Yemisi Izuora
RED Star Express Plc is set to host entrepreneurs and owners of Small and Medium Enterprises to a forum to give them support by sharing insights, information and industry advice as it affects them in relation to the growth of their business. The event will seek to provide advice and logistics resources from Red Star Express, other industry leaders and concerned regulatory agencies so as to assist in creating an excellent opportunity to interact and network.
Tagged “Breaking Boundaries”, the event will be held on July 7 in Lagos at the Welcome Centre, International Airport Road. Apart from being a form of corporate social responsibility for Red Star Express, SME1000 is a groundbreaking medium by the company to bridge the logistics gap faced by SMEs.
Sola Obabori, group managing director of RedStar, elucidated on the reason behind the project, saying: “Red Star chose to embark on this SME 1000 project in order to promote and create a platform to connect these SMEs globally, because RedStar is a global business that can connect with any part of the world in 72 hours. We want to bring 1000 SMEs together to partner with them and create opportunities and network for them in order to enable them understand the process of running an SME.
“We understand that some of the challenges of coming up with an SME is infrastructure, inconsistency, succession plans, lack of focus, all amongst others. In international countries there are usually plans for succession but it’s hardly done in Nigeria. However, we can’t say Nigerians have done badly because we have had good SMEs that have grown and stood the test of time. For instance, we have Dangote, Globacom, FCMB, and the likes.”