Entrepreneurship, ICT and SME Development in Nigeria: The Ye, Yan, Yanju Paradigm

Abstract

This paper examines the role of ICT in the development of entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) in Nigeria. It considers the impact of ICT on the creation of budding infopreneurs sequel to the introduction of the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication in the country. It was discovered that the introduction of GSM as a factor of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) opened up a vista of opportunities for youth empowerment and employment. Using exploratory methods, the study discovered that ICT has a major role to play in the development of start-up enterprises, most of which are novel creations in their own rights. These previously unheard of ventures created opportunities for addressing the yearnings for employment and job creation for the youth and they include such entrepreneurial ventures as the ubiquitous call centers and short-codes businesses. However, each new enterprise must transcend three local dimensional contexts to attain sustainability; ye, yan, yanju. Contexts parallelly aligned to enterprise conception, birth and persistence.   It was also discovered that limiting factors such as poor access to financial assistance and poor marketing skill and orientation constitute challenges which any budding entrepreneur need to tackle to achieve sustainability of the established venture.

Keywords:             infopreneurs, intrapreneurs, call-center, GSM, Ye, Yan, Yanju