The first female Professor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin in Kwara State, Moriam Aremu has urged the Nigerian governments and stakeholders to prioritise Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), if they are genuinely serious about rescuing and sustaining the nation’s economic sector.
Delivering the sixth inaugural lecture of the University, entitled: “Taking SMEs to the next level: strategic human resource management to the rescue,” the professor of Business Administration said SMEs, when flourished, “can be the key to unlocking various golden opportunities to solve unemployment and economic problems in the country.”
Aremu hinted that SMEs contribute over 55 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and over 65 per cent of total employment in developed economies.
She argued that the sector also played significant role in national development, contributing 60 per cent of GDP and over
70 per cent of total employment in developing economies.
She lamented that about 70 per cent of SMEs in Nigeria failed in the first five years of operation, calling for greater efforts to rescue the fatality rate of SMEs in the country.
“Taking SMEs to the next level is crucial for sustainable and inclusive growth and development because they fuel innovation and competition, sustain competitiveness in operating environment and represent the lifeblood of local economies and communities.
“SMEs are germane in enhancing economic development and are pivotal in the transition of economies to a digital and sustainable future,” she added.
Aremu therefore, insisted that only the SMEs operators among other critical stakeholders can rescue and revolutionalise the business through effective and efficient
human resource management.
She urged stakeholders to team with any interest that would take SMEs to the next level becauae: “if SMEs is given the deserved attention and SMEs owners embrace human resource nanagement functions, the Nigerian economy will surpass expectations.”
Consequently, the varsity don urged SMEs to focus more on internal strategic management variables like training, recruitment process, capital base, profit and
employment in order to enhance business performance and sustainable development.
According to her, SMEs should continually employ the best Human Resources (HR) practices through effective recruitment
and selection to get the best ingenious employees that would exhibit positive traits to effectively foster team spirit, task cohesiveness, rescue and enhance efficiency of SMEs.
“SMEs should adopt effective leadership in order to motivate employees, promote teamwork and employee willingness to accept responsibility in order to enhance productivity,” she pointed.
According to her, social media marketing should be employed by SMEs in order to enhance performance, saying: “SMEs should see social media marketing as a mean of competing globally.
“SMEs should always evaluate ingenious human resource accounting practices on yearly bases and comparing it with previous years in order to assess performance with a view to raking improvements where necessary so as to rescue the sector.
“SMEs should key into influencing consumer’s mood towards achieving better influence.
“Owners and managers of SMEs should pay adequate attention to product packaging and display if they desire greater improvement in their businesses. Product
packaging and display influence customers’ positive attitude towards impulse purchases and willingness to buy.
“SMEs should increase the awareness of the range of services / products availability. SMEs should continue on massive advertising campaign, and during the course of each advertisement, should make the customers know more about their products.
“For SMEs to be perceived and acknowledged as a quality enterprises, it must invest adequately in product and technology innovation. Management of SMEs should therefore, consider product and technology innovation to enhance performance.
“SMEs management should endeavour to further enhance advertising activities on social media, newspapers/magazines and television in order to have access toglobal market,” she expressed among others.
