Institute upholds innovation, creativity as key to competitive growth in Nigeria

The Institute of Business Development has said that for businesses that hope to build competitive advantages for growth and weather the storm of the harsh economic conditions in Nigeria, must leverage on innovations and creative activities.

Achumba Iheanyi, the incoming president of the institute gave this remark at the annual general meeting and his investiture as the 4th president of the institute, where he stressed on the need for businesses to continually find new and better ways of doing things.

According to him, “Only those who are able to fill the vacuum with creativity and innovations have real chance to seize future organizational leadership.

He explained that the ongoing economic reforms of the Nigerian government should be invigorated to achieve the desired objective of being less dependent on imported goods, materials, services and technology.

Iheanyi added that the country’s success therefore will depend on the seriousness with which innovative activities are undertaken by enterprises in terms of indigenizing inputs, sourcing and development of new indigenous products.

Obibuzor Ifeanyi, outgoing President and Chairman of Council, stressed on the need to look into the challenges of the small and medium businesses, adding that there is no way the nation can move forward if it cannot address the issue of engineering infrastructure.

“If we have engineering infrastructure, we can design and produce machineries that will produce other machines. That is when we can think of utilizing the steels to make the bodies of cars and have spare parts. We need to look at long term planning as an institute and nation as well as access what we have done,” he explained.

While highlighting the achievements of the institute so far, Ifeanyi disclosed that the institute has been able to get an office and improved the level of membership.

He however reiterated on the need for members to be committed to get the institute to a better place and advised the new president to make the institute more visible by being more aggressive and reaching out to the media,”

Paul Ikele, Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute mentioned that the future plan of the institute is to continuously improve the economic systems, to be pro-active and creative, to think deeper on how to turn around the economic scenario so that the country can effectively compete with other developed countries.

Ifeoma Okeke