OPINION – I have been carefully following the invitation of Chinese Medical Team to Nigeria and the controversies that surround it. To an extent, I will say the two parties are right, (the government that invited the Chinese Medical Team to assist us and the Nigeria Medical Association that are protesting against it).
To me, I will blame or fault our poorly manage Research and Development Departments in our organisations and our Business Development Managers that fail to understand their functions or roles in organisations.
If I should go by the President’s broadcast that lock down the economy of Lagos, Ogun and FCT, Abuja, the President mentioned that when this virus was first noticed in China, Nigeria was among the first 10 Countries that were invited to China for a brief and the Director General of NCDC returned to country and swung into action immediately. This information was enough for Nigeria to prepare adequately against the virus by the preventive measures which are using of hand gloves, wearing of face mask and using of sanitizers before the production of the vaccines.
Unfortunately, even when the case was detected in Lagos there were no sanitizers, hand gloves and face mask in the market, which was not a good step to curb such a deadly disease.
Nigeria has a good number of drug manufacturing companies and the best doctors in the world. It would have been the responsibility of Research and Development Departments in partnership with Business Development Managers to look into business opportunities in the virus thereby solving the problem of spreading the virus. But majority of our Business Development Managers have restricted themselves to marketing and sales of products (B2B, B2C) and not into invention.
Who is a Business Development Manager? I am not going to define it in our orthodox way rather according to its importance.
A Business Development Manager is an Oracle, Predictor, Business Future Teller, Economic and Business Adviser of a company. He study the vane of the economic wind, guage the “rain” of the market and advise the management accordingly. He reviews the operation of the organisation in a Micro and Macro ways, has indept understanding of the economy where the company operates, good knowledge of co-players in the industry or market. I didn’t use the word “competitor” because business is a game, the best player controls the market.
In this outbreak of coronavirus, a good BDM in a drug manufacturing company should have figured out business opportunities which are the need for hand sanitizers, demand for nose mask and hand gloves and advice on the mass production of the products.
A good Business Development Manager should be able to understand the impotance of “Corporate Entrepreneurship” and the practice of “Cello- Pyramid in an organisation” to solve customers’ needs, help the economy and grow the business.
Kindly join us in our Business Dynamic Online Class to further discuss.
Date: 25th April, by 8pm.
