19 lockdown. Some countries recognised and allowed them to open for customers. Drycleaners were the ones cleaning and washing clothing materials used during the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Importation of hazardous chemicals in the industry should stop.

What is CleanAce’s selling proposition?
Our Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is threefold – Quality, speed and price. We are poised to deliver professional services as the only ISO certified drycleaning firm in Africa. We are professionally structured to work within the framework of Global standards to deliver ultimate superior service delivery. Our ISO 9001-2015 focuses on quality management system. We strategise the dimension we want to participate as a notable player in the industry. We raise the bar of service delivery through our competent, pre-active and well-trained workforce. We have exposed our staff to global training in Italy, USA and Dubai.
 
CleanAce as a brand does not see itself competing locally. We benchmark our services in line with global standards. We import all our materials to ensure adequate care and delivery. One of our core values is integrity, which has rubbed off positively on our corporate image. Our staff have demonstrated high level honesty and integrity to the admiration of our esteemed clients.

The company has a strong focus on high quality and very affordable pricing. Its internal processes are flexible to quickly determine bottlenecks in operations. The brand’s goal is the delivery of exceptional customer experience. In actual fact, for the year 2020, it is either quality or nothing else.