At the age of six, between playing hopscotch, riding bikes, and drawing pictures, I learned an important lesson about how teams work based on the story of The Three Little Pigs, where an industrious farm animal and his two brothers built houses made of various materials. Each dwelling looked sturdy from the outside, but only one offered adequate protection when danger arrived. The lesson? When you build, use something strong enough to shield you from danger. Is your team built to last? When managers build teams, they typically utilize nice. They hire nice people and encourage nice interactions, cordial pleasantries,…

A new report has identified lack of financial support from banks as the bane of export business in Nigeria. According to the survey released yesterday in Lagos, 94per cent of exporters experienced rejection of their financing requests by Nigerian Banks. It unravels the root causes of the lack of growth of export business in Nigeria and provides insights into what needs to be done by the government, banks, and other stakeholders to fix the problems. The survey was conducted by a financial expert, Bamidele Ayemibo who stated that the country would continue to fail to meet her export target unless…

While there are countless ways to decide what kind of business to start, for the sake of argument let's imagine there are two basic approaches: Low variance. Decide to do what other people have successfully done, and with hard work and perseverance you should reach the 80th percentile of success in that pursuit, if only because most people don't work nearly as hard or as smart, as they like to think. An example of the low variance path – lower risk, but lower return – is a person with solid carpentry skills who decides to go into the deck building…

Federal government is working on phasing out the “antiquated” pioneer status incentive and other tax exemptions for mature industries with the 2022 finance bill. The pioneer status incentive (PSI) is a tax holiday that grants qualifying industries and products relief from payment of corporate income tax for an initial period of three years, extendable for one or two additional year. There are currently 71 industries eligible for pioneer status, which include manufacturing, solid material, pharmaceuticals, information and communication, trade, construction, waste management, electricity and gas supply, tourism, infrastructure, among others. The federal executive council (FEC) presided over by Vice-President Yemi…