LASU VC, WIMBIZ boss task women on strategic alliances

Prof Ibiyemi Olatunji-Bello, Vice-Chancellor, Lagos State University (LASU) and Mrs Hansatu Adegbite, Executive Director, Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) have amplified the need for women to nurture strategic alliances for competitive advantage.

They spoke at the Nigerian Institute of Management Chartered (NIM) Women in Management and Leadership (WIMLEAD) conference with the theme: ”Building Alliances and Strategic Relationships”. on Wednesday in Lagos.

The LASU VC, represented by Prof Adenike Boyo, Deputy Vice Chancellor, Admin, LASU, said strategic relationships were no longer an option but a necessity in the 21st century competitive business environment.

Olatunji-Bello said that women in management and leadership roles should endeavour to form interdisciplinary and intergenerational alliances with other talented people.

According to her, these alliances present the opportunities for enterprises to acquire specific advantages such as extraordinary financial and human resources, increase of power in market, increase in competitive benefit and possible market expansion.

She, however, stressed that these alliances should be built on trust, shared values and long-term mutual benefits.

“Benefits of these alliances include risk sharing, competitive advantage, access to resources and goals attainment.

“By focusing on creating meaningful relationships and identifying partners who can contribute to your professional growth, you can unlock new collaborative opportunities both for yourself and your organisation,” she said.

In her remarks, the WIMBIZ boss noted that strategic alliances must be taken as a norm, seeing that nothing could be achieved in isolation.

Adegbite emphasised the need for infusion of energies between women in the private and public sectors to support increase of women in the political space, to engender the kind of interventions women deserved.

“We must begin to understand the power of what we can get together when we align, hence the need to address the disparity between women in the public and private sectors.

“There’s the need to identify pain-points affecting women and find ways to bridge those gaps particularly for women in the rural areas and informal sector.

“Women in public service should begin to allocate certain amounts of their budgetary provisions (at least 30 per cent) to women-owned businesses to unlock their productivity potential,” she said.

She reiterated the commitment of WIMBIZ to increasing representation of women in strategic positions across the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy.