How IBM Nigeria is supporting Small Businesses

IBM Nigeria is roughly 3 years old but the International Business Machine (IBM) Corporation is over a 100 years old. Can you beat that? How many generations do you think would have gone by?

This is the sort of success story I hope to see replicated in Nigeria and Africa at large someday. We need to begin the process of building lasting institutions, the types that can stand the test of time like IBM.

I wish to use this pretty popular platform to say; Thank You IBM Nigeria for a job well done!

Why am I thanking the IBM Nigeria team?

Simply because of their support for small business owners in Nigeria. First, it was the Enterprise challenge and now service grant programs.

The very first time I came in contact with the IBM Nigeria team led by Remi Abere, the Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs Manager, IBM West Africa, was at the Enterprise challenge 100 organized in partnership with Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) of the Pan-African university, aimed at motivating 100 small business enterprises to improve their businesses over 100 days supported by 100 mentors. The most improved businesses got presents, business support and massive exposure.

Unfortunately, for me I fell out of the title race and you wanna know why? My mentor was never available for me, she was just too busy.

I know the winner and can attest that IBM and EDC have truly helped his business grow.

About IBM Nigeria Grant Programs

These are programs designed to apply IBM’s resources to specific projects and programs that fall in their areas of interest.

In partnership with FATE Foundation, IBM is carrying out her grants program in the areas of Project Management and Social Media targeted at helping small businesses grow.

I was lucky to be selected to attend this year’s Project Management Service Grant Workshop, I sat down for close to 8 hours learning from the duo of Ronke Kiyomi & Oladele Fasuyi, both certified and experienced project managers with many successful projects to their credit.

Trust me if I assert that “IBM Nigeria is way ahead when it comes to offering direct support to small business owners in Nigeria.”

This is a wake up call to all the sleeping giants who think they are fooling everyone by hosting media packaged CSR events.

Remember, you can fool some people sometime but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Apologies to Bob Marley

To IBM’s credit, there were no media people in attendance, it was just us, the entrepreneurs from FATE Foundation.

It would be so unfair, if I end without acknowledging the efforts of Remi Abere. Before now, I thought she was just like every other top executive working in a multi-national but now I know better, she has a natural love for entrepreneurship and small businesses.

What attendees did not know about Remi is that she is both a chartered accountant and a life coach. She still looks gorgeous after 5 kids and I had to ask her what’s her little secret? Do you wanna know how she really looks?

See the lady in front with the green sweater round her waist, that’s her. She refused to tell me……….. but now I know and I’ll share it to world – Remi is both a biker and swimmer :) Now you know :)

Remi made the event lively and had some great words of encouragement for us.

Three Gbosa for IBM Nigeria.

Gbosa!

Gbosa!!

Gbosa!!!

Well done guys and keep up the good work.