By Ikenna Nwokedi
The management of Chike Okoli Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies (COCES) on Monday, 15th May 2023 held a one-day reorientation and capacity building workshop for her members of staff at the COCES auditorium.
The capacity building workshop was aimed at inundating staff members on the essence of enhancing service delivery, innovation, timeliness and commitment towards discharge of duty to align with COCES objectives and the ‘Project 200’ vision of the present administration under the leadership of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Esimone, FAS.
In his presentation, UNIZIK Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Charles Esimone, FAS, stated that in today’s dynamic digital age, training and retraining of staff with its concomitant re-orientation is a sine-qua-non in actualization of the vision, mission, attendant strategies and objectives of an organization.
“For COCES, the vision is to be the foremost entrepreneurial centre in Africa that provides comprehensive and highly qualitative entrepreneurial training, while the mission is to provide entrepreneurial education, trainings and skills for UNIZIK undergraduates, COCES external students and people from immediate community which will enable them to successfully start, manage and expand micro, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) so as to become self-reliant and create jobs,” Esimone said.
Prof. Esimone disclosed that UNIZIK just like all structured organizations are organized into sub organizational levels such as Faculties, Departments and Centres with these units expected to have visions and missions derived from the organizational goals and core values.
Prof. Esimone also informed that human resource is the most critical of the three key resources of an organization which are money, materials and men. The Chief Servant of the University reminded COCES staff that they are expected to be masters of their jobs with the skills, competences and disposition to contribute to goal attainment. He also commended the Director, Prof. Ada Sam Omenyi and her management team for putting the workshop together.
In her remarks, the Director of COCES, Prof. Ada Sam Omenyi described COCES as the hub for entrepreneurship education in UNIZIK with the mandate to nurture students into becoming self reliant and employers of labour. Prof. Omenyi also disclosed that the centre provides practical skill-based and focused education with problem solving orientation through business incubation and mentorship.
The COCES Director emphasized that the gathering is to re-orient and build up the spirit of dedication, commitment, good relationships and high integrity of staff members who are expected to do the right thing even when nobody is watching by following moral and ethical principles in all aspects of life so as to take the centre and the University to greater heights thereby achieving the Vice-Chancellor’s project 200 objectives.
Prof. Omenyi commended the Vice-Chancellor for his innovations via ‘Project 200’ vision, she also eulogized her team of Deputy Directors, Principal Assistant Registrars and indeed all members of staff of the COCES for their commitment while also appreciating the resource persons in Pastor Sam Ufoh, the University’s Deputy Registrar (Personnel) and Engr. Dr. Charles Okpala, a scholar and entrepreneur from the Faculty of Engineering.
In his presentation on the topic: “Rudiments of a successful Business Venture” delivered by Dr. Charles Okpala, the scholar described a business venture as an economic establishment engaged in the production and distribution of goods and services in order to earn profit and acquire wealth. He enumerated the 7C’s of a successful business venture as clear conception, confidence, concentrated effort, consistency, commitment, character and capacity.
Dr. Okpala also disclosed that for an entrepreneur to be successful, he or she should be disciplined, dedicated, determined and desirous of his business setting while also pointing out that the keys to a successful business venture are hinged on idea development, availability of funds for problem solving, additional sources of income, financial independence and deriving joy in the work.
On his part, a member of the University Governing Council and Deputy Registrar (Personnel), Pastor Sam Ufoh speaking on the topic: “Workplace job ethics” towards optimizing service delivery and work output, described work ethics as a set of moral principles or values that an employee abides by and uses to perform his or her job which includes behaviour and attitude towards the job, career and institution.
Ufoh also said that good work ethics lead to success as it is related to productivity and are the moral principles that control or influence a person’s behaviour in an organization and in a given social setting.
The workshop also featured question and answer session as well as entertainment. Present during the workshop were the Deputy Directors of the centre; Engr. Prof. Ugochukwu Okonkwo, Dr. Chinweude Ugochukwu and Dr. Taiwo Abdullahi; Principal Assistant Registrars (PARs), Mr Ngozi Adum and Mrs Modesta Ubanwa as well as Head of ICT unit, Dr. Ikechukwu Umeh and all members of staff of the centre.
