PLANNING AND DECISION MAKING OF ENTREPRENEURS: VERITABLE TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Unemployment is the greatest challenge confronting the Nigerian graduates today. To curb this problem, one of the major needs of Nigeria as a country today is not just graduates that are conditioned by training for white collar jobs, that are nowhere to be found, but those who are independent, creative and resourceful and who will be able to use their talents to survive on their own. These groups of graduates are called entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur is perceived as a person who co-ordinates other factors of production and bears the risk of uncertainty by investing his resources in the venture. For most of these ventures to be sustained by entrepreneurs, developing a business plan and also employing positive decision making process become inevitable, as nobody actually plans to fail. The failure of most small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria indicates frequent deficiencies in planning and ineffective decision making. The decision making steps are very important because it helps in identifying problems or concerns, suggests solutions, and then implements the choice. The success of any venture depends ultimately upon the quality of the choices and decisions made during the initial planning process. This paper though an opinion one, through review of related literature, narrated the impact of planning and decision making on enterprises. It started with the concept of planning, importance of planning to business, characteristics of a good plan, types of planning, steps in the planning process, the business plan of an organization, the concept of decision making, classification of decisions in organizations, the decision making process in a business, conditions for decision making to start and finally, the paper narrated the implications of planning and decision making in organizations on sustainable development of a nation. It was therefore recommended among others, that the government should always organize seminars for small and medium scale enterprises to acquaint them with the knowledge of developing business plans and taking proper decisions for the success of their enterprises