The passion to provide financial backup for prospective entrepreneurs to launch their ideas and grooming them to become big businesses could be interesting. Sterling Bank’s Meet the Executive (MTE) initiative, a business plan competition with opportunities for winners to access grants to finance their businesses, is already creating new generation entrepreneurs. COLLINS NWEZE writes on the lender’s commitment to entrepreneurship and support for intelligent business ideas.
Entrepreneurship is the soul of every thriving economy. That explains while forward looking organisations are giving priority to projects that get more people into entrepreneurship schemes needed to galvanise the economy and create a productive workforce.
Sterling Bank’s Meet the Executive (MTE) initiative, is one of those plans by the lender to broaden opportunities for young entrepreneurs to achieve their life ambitions of creating wealth and developing the economy. The MTE is a social media-led initiative geared towards encouraging and supporting small businesses and budding entrepreneurs.
Speaking at the flag-off of Season 11 of the programme in Lagos at the weekend, Co- Founder, Elearn.ng, Michael Onobote, who was the top five winners in the maiden edition of the MTE initiative, said the programme ignited his drive to launch his company.
“The MTE initiative was the springboard for us to start Elearn.ng, a listing platform for vocational skills providers to list their businesses and have a booking feature implemented on the platform. So, their customers can find them online, and book their services with instant e-mail alert or SMS. We also have an online learning feature whereby people who are interested in learning online can come and subscribe to a course and learn how to do the business while we get our fees,” he told The Nation.
Onobote explained that during the MTE initiative, the lender provided compensation cash prize for winners as well as business support. “When we wanted to launch our company, we sent the bank an e-mail for them to know where we are. We have been in constant communication with the bank since 2014 when the maiden edition was held,” he said.
He explained that there are a lot of vocational skills providers such as photographers, bead makers, makeup artistes among others whose services are constantly in huge demand.
“Most people think it is all about getting a white collar job, but there are so much potentials unemployed graduates can have when they have vocational skills. I see vocational skills as a key point in national development. We just launched in the last three weeks, and it is amazing we have about 26 signed up, and we have three skilled traders lined up already with their courses on our platform. So, within three weeks, I think we have made significant progress,” he said.
Speaking further on the MTE initiative, he said: “It was a good springboard to launch my idea because if I did not come for the Meet the Executive Competition, it would not have been easy for me to launch my ideas. For people who have ideas they want to launch, I think now is the best time”.
The young entrepreneur explains how it works: “The way it works is that you go to our platform, list your business and then you write a small profile about yourself especially the things you have done. Once you upload the data in our platform, we create a booking feature for you, which you can share with your customers. The customers can then book you online, and you also have visibility to other people who want to book photographer for their next wedding, or make-up artiste for their party. We make our money from monthly subscription, and we also have a revenue sharing that we get from the courses”.
Another Co-Founder, Elearn.ng, Olanrewaju Odunowo, said the company is looking at the informal sector, adding that there are huge opportunities in that segment of the economy. He said that many of the vocational skills providers do not have Information Communication and Technology (ICT) skills but the company focuses on promoting their businesses while they focus on their skills.
“One of the things is that we are solution providers, and we realised that there is so much focus on the formal sector. We are trying to ensure that those in the informal sector become more profitable. We believe we can empower them, and assist them grow their businesses,” he said.
Continuing, he said: “One of the challenges is that majority of the vocational skills providers do not have websites, so, we go to their shops to get them signed on”.
Speaking on the MTE initiative, Sterling Bank’s Managing Director, Yemi Adeola said entrepreneurs that emerge from the Meet The Executive campaign get project-based grants and are always introduced to local and international investors.
He said the programme is driven by the lender’s passion for helping budding entrepreneurs attain great heights.
He advised the participants to persevere in the face of daunting challenges facing the subsector, adding that it is one’s ability to rise above limitations that determines the level of success. “Any economy anywhere is the world is driven by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). And unless we encourage them, create conducive atmosphere for them to operate, we will continue to struggle as an economy,” he said.
He said the bank’s support for SMEs is also inline with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele’s vision of promoting small businesses and supporting them to become great business entities.
Adeola said the bank is easier for the youth to think beyond all the negatives in the society, and become creative entrepreneurs. “For the bank, this is a social corporate responsibility. We owe it a duty to continue to create employment, encourage entrepreneurs and also they will definitely become our customers. Sterling Bank has done a lot in this area, we are introducing in an innovative manner competitions, ideas, innovations; making it possible for young Nigerians to be able to think beyond the negative ills we have witnessed in the society today,” he said.
The bank’s Executive Director, Abubakar Suleiman, said the lender’s motive for sponsoring the MTE initiative was not to make profit but to ensure that Nigeria has entrepreneurs who are well equipped to run businesses that are profitable and sustainable.
He said although capital is a critical factor in entrepreneurship, it is not the main challenge faced by aspiring entrepreneurs. He said many of the young entrepreneurs have no knowledge of accounting, book keeping and other skills needed to successfully run a business.
The MTE initiative is currently in the “Call for Entries” stage where interested participants submit their business ideas and plans on the bank’s website, following which a review conducted by an independent consultant-HT Limited. Other stages include the training and the final stage wherein the entrepreneurs present their revised business plans to a panel comprising top executives of the bank, judges and venture capitalists.
Suleiman said: “We realised that there are lot of young people out there who have a lot of credible ideas but they need people to guide them so that they can run their businesses successfully,” he stated.
Speaking on the initiative, the Group Head, Strategy & Communications, Shina Atilola, said, “Today’s economic realities have necessitated the birth of a crop of businesses led by visionary individuals called entrepreneurs.
‘’Although these individuals have been described severally as the drivers of the economy, they encounter a number of challenges, chiefly the need for funding and financial advisory. These are the gaps we are trying to fill with the ‘Meet the Executive’ initiative”, he explained.
He explained that the goal of the second edition of the MTE is to bring to the fore, the creative, innovative and brilliant ideas housed by Nigerians with a focus on developing their ideas and bringing them to life.
“With up to N6 million worth of grants available, participants will jostle to be short-listed among the final 25 that will defend their business plans or ideas before a panel. The MTE initiative creates an avenue for entrepreneurs to have an offline engagement experience with the bank,” he said.
Other winners in the first edition are Gbemisola Esho, a female entrepreneur who specialises in making shoes and bags from raw leather and Ankra fabrics; Rufai Adeyemi who runs a restaurant specialised in aquatic produce and Daniel Momma, a pet bottle recycler. All these individuals received business grants totaling N5 million.
Partnership with FSD
Sterling Bank Plc also signed an agreement with Field of Skills and Dreams (FSD), a vocational training institution, to provide training programmes for members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). The pact, the bank said, is part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) drive to support skill acquisition among youths to prepare them for self-employment.
Under the agreement, the bank will sponsor the training of NYSC corps members in various vocations during the course of their service year in alignment with its expressed purpose of enriching lives. The lender has so far funded the training of about 100 NYSC members in various vocations during the pilot stage through the NYSC-SAED (Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development.
It has also equipped a 20-seat ICT laboratory of the FSD which will provide all participants with rotational access to free ICT training.
Sterling Bank in a statement explained that the need to support the development of skills among the youth has become inevitable given the growing rate of unemployment in the country. “We believe that the steps we have taken so far would help in ameliorating the problem of unemployment in the country and support other initiatives such as the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES) and the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YOU-WIN) introduced by the government to checkmate the relatively high rate of unemployment in the country.”
Social lender scheme
In its determination to keep supporting the youthful population, Sterling Bank has repackaged the Social Lender Scheme by increasing the minimum on-line micro credit from N3,000 to N10,000.
The scheme was launched last year and the bank has disbursed over N6 million to over 2000 on-line customers. To date, over 90 per cent of the loans have been paid back by the beneficiaries.
Social Lender, the first in Nigeria is a modified peer to peer lending solution using the Social Media Platforms through which micro-credit is offered to members of these communities. The scheme provides a platform for online fans and followers who are customers of Sterling Bank to obtain these monies via social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.
The bank in a statement explained that the scheme was repackaged with added benefits because of its success story for the bank, the quality of feedback from members of the on-line community and the impressive pay back attitude of the beneficiaries.
Also, the bank has begun the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Academy in furtherance of the bank’s commitment to enriching lives by focusing on the unique needs of its entrepreneurial customers. The project is also meant to promote private sector involvement in the development of small businesses and the Nigerian economy at large.
Atilola said: “The Sterling MSME Academy is aimed at capacity building for existing and emerging micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to enable them build viable businesses and position them to access funds for expansion. MSMEs would also enjoy access to relevant and reliable business intelligence and information that would help them to navigate the challenging operating environment.”
