Business investment experts have analysed how lack of finance can affect the growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the country.

The experts, who spoke at the Diamond Bank Plc’s 51st BusinessXpress Enterprise Series in Lagos, posited that lack of finance could affect business growth when other success factors had failed.

The co-Founder, Falcon Corporation Limited, Mrs. Audrey Joe-Ezigbo, said the chances of survival of a business could be threatened if its owners lacked business focus.

She maintained that lack of proper business focus and commitment were major challenges facing the survival of most of the MSMEs in Nigeria.

In spite of the harsh economic condition facing businesses especially MSMEs, the expert said the problem of finance could be tackled if MSME operators imbibed the right business focus.

In her keynote address themed, ‘Intentional success: Building smart sustainable enterprise’, Joe-Ezigbo told entrepreneurs at the programme to put in place the right business mindset in order to drive the growth of their businesses.

The Falcon boss said there was a need for the MSME operators to relate with successful entrepreneurs in similar lines of operation, arguing that access to finance might not guarantee business success.

“Most MSMEs die along the way; we can figure that there are things they are doing wrong. This emphasises the need for entrepreneurs to get close to counterparts who are running businesses that have stood the test of time,” Joe-Ezigbo noted.

While highlighting other setbacks to the growth of MSMEs, the expert said, “Sometimes, the person running the business is not the best person to run the business. The fact that you have an idea doesn’t mean you are the one to manage it.”

The Head, Retail Banking, Diamond Bank, Aisha Ahmed, said the bank had trained about 15,000 entrepreneurs annually in the last five years, with a focus on how they could build appropriate operational and legal structures for their businesses.

She added that the lender had designed several platforms to promote business growth and profitability.

“For us at Diamond Bank, we are very committed to small businesses. When I talk about commitment, I’m not just talking about short-term commitment; we just don’t want to tell people that this is what we have done. Every single days that’s what we are doing and it’s one of the biggest segments that we have and we focused on.

“Apart from this, we also have an online portal where people can get information. We have this size and we do smaller clinics across our branches to ensure that all businesses around benefit from this.”

She, however, reiterated that the focus of the bank was not limited to business financing but ensuring the viability of the businesses in the long run.

This, she said, the bank had achieved by providing access to markets to drive the supply chain.