LCCI trains 800 entrepreneurs in three years

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) provided capacity building for about 800 entrepreneurs in the last three years.

Speaking at a workshop organized in Lagos by the LCCI, its Director, Research, Advocacy and Entrepreneurial Development, Dr. Vincent Nwani, said the beneficiaries were trained under its entrepreneurship development programme.

He noted that the focus of the workshop was to teach businessmen how to develop and write good business plans that would promote their successes.

He added that it was a platform to give to the society and promote commerce and industry while shortening the skill gap in the industrial and corporate environments.

“It is a programme where people who love skill come to acquire it by attending training programmes free. Within the last three years, the German government has been funding this, and it’s going to terminate by the end of 2017, where LCCI should be able to take up from there. And in the last years, we have trained almost 800 entrepreneur graduates who are doing well in their various businesses.”

Nwani explained that the motive was to address the lack of finance or capital. “The last aspect of the programme was monitoring business clinic. They are writing their business to us and we will follow them up and help them write their business plan – give them suggestion, data, and help them do market survey free, so that they can put down this business plan, and also defend it,” he said.

One of the trainers, Mrs. Fayo Williams, stressed that part of the challenges faced by young entrepreneurs was the lack of proper documentation of data. She attributed this to some cultural practices.

Williams noted that another challenge was the absence of good packaging for their business plans to access funds from investors. She added that most entrepreneurs don’t understand how to craft their business plans in such a way that it will gain the interest of an investor.

“We have a culture that tells you that everything is in the hands of God, which is true. But in the space of entrepreneurship, there is a procedure for finding out information, conducting market research, and then being able to make a good forecast,” she added.