By Charles IKE-OKOH
SAT, JANUARY 19 2019-theG&BJournal- Investor conferences are attracting as much international attention as the discovery of new opportunities in emerging and frontier markets by international investors against the backdrop of global financial uncertainties. These conferences are today no longer just a talk-shop venue or a platform for business communication but venues for initiating and closing new deals.
For executives of major international companies, conferences have become a major Board issue, discussed as one of the top topics on the agenda. Possible new opportunities are grilled on the table-all questions asked must have an answer and all deals identified must be sealed on the hunting ground. The strategies to seal them are designed with a plan-B.
Companies are capitalizing on these conferences to educate their executives on new trends. It is increasingly being recognized as the easiest way to engage in dynamic niche marketing, a way to get closer to current and future customers as well as to discuss current projects, interests or topics.
Again, cities that have carved their niche in conferences are ever innovating on delivery, finding more relaxing and creative ways to persuade investors to open up their wallets or cash vaults. They are increasingly capitalizing on conferences and forum to sell their economic potential, their investment friendliness, their people, culture and human capital capacity. Major international companies find new deals and business opportunities at such gatherings too.
The principle question is what is in it for us? It is a bazaar where companies and governments sell and show-case what they can offer each other, a product or brand market place where deals are made and real money goes to fatten the ‘bottomline.’ It is an arena for serious business and for serious companies. It is also serious business for cities and municipalities interested in enhancing their ‘livability metrics.’
The challenge for Nigerian chief executives and public sector leaders is in understanding the opportunities these conferences bring and in converting that, if they do, into concrete strategies that can help their companies prepare for the future and sustain their business.
This applies not just in companies but in the public sectors, where their participation in conferences is limited to talking. That is why such conferences wear the jamboree toga in Nigeria. The Economic Summits and all the other summits in the country don’t resonate beyond the media space. Quite often no deals are known to be made in all of these summits, no new partnership announcements, no co-operations agreement signed between companies and cities, prospects are not explored and communique, often the end result, are discarded immediately.
Some Nigerian CEOs don’t even see the need for conferences. It is not a Board issue. So, they have no clue or idea (I suspect) why they should spend to be in such places. When they do attend, they are often lost in the crowd. Otherwise, it is photo opportunity that their boys in the corporate communication department would work assiduously to see make the front page of a newspaper.
Conferences or Forums like St Petersburg, Russia, annual International Economic Forum, The World Economic Forum (WEF) underlines the growing influence of these conferences as the most potent venue for deal making. It is an arena where investors are frequently left satisfied with what they hear and where billions of dollars of high-end deals are sealed.
Governments and municipal councils as well as development banks and finance corporations lurk for good deals in corporate agreements, banks and project financiers find new partners in companies and governments, oil companies get together for geological survey agreements and telecom companies sign strategic partnership agreements or memorandum of agreement.
There are also loan agreements, real estate development agreements and cities looking for partners to develop urban clusters in private public partnership agreements. Companies sign agreements on innovation and even automobile companies came to look for production outlets in viable cities and there are also companies looking for investment advisory business opportunities.
These conferences pack awesome credentials-thousands of representation from the public sector, lots of local businesses and representatives of foreign businesses as well as top executives of Fortune 500 companies-all of them pay their way these days to Forum venues to hunt for deals not just talk. Quite naturally, they all go home with a deal or two in the bag- deals done on the spot or they instantly open up communication channels when there are complex knots to tie. Nigeria businesses, except a handful, are never present in the ‘money party.
The transformation of cities like Davos-World Economic Forum, St Petersburg – the International Economic Forum, Moscow-Renaissance Group Annual Investor Conference, London, Toronto, Beijing-World Resources Forum, into conference host cities goes way beyond the makeover and the deals, imposing far-reaching changes in commerce, security and transport. It brings about a lot of unforeseen benefits-a drop in crime rate, surge in consumer demand and add positively to the overall economy. These cities look forward to it every year.
No doubt Nigeria is currently ‘limited’ in its ability to take advantage of these global conferences or turn one of the numerous conferences into an annual ritual where global leaders gather. Investors are looking to Africa with its 1.212 billion inhabitants as the only truly sustainable growth path for the future. These investors look forward and in every conference to an African delegate. That is the opportunity for Nigeria.
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