SA Conference: Caleb University Don leads other international scholars to fight global business failure

by Olawale Adekoya

In order to champion the war against global business failure, especially in the SMEs sector, Prof. Olalekan Usiobaifo Asikhia, Caleb University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor on Research, Innovation, Strategy, and Administration, has succeeded in rallying together, other international scholars in a South African conference.

The other international scholars who formed the team of Ranking Business Rescue included  Prof. Naeem, Dean, School of Accounting, Finance, and Economics, University of Kwazulu;  Prof Rams Rajam, Professor of Accounting and Finance and Coordinator of the Business Rescue Unit, University of Kwazulu Natal and Professor Sina Yekini, Professor of Accounting, University of Derby, United Kingdom.

The SA conference tagged, “International Conference on Global Business Rescue and Resilience, South Africa,” The Research Professor and Grant Winner, delivered a Paper with the theme: 'Business Resilience Determinants and Performance of Small Medium Enterprises.”

Notably, the fundamental objective of the Kwazulu Natal Conference was to address, curb, and proffer solutions to the alarming rate of business failure in Africa, ranging from three months to five years across nations of the Continent.

Globally acclaimed for its timeliness and strategic importance, the Paper succeeded in developing a lasting strategy for curbing the persistent failure of Small Businesses in Africa with Nigeria as a case in point.

According to the Caleb University Scholar: "Organisational factors like effective proactive management skills, flexible organizational structure, marketing, and environmental scanning skills; must be developed to stem business failure."

Professor Asikhia also hinted: "Consequently, the concept will not be "one method solves all". This becomes important in the light of environmental dynamism in which businesses operate from one country to the other. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the concomitant failures of businesses across nations of the world showed that several firms were not proactive enough to predict their environments and reconfigure resources and capabilities to arrest the plunge.”

Other solutions proffered by the Caleb University Don included the urgent need for continuous monitoring of the business environment as well as business operations flexibility.

Prof. Asikhia, a Professor of Business, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship, who started his academic sojourn with a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry–Biostatistics, has the towering privilege of bagging two Masters's degrees (Economics and Business Administration), as well as two Doctoral degrees (Doctor of Business Leadership-Marketing and Strategic Management; and Doctor of Philosophy-Entrepreneurial Management).

In a related development, Prof Asikhia also chaired a session on Management and Business Resilience in Africa. Prof Asikhia and his congregation of brightest Business Scholars also considered the need for intensive diagnostic tools and processes that will rightly identify the different degrees of ailments bedevilling different organizations.