Founders who have been bleeding customers, watching margins shrink, and losing sleep over cash flow, are suddenly breathing easier. Not because they fixed anything, but because they just signed up for an AI tool.

They’ve convinced themselves that this is the turning point. I want to gently, but honestly, tell you: it isn’t.

AI Is a Multiplier, Not a Miracle

Here’s the thing about tools: they amplify what’s already there. A sharp machete clears a path faster. A blunt one just tires your arm out more efficiently.

If your business has a clear value proposition, a product people genuinely want, and a team that understands your customers, AI will make you faster, leaner, and more competitive.

But if your business is built on shaky ground, like wrong pricing or a product no one truly needs, AI will help you do all of that at scale. That’s not a win but a faster road to the same dead end.

The Real Problems AI Cannot Fix

1. A Product the Market Doesn’t Want

In Lagos, a founder I know spent six months building an AI-powered inventory management app for small retailers. Brilliant interface, smart reordering logic, slick automation.

He kept tweaking the AI features while consistently ignoring the feedback he kept getting from traders at Balogun Market: “We don’t trust software with our stock numbers.”

The trust problem was cultural and relational. No algorithm was going to solve that. The app folded. Before you automate anything, ask yourself honestly: Do people actually want what I’m selling? If the answer requires a long explanation, something is wrong.

2. Broken Unit Economics

If you’re selling a product for ₦5,000 and it costs you ₦6,000 to deliver, including your time, logistics, and overhead, you don’t have a business. You have an expensive hobby.

AI can help you reduce some operational costs, yes. But it cannot restructure a pricing model that was wrong from the start. The math has to work without the technology first.

3. A Leaky Customer Funnel

Some businesses are excellent at attracting customers and terrible at keeping them. They spend money on ads, bring people in, and then lose them to poor service, slow responses, or broken promises.

Adding an AI chatbot to a service experience that was already frustrating people is like putting a fresh coat of paint on a cracked wall. It looks better for about a week. Fix the experience first. Then automate it.

What You Should Do Before Reaching for AI

Start by sitting with your numbers; just honest numbers. Where are you actually making money? Where are you losing it? Talk to five customers who stopped buying from you and five who keep coming back. The contrast will tell you more than any dashboard ever will.

Then look at your core operations. Which parts are slow or inconsistent because of how you designed them, not because of a lack of technology? Those are your real problems. Solve them with process and clarity first. When things are working well manually, then you automate.

AI Works When the Foundation Is Solid

The businesses getting the most from AI right now are not the ones that were struggling and needed saving. They are the ones that already had something working and used AI to do more of it, faster.

A Nairobi-based logistics startup reduced customer complaints by 40% using an AI routing tool. But before the tool, they had already spent a year rewriting their delivery protocols and training their drivers. The AI didn’t create that discipline; it rewarded it.

Fix the Business First

Technology has always been good at one thing: making a working system more efficient. It has never been good at making a broken one suddenly work.

So, before your next AI subscription, ask yourself the harder question: If this tool disappeared tomorrow, would my business still have something worth saving?

If the answer is yes, go ahead and use every tool available to you. If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that discomfort is pointing directly at the real work that needs to be done. Do that work first. The tools will still be there when you’re ready.

*Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.

Every year, millions of dreams are launched as small businesses across Nigeria, but most never make it past the starting line. 

According to the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) reports that over 70% of MSMEs shut down before their fifth anniversary.

Behind these numbers are passionate entrepreneurs and bold ideas, all lost to a mix of predictable pitfalls and avoidable mistakes.

How can you avoid becoming part of this grim statistic? And what must you do to escape the trap? Let’s unpack it.

Starting without solving a real problem

Many Nigerian entrepreneurs start businesses based on passion, or quick trends rather than validated market needs.

This is a weak business foundation. I have seen people start businesses with so much passion without the market validation, yet they wonder why no one wants what they are selling. They simply have products or services that no one really wants to pay for.

If your solution lacks product-market fit, then it can’t fit. Solutions not tailored to real market pain points will be rejected by the market.

You may decide to copy what seems to work in other countries without adapting to local realities and fail. If you lack a deep customer understanding, validated demand, and unique value propositions, you won’t go far in business.

To have a business that thrives, start with the customer – understand their needs, wants, and preferences. Use tools like surveys, interviews, and prototypes to validate your idea before you go all in. If people won’t pay for your solution, it’s not a business but a hobby.

Poor business structure and systems

I have had the privilege of working with scores of businesses in Nigeria, and one thing is very evident – they lack basic operational systems and structure.

Too many businesses run informally. Informality may seem like an advantage early on, but it ultimately limits long-term growth and institutional credibility.

There is no formal business plan or strategy, and no succession planning or organizational structure. You will see this in their poor record-keeping and financial management.

This may work for a while until it doesn’t. Growth and scalability require a good structure. 

Without systems and structure, a business is entirely dependent on the founder’s energy and presence, which is unsustainable.

You must treat your business like a real company from day one. Register it, keep records, separate personal from business finances, and build basic systems, even if it’s just on Excel or Google Sheets to start. Structure and systems are the bridge to scalable success.

Poor financial management

A lot of businesses are not investor-ready, and so they can’t attract appropriate funding. Access to funding is a challenge, yes.

But more critical is what entrepreneurs do with the little they have. Misuse and mismanagement have done more damage than poor funding. From mispricing to poor budgeting and unnecessary expenses, many businesses bleed slowly before crashing.

Some business owners have overburdened themselves with over-reliance on short-term loans with high interest. Some others lack understanding of unit economics and return on capital.

The truth is, capital doesn’t fix foundational flaws. Funding amplifies either success or failure. If the business model is weak, more money accelerates its collapse.

So, learn the basics of financial literacy. Understand your numbers such as cost, margin, break-even point, and cash flow.

Tools like Wave, Zoho Books, or even a simple spreadsheet can help track income and expenses. If you don’t control your money, it will terribly control you.

Talent gaps and poor HR management

There is talent troubles and team dysfunction. Hiring friends or family without clear roles, zero training, or accountability is a recipe for disaster.

A business can’t grow faster than its people. As vast as Nigeria is, there is still a low availability of skilled labour that will meet the demands of the new economy. 

Again, building the right team is a major struggle because of poor leadership and people management skills among founders.

This has resulted in high employee turnover. Execution is what separates ideas from results. And execution is done by people. Weak teams kill great ideas; strong teams pivot and survive.

You should be intentional in building a committed team that believes in your vision and invest in their growth. Define their roles and responsibilities clearly. And don’t underestimate the power of culture. How your team works matters as much as what they work on.

Thinking short-term instead of building to last

Many founders chase quick wins instead of building long-term value. There is the case of jumping into multiple ventures without building depth. Building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. Visionary founders delay gratification to create sustainable value.

Many entrepreneurs chase fast money, underprice to attract customers, skip branding to save costs, or neglect long-term planning.

To avoid business failure, you must play the long game, build trust, and deliver consistently. A loyal customer base, strong reputation, and steady growth will always outlast hype and shortcuts.

Business success anywhere is hard. In Nigeria, it’s even harder but not impossible. Most businesses here fail due to a complex interplay of internal weaknesses and systemic external challenges.

The entrepreneurs who win are not always the smartest or richest. They’re the most strategic, and customer-focused. They treat learning as a lifestyle, data as a compass, and execution as king.

The businesses that succeed today don’t just beat the odds; they understand them and build differently. It’s not just about surviving but thriving.

So, if you’re building something, don’t just aim to launch but to last. Understand the terrain. Learn the rules, and break the ones that no longer serve you. 

Growth pipelines outperform funnels in today’s market and drive real results.

In this article, we will examine how the funnel is sabotaging your growth and how a pipeline can fix it.

On the growth funnel

The growth funnel is a traditional model that represents the journey of turning leads into customers.

It narrows down as it progresses, focusing on conversion stages such as awareness (capturing attention through marketing efforts); interest (engaging and educating potential customers); decision (persuading prospects to take action); and action (closing the deal). You can use the acronym AIDA to represent it.

The funnel’s progression is usually linear, and customers are passively engaged in your growth. That is why it places emphasis on acquiring customers rather than maintaining long-term relationships.

The growth funnel is no longer sufficient for modern businesses that value customer relationships and long-term success. Hence the need for a growth pipeline.

The growth pipeline is it!

Unlike the funnel, a growth pipeline is dynamic, emphasizing sustained growth. It focuses on recurring customer engagement, customers’ lifetime value, and integration of various growth levers.

In other words, the growth pipeline reimagines the customer journey as a continuous process that prioritizes collaboration, retention, and scalability. It accentuates ongoing value creation and engagement beyond the initial sale. (Remember, every business grows by repeat sales).

Here, customer acquisition is just the beginning, not the end of the journey. Your focus is on delivering value, post-acquisition, and designing strategies to consistently offer personalized value to your customers, and effectively address their pain points.

For instance, you leverage customer data to offer personalized experiences, identify cross-sell or upsell opportunities, and meet them. In the pipeline, you go further to turn these loyal customers into fans by incentivizing referrals.

Go for a strategic shift

The transition from a growth funnel to a growth pipeline reflects a shift in how businesses conceptualize and manage their growth strategies. This requires a shift in mindset, where you see your customer success as a growth driver rather than treating them as transactional touchpoints.

Unlike the funnel, the pipeline doesn’t end. It also incorporates feedback loops where customers become advocates, fueling your further growth.

The pipeline’s feedback loops help businesses adapt to customer needs and market shifts.

The pipeline offers long-term business growth compared to the linear and transaction-focused funnel. A well-designed pipeline is an ongoing engagement that will boost your customers’ lifetime value, and reduce churn.

Embrace the growth pipeline

It is important to view growth as an ongoing process where every interaction with the customers strengthens the relationship.

Satisfied customers become brand ambassadors, feeding new opportunities into the pipeline. As the relationship with your customers strengthens, you’ll endlessly gather insights from them to refine your offerings.

It has become critical that you think beyond the funnel to something more – the pipeline. The funnels are limited in scaling your business but not the pipelines. I know you don’t want one-time sales but a continuous one running through pipelines. While the funnels create customers, pipelines build relationships.

The growth pipeline will help you to fuel lasting growth without burnout, and build stronger and lasting business. Why not transition from a growth funnel to a growth pipeline for a sustainable business future?

By adopting the growth pipeline, you can build a scalable growth engine, and make your customers active partners in your growth. So, stop pouring leads into a leaky funnel—build a growth pipeline instead.

[Featured Image Credit]

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.

Go digital

The digital age is an age that gives you the audacity to embrace changes. It is a shift from the old world to the new world, where you use digital technologies and digital tools to address everyday problems.

Digital resources have opened new ways to enterprise effectiveness and offer better means to serve and delight the customers and make more money at the same time.

You must ensure that you are digitally literate with the right application of digital tools that will enhance every aspect of your business, particularly your business systems, and operations.

You should also learn how to digitally transform your various enterprises beginning this year with the gradual adoption of digital methodologies to achieve strategic business goals.

With digital transformation and agile business models, your enterprise will have new and unlimited business opportunities. Again, have a digital mindset. It will make you understand the world better, do business better, and relentlessly move you forward.

Pay attention to details

You must pay attention to details because everything matters. Paying attention to detail is the ability to achieve thoroughness and accuracy when accomplishing any task. This is important because it will help you to prevent mistakes and make getting results easier.

It’s important to note that being attentive to detail can be nearly impossible when you work and position for distraction by people around you. You must consciously keep your eyes on what is important, and avoid distractions. Anything that does not add to your vision and mission is a distraction. Avoid it and stay focused.

You can improve your overall attention to detail, and hence improve your work by planning in advance i.e. creating a work plan, making lists, and maintaining a schedule. Avoid overloading yourself, and ask for help when you should.

Make big moves

Take bold steps. There is no honour in mediocrity. You must be bold enough to dare, in as much as that action would advance our business course. Always remember that life favours the bold. The world is fast advancing and has no room for average players. Get ready to go the extra mile; it is never crowded.

Is your business what you really want it to be? Is it worth giving your all? If it is truly what you love and can die for, why act as if it doesn’t matter? Why act as if you love it less? As someone once said, ‘There is nothing more important in life than going after what you love.’ Make a big move for and towards the business that you love. You will never ever regret it.

There’s so much market opportunity out there waiting for whosoever will. You won’t know unless you make a move. You won’t have them unless you dare. British Special Air Service motto captures it well: ‘He who dares wins!’

Build strategic collaborations

We are not made to work alone but to collaborate. There will always be a need for you to work with others in order to do something, and that thing is always greater than what you can achieve without them. It’s a known fact that alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Strategic collaborations will allow you to pool more resources, generate and share fresh & innovative ideas, and intensify business expertise to achieve more than you could independently. Collaboration is a cool way for you to develop innovative solutions that can provide a competitive edge.

With it, you will increase your skills and capacities, increase your performance, multiply your result, and fast-track your business growth.

In the words of Charles Darwin, ‘It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.’ Nothing more could be added. This is your year. This is your moment. Seize it to the fullest, and make it count!

*End

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.

Here are some useful business tips to pay attention to –

Have an open mind

Ignorance is our deepest secret both in life and in business. Only a few honest ones among us could openly admit that they don’t know as much as they need to know. Ignorance is equally our greatest enemy, and knowledge is the key to defeating it.

Until you realize that nobody knows it all and give room to know more, you can’t make meaningful progress in this new era.

This demands that you have a mindset that always challenges what you think already know. Alan Alda said something I like: ‘Begin to challenge your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows to the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in’.

Everyone is ignorant in some way or another, especially as new things keep showing up in the business world.

This is not the time to close your mind, even on the subjects that you think you have mastered. It is a completely new adventure of 365 days, and you must have an open mind if you want to make the most of it. Open your mind.

There is no closed door to an open mind.

Learn intentionally

Intentional learning here means the continual process of acquiring, understanding, and using a variety of strategies to improve your ability to attain and apply knowledge in your business.

To succeed in your trade, you must be intentional about it. And the simplest way to succeed is to become more so are to do and have more, which largely comes by learning.

Learning we know is not attained by chance, but by some intentional diligence. Someone put it this way: ‘Talent and luck might happen to you by chance, but learning is a skill and practice that anyone can accomplish with diligence’. With diligence and commitment, you can master anything that will add to your business.

To harness the opportunities that this year brings would certainly require you to learn, unlearn, and relearn some business skills and practices, wherever necessary.

This will come by taking a few learning steps every day, which would add up with time.

There’s so much to learn such as how to adopt new technologies like AI into what you currently do, and also apply new and proven principles and methodologies that deliver radical results.

You cannot rest on methods that you used five years ago or even last year, and produce cutting-edge solutions today.

Skill-up

The world of business is not static but dynamic. Those that succeed in it do so by continuously improving themselves in what they do, and in how they do it. One of the ways to do that is to improve your business skills. That is, you replace outdated skills with new skills to meet the demands in the marketplace, and in your industry.

The skills that brought you to where you are can’t take you to where you want to go. There are several skills that nobody talked about five years ago that businesses can’t do without today like digital skills.

The keyword here is skilling-up. 2025 demands that you skill up through re-skilling and up-skilling. Mark those two words.

By reskilling, I mean the process of learning new skills so you can do a different job in addition to the ones that you currently do.

While up-skilling focuses more on improving your skills to meet the realities of your current trade better. Skilling-up would better equip you to do what will produce amazing outcomes.

In an increasingly digital world, skilling-up is the key to your personal and enterprise’s productivity, security, and growth.

One of the ways to skill-up is to acquire digital skills like how to market digitally, or rather how to market in a digital world. In fact, digital skills are so important that every enterprise masters them.

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.

These customers have the unmatched ability to price, critique, and purchase anytime, anywhere. They have any desired information or service available on any appropriate device, in context, at their moments of need. This reaffirms the statement that a customer is king.

Customers come first

In every business, the customers and their needs always come first. Without a scalable path to customers, even the best products die a silent death. You have no business is you have no customer to patronize you.

The number one people that matter in your business are your customers. Always start with your customers. Get to know what is important to them and attract them to your business. Find out what they are really paying you for, and how you can provide that value for them.

Making your customers come first is a mindset. Let’s call it a customer-centric mindset. This is a mindset every enterprise should possess in this age. There are many data to prove that customer-focused and customer-centric enterprises always win. When you make your customers come first, they will make your business come first.

What does value mean to them?

Your customers want to feel that you understand their definition of value and have a solution that reflects their priorities.

Businesses that survive and thrive take care of their customers. When you step into the marketplace, it is a promise to anyone who identifies with you that you are there to serve them like no other.

This promise is based on their compelling needs and wants.

Great companies don’t just know what their customers want, and how they want it, they anticipate what their customers would love and go ahead and provide it for them provide it for them. They focus on delighting their customers and keeping them happily surprised on a regular basis.

Customers care about their problems, more than they care about your solution. That means before customers can use your product, they have to fire any existing alternatives who directly or indirectly are your competition. Your solution only makes sense to them, when that solution is the answer to their problem.

Customisation trumps standardisation

There is a new kind of demands in this age of customers. The customers’ insatiable tastes and desires are mounting pressure on enterprises to meet those demands and exceed them. Your customers have new expectations. They have changed what they buy and how they buy, and prefer customization, not standardization.

First, you standardize your offering to them, and then optimize it, through customization. By showing that your product is not the perfect solution for everyone, you increase the chances that your customers and prospective customers will listen to why your product is perfect for them.

Today’s customers don’t like one cap-fits-all model, and can be jealous. They want you to demonstrate that you know them better, and understand what they want. When they perceive that you want to be everything to everyone, they tend to draw back.

We have a growing number of customers who subscribe to certain products. And every one of these “subscribers” has their unique expectations and experiences.

Without customers who patronise you or a sizeable market that you serve, you will not succeed in business not the talk of experiencing growth.

[Featured Image Credit]

About the writer:

Tony Ajah is a Business Growth Strategist, and the author of BUSINESS SENSE, and ON BECOMING AN ENTREPRENEUR. He maintains a personal blog, where he shares proven business ideas and principles for SMEs.

Why?

To thrive in today’s digital world, you must go digital, and more importantly have a digital mindset.

This age of digital transformation requires new ways of approaching your business if you must survive and thrive. Statistics show that those with a digital mindset are more successful in business.

What is a digital mindset?

A digital mindset is a way of thinking that enables you to adopt technology-enabled ways to get things done.

It involves embracing the possibilities that technology offers to improve results in various aspects of your business. You don’t have a digital mindset if you are not leveraging digital and technological tools to solve your business problems.

You can transition your core competency from whatever it is by digitizing it, and providing real digital solutions.

After all, digital tools have opened up new possibilities that chart a path for success in a business landscape increasingly dominated by smart and intelligent technologies.

Developing a digital mindset

Developing a digital mindset is a work that is worth the effort. A digital mindset is first an attitude thing – an attitude towards digital technology as a tool for solving business problems, and a catalyst for growth.

You begin by learning new technological tools and skills, how they are essential for your business, familiarizing with them, and using them.

You can simply boost your digital skills through courses on digital transformation to understand how you can leverage digital tools to answer your everyday business questions. These skills when competently utilized will create new opportunities for you than you can ever imagine.

A digital mindset is a journey

Developing a digital mindset is an ongoing journey that requires dedication and a willingness to adapt. In this journey, you must be open-minded and stay curious. You cultivate digital curiosity by possessing the mindset of exploration and experimentation. Curiosity fuels the desire to explore new things including new technologies.

Be open to keep trying out new digital tools like productivity applications and tools as may be required from time to time. Seek opportunities to comprehend how these tools can help you get better results.

Engaging in continuous learning, and staying informed about emerging trends to anticipate changes in your industry is part of your business.

Altogether, learning new digital skills must be an integral part of your personal and corporate culture. That is, learning how to interact with and use new tools and how these tools will help you attain superior performance.

Encourage team buy-in

Forward-thinking entrepreneurs understand the immense value of fostering a tech-driven mindset within their teams. When integrating a digital mindset into your enterprise, the degree to which people adopt it matters.

The highest levels of adoption occur when your team is motivated to fully buy into the digital transformation agenda and develop competence in the process.

Remember, the adoption of digital tools such as AI, IoT, data analytics, and cloud computing to drive innovation, efficiency, and agility is the essence of digital transformation.

In this digital adoption journey, team members should view themselves as important actors. As a leader, you should encourage collaborative efforts that can lead to breakthrough ideas and shared knowledge as the team enhance their digital skill set.

Accelerate your adoption

Digital change is often radical, and so you must accelerate adoption. This adoption goes beyond digitizing to a comprehensive rethinking of the business process by using technology to optimize your operations and workstreams. Just take it one day at a time.

It’s critically expedient that you align your systems and processes to capitalize on digital proficiency. Always think about how your enterprise can use new technologies, and how those tools can help them get exceptional results.

The benefits of adopting a digital mindset are enormous. For instance, it will help you make data-backed decisions instead of relying solely on instinct.

It will also help you to create new business models, and enhance customer engagement and experience, and ultimately boosting profitability.

Businesses that have a culture of digital mindset are better able to set themselves up for success while building a resilient company.

They respond faster to shifts in the market and are well-positioned to take advantage of new business opportunities. If your organisation adopts a digital mindset, it will significantly push your revenue up.

About the writer:

The money is in your business systems.

Systems are the most important asset within your business. I have come to know that the first areas corporate buyers look at when valuing a business are its accounts and systems.

If you want to get down to just the numbers, it’s well worth finding out how much it’s costing you not to systemise.

Let the proven system guide you

Having the systems in place is one thing; getting your team to follow them is another. Systems are there for formalities but as a backbone or structure that the business can ride on to greater heights. Systems work because people created them, and work them.

Intentionally make your systems capture your winning moves, in a way that any team member can easily replicate. Then proceed to scale those successes.

Mark my word; it will turn your business fortune around for good! Until you put a system in place, you will keep experiencing hitches and keep missing business opportunities because you are not prepared for them.

If possible, have systems management software where your systems are going to be stored so they can be easily accessed by you and your entire team.

It will become the ‘how-to’ manual for everything in your business: every role, every task, and every operation.

Build a system-centred culture

The size of what your enterprise becomes depends on your capacity to make your systems part of your organizational culture. Your business culture is one of the biggest influences on how your team members behave including how the systems guide them.

Your culture shows the way you do things within your organization. Ensure your business develops a culture where systems are not just created, but actually used. This introduces some level of accountability to every team member.

To build a systems culture, you want your whole team to ‘buy-in’ and use it. Begin to establish the discipline, philosophy, and responsibility to your team for every system you have developed. Capture every winning process, and turn them into repeatable actions.

Keep improving the systems

You will have to keep tracking and measuring your progress and keep improving whatever system you have.

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. The idea behind constant and never-ending improvement is that nothing is ever finished or considered perfect; there’s always room for improvement in your systems.

Issues will always come up in a way that will test whatever system you have. Those issues are kind of just reality checks if your systems are still relevant or should be improved or discarded.

If you cannot systematically manage what you do, you will be wearied and it will eventually amount to nothing. Therefore,  identify problems as they arise, and then look for a systems-centred solution.

As we conclude, the answer largely lies in the systems as they make the growth of any enterprise possible and attainable. Systems give you that control key to drive your business to whichever destination you choose. Small systems, when multiplied out, equal big wins on the bottom line.

[Featured Image Credit]

This edition of the summit will focus on the theme: ‘Building a Culture of Innovation‘.

The Summit is an annual event that brings together critical stakeholders from different sectors of the economy to discuss ground-breaking ideas, trends, opportunities, and numerous verticals to accelerate innovation and solutions that solve unique challenges within Nigeria and the African continent at large.

Each year the summit provides a platform that fosters collaborations among startups, innovators, entrepreneurs, businesses, policymakers, the academic community, and international organizations. NIS also provides opportunities for Nigerian innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs to showcase their innovative ideas, products, and services with solutions for industrial applications, adoption, and commercialisation.

While announcing this year’s summit, Mr. Tony Ajah, the programme director of the summit states, “An innovative culture is essential for national development and provides opportunities for economic growth. As leading nations around the world have used the culture of innovation to improve the quality of their lives, Nigeria should not be left out.

“To establish this culture of innovation in our society, we must build strong institutions at all levels that embrace innovation as a way of life, and that leverage emerging technologies to solve critical local problems. When properly done, this will reduce the innovation deficit in the country and increase productivity,”

For the 9th year in a roll, NIS brings in experts within the Nigeria innovation ecosystem and around the world to connect, share ideas, and collaborate. This year’s event will feature insightful discussions, innovation experience talks, innovative showcases, startup pitches, and exhibitions focusing on healthtech, agritech, renewable energy and cleantech, fintech, real estate, edutech, techtainment, startup/entrepreneurship development, among others.

Participation in this event is open to local and international businesses, innovators, start-ups, entrepreneurs, SMEs, government agencies, embassies/high commissions, investors, research centres, the academic community, companies/organisations, and all the stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem.

The Nigeria Innovation Summit 9.0 offers great opportunities through sponsorship, partnership, and exhibitions of innovative products, ideas, and services.

For more inquiries and participation, please visit here.

All problems that you experience in your business are largely caused by poorly performing systems or lack of them. For instance, poor recruiting systems will lead to staffing issues and all the problems that come with hiring the wrong fit.

The only way to fix them is by deliberately creating the right systems that will make your enterprise run seamlessly.

Create a system-dependent business

No business can experience growth without systems. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American philosopher taught, “A good system shortens the road to the goals.” What are the systems that your business needs for growth? Can you list them?

The practical process for creating systems is to start from the most important ones like cash flow, sales/marketing, operations/administrations, and people management systems. Remember, systems development is a bit like eating a cow – you have to do it one bite at a time.

In setting up systems, create an action plan detailing who is doing what by when, and how. When properly created, systems allow team members to focus on areas where they can add the most value. Whatever you do, do not isolate your key people while developing the systems.

Get them involved. Why? People support what they help to create.

Develop a system-thinking mindset

System building begins with system thinking. As you know, you can’t create or build what you haven’t thought about. You must first think it to create it. This is a universal law.

System thinking is a way of thinking and viewing things and their functionalities from a broad perspective, to identify their needs and address them. With system thinking, it is easy to resolve problems and allows for real enterprise development. The goal of system thinking is to improve problem-solving by learning, understanding, and communication.

Your team needs to develop a systems-thinking mindset. First, you should keep thinking about your business and what happens in it as a collection of systems. This mindset changes everything.

The more you focus on systemizing the key recurring activities that happen within your organisation, the more valuable it will become. (I discussed in detail system building and system thinking in my books, “On Becoming An Entrepreneur”, and “Getting Set For Business”).

Keep your systems simple

After creating the relevant systems, ensure you keep it simple. Simplicity is the highest form of sophistication. With simplicity, you can maintain the momentum that sustains your results.

Does your team know where to look when they encounter a problem? When creating any system, let it be specific, clear, and detailed enough to allow the process to be followed without any gaps or ambiquities.

When done well, simple systems will help you to unlock the creative process inherent within your organization.

They also create space, and space opens doors to creativity, inspiration, and opportunity.

You will be limited by the systems you fail to create. You wouldn’t know how important a system is to your enterprise until you start experiencing recurring business hiccups that keep setting you back. Why not give your enterprise the growth it needs with the right systems?