Embracing corporate governance will re-position Nigerian businesses – Solabomi Okonkwo
With the growing trend of unethical practices in some organizations in the country, resulting in closure of some businesses, an integrated marketing communications expert has called on brand owners in Nigeria to align with global best practice of corporate governance.
Solabomi Okonkwo, CEO, Core Experimental Marketing, who was the guest speaker at the 5th Annual Brands & Marketing Conference, organized by Brand Journalists’ Association of Nigeria (BJAN) held at Nike Lake Hotel, Enugu where she delivered a presentation on, “Aligning Global Best Practices with Nigerian Corporate Governance Standards”, said organizations will achieve remarkable results in their business environment when they properly align with stakeholders and also outline processes and procedures to monitor their business activities.
“Effective corporate governance practices are essential to achieving and maintaining public trust and confidence. A strong corporate governance culture in an organization encourages success and business sustainability”, she explained.
On a different note, Okonkwo said that negative perception about the country in the global business community will be a thing of the past when organizations begin to operate ethically.
According to Encarta Dictionary, Corporate governance is the company management techniques and processes in general, or the way a particular company is managed.
Okonkwo explained that failure of corporate governance is due to poor articulation of quality and power of boards, Board appointments, Board procedures and meetings, Financial and Operational reporting, and Risk management system.
“The failure of some companies has been traceable to weak or complete absence of corporate governance structures, as seen in major companies around the world such as Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson, Leeman Brothers and in Cadbury Nig. Ltd, among others”, She said.
that it is important for organizations to align with its stakeholders in order to ensure that its marketing campaign objectives, plans and programmes are actualized.
Speaking on the challenges of implementing International Codes of Business Ethics, she stated that “In my opinion for a code of ethics to be global, it must entail some generalist as well as generic attributes. For instance, an international code of business ethics must traverse Countries, Cultures, Race, and Environment.”
She therefore urged brands homegrown in the country and expanding to other markets, Dangote, for instance, to operate models based on a Global framework and Governance, understand local markets and local needs, align fundamental marketing levels, export best practices across the global organization and embrace change management.
“I have come to appreciate the fact that societies are complex and dynamic in nature, thus necessitating the need to conduct proper stakeholder analysis achievable only through effective communication methods and managing expectations; exploring the various approaches to adopt in ensuring that leaders within Nigerian organisations begin to drive the required change and implement standards that will forestall non-compliance to in-country business and regulatory policies”, She added.
She therefore urged businesses to adopt in their business operations the “Ethical Room for Maneuver” (ERM) concepts as its framework appeals greatly to work-base problem; and will begin to empower us with the required tools such as an ethical traceability scheme thereby ensuring leadership remains committed to building efficacy and efficiency in the organization’s code of conduct with prejudice for norms and also help to collaborate internally in ensuring absolute compliance to both local and international business codes of ethics”.
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