Deloitte/LBS Sign MoU To Tackle Africa's Managerial Skills Gap

Deloitte Nigeria, a member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) and LBS, Nigeria’s premier business school, on Thursday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding  (MoU) with a view to tackle the dearth of managerial talents in Africa.

Speaking during the MoU signing at Deloitte new office in Lagos, Anthony Olukoju, West Africa Chief

Operating Officer and Risk Advisory Leader, said that Deloitte Nigeria, which is also a part of the Deloitte Africa Practice which has a presence in 34 African countries and service 51 out of the 54 countries in Africa, feels delighted as both organisations have come together in order to sign an MOU on what will be a mutually beneficial journey in the Nigeria business market.

Olukoju said that the partnership with LBS ranked amongst the top open enrolment executive education providers  for the tenth consecutive year since 2007, is very important to both organisations, as they are "learning organisations and believe we have a lot of knowledge to share to and learn from the business community in order to impact positively on the Nigerian economy as a whole.

"Our objective for the Insights will also be about working together with key industry leaders to articulate the implications of leading trends in the economic landscape as well as with captains of industry and leading organisation.

"This discourse will take place annually and the topics of discussion will be jointly selected by both organisations".

He disclosed that the audience will be C-Suite executives only, selected from all sectors of the economy.

The topics and content will be co-conceptualized to emphasise on the Nigeria’s business environment facilitated by both organisations.

"This collaboration yearly, will culminate in a jointly developed thought leadership material for the Nigerian market.

Once again I welcome you and look forward to fruitful deliberations," Olukoju added.

With 24 partners and more than 500 professional staff in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt, he said that Deloitte is one of the biggest providers of services in Nigeria.

Deloitte Nigeria currently provides audit, tax, consulting, corporate finance, accounting and business process solutions and risk advisory services to public and private clients spanning multiple industries.

"Our purpose as an organisation is making and impact that matters. In furtherance of this objective, we moved from our traditional office on Ikorodu Road to the iconic Civic Towers on Monday 27 June to be closer to our clients and to enable us be more impactful in our service delivery.

We welcome you as our first guest as we continue to settle down in the coming weeks," he added.

On her part, Dr. Enase Okonedo, the dean of LBS, said that LBS which began in 1991 as a small institution called the Centre for Professional Communications (CPC), offering management courses relevant to the Nigerian business environment, has always sought of ways to improve the managerial competences of Africans.

According to her, large organisations can only retain their growth level in the era of technological disruptions by improving on the skill sets and avoid complacency.

LBS was previously owned by the African Development Foundation (ADF), a Nigerian not-for-profit educational foundation, but now owned by the Pan-Atlantic University Foundation.

The best organisations within the Nigerian business landscape were also part of the formation of the prestigious institution.

By 2007, LBS had consolidated its status as Nigeria’s premier business school by ranking for the first time among the top 50 business schools in the world, in the area of open enrolment programmes, by the Financial Times of London.

LBS is still the only Nigerian business school to be included in this prestigious world ranking.

The Dean said thay the partnership provides them with credible platform targeted at C-Suite executives from all sectors of the economy such as consumer business, retail, manufacturing, oil and gas, power, banking, insurance, technology, media, telecommunications, to concentrate on companies on the way to remain relevant even in tech disruption periods.

Also speaking, Marie-Therese Phido, West Africa Clients & Industries Leader at Deloitte, said the foremost C-Suite, coming up later in the year will focus on the theme, “How new business is disrupting traditional business in Nigeria”.

Disruptive Innovation is a term introduced by Clayton Christensen, which has become the norm in describing innovative driven growth.

"Christensen describes disruptive innovation as a process by which a product or service takes root, initially in simple applications at the bottom of the market, moves up market to displace established competitors," she recalled.

She said thay the partners expectations are thay companies should "leverage disruptive innovation to re-define markets by developing disruptive and transformational products or businesses to serve new markets or customers; introduce incremental changes that differentiate the organization from competition by expanding into adjacent markets; seek steady improvements by optimizing existing (core) products for existing customers.

"The thrust of this year’s session will seek to establish how leading innovators within the Nigerian economy have applied the four levels of innovation practically in their organizations looking at: Strategic alignment and approach; structures and process – organization; accumulation and use of knowledge – resources and competencies and general conditions – metrics and incentives to achieve the positions they have attained in the economy as they contend with established traditional players.

The Target Audience, she said, include captains of Industry in traditional business and new business, who will give their perspectives on how innovation and disruption is affecting their business.