Tobechukwu Okigbo: MTN Executive Helping SMEs Turn Crises To Opportunities
More than ever before, the way businesses operate is changing, there is greater diversity, more competition, stricter regulations, consumers purchasing power are declining even as they seek the best services with the least budget.
To thrive in the new world of business already dominated by multinationals with structure to adapt to any form of change, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), in the words of Tobechukwu Okigbo, need to understand their business environment and the stakeholders in order to align them around their organisation’s action plan.
Okigbo leads the corporate service team at MTN Nigeria as the Chief Corporate Services Officer (CCSO).
When he sat on the panel of the October edition of the MTN Revv Programme where he spoke to more than 500 new and emerging business leaders presently driving the wheels of SMEs in Nigeria and in search of strategies and mentorship to navigate these difficult times for businesses, it was an opportunity one of the participants described as a “Harvard standard business class” which came at no cost.
With 30 years of experience in business, there appears to be no ocean in the business world too deep for Okigbo to swim in. As the recent COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the survival of businesses, he was tapped as part of the panel to train the SME owners on managing crises and turning them to opportunities.
Okigbo, who oversees the team responsible for corporate relations and stakeholder management at MTN Nigeria, is an accredited certified resolution professional of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) United Kingdom.
Called to the Nigerian Bar in 1990 after earning a bachelor’s in law from the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria, Okigbo’s interest in ensuring businesses succeed and operate responsibly led him to the University of Liverpool, England, where he added a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) to his bag.
Before joining MTN in 2017, he had spent years garnering experience and honing his corporate relations, stakeholders management skills at Eddie Ntephe and Co., the Negotiation and Conflict Management Group (NCMG) and Airtel Nigeria, amongst others. He was with Smile Communications where he served as the Chief Corporate Services Officer.
At MTN, Nigeria’s largest telecommunication network with a revenue of N638 billion in the first half of 2020 and over 80 million subscribers as at July 2020 according to the Nigerian Communications Commision (NCC), Okigbo coordinates the team focused on ensuring that the telecom giant lives up to its promise of doing business responsibly and giving back to the Nigerian community through numerous interventions like the Y’ello Hope, Y’ello Life Plus, Y’ello Star, and now the MTN Revv Programme.
The Revv Programme, an initiative by MTN, is a virtual training programme aimed at helping SMEs relearn, rethink and retool their businesses for growth in the emerging digital economy.
The programme which commenced in September 2020 aims to reach and support 10,000 small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) across Nigeria.
The expert in Corporate Relations didn’t mince words at the Wednesday October 14, 2020 edition where he harped on the need for SMEs to have a good understanding of their business environment if they don’t want to be blown away by crises confronting small and big businesses.
Okigbo said while some businesses face crises and shrink, others assess the opportunities in the crises and grow amid the turmoil.
Making sweeping changes in a time of crises is no small feat for any business, large or SME. To overcome the storm and come out stronger, Okigbo explained to SME owners that they need to carry every stakeholder along on the journey and communicate more effectively.
“In stakeholders’ management, the same thing that agitates the mind of big organisations like MTN should also agitate small businesses, no matter how small they are,” the corporate relations expert said.
Surviving the period of crises, Okigbo said, business owners must study and have a clear understanding of their business environment and stakeholders – the customers, government regulatory agencies and employees.
“The better you understand them, the better you’re able to respond to crises. And you also need a structure and policy. But as a startup, it may be expensive to have a structure, you have to build the mindset of knowing what is expected of you to do, how and when to do them.”
Making reference to how some restaurants managed the COVID-19 pandemic by switching to food delivery, he said this was possible because they have a clear understanding of their stakeholders and environment.
From a legal point of view, he advised SME owners to avoid legal pitfalls and need to be clear on what the law says about your business. Know when there is a change of law and how it can affect your business.
In times of crises, SMEs and the informal sector are more endangered and it could mean the end of their existence. This has been confirmed by an Oxfam report on the challenges confronting Nigerian SMEs and Start-ups in the COVID-19 pandemic. Published in March 2020, the report revealed that 71.43% of businesses are experiencing market decline and about 47.62% of the companies have stopped all forms of production in March 2020. With these scary figures, MTN is putting the right measures in place to help SMEs survive with The Revv Programme Masterclass.
