RATIONALE OF THIS AWARDS

To be sure Nigeria already has several awards schemes that seek to identify and publicly appreciate exemplary private sector enterprises and others that do same for public sector institutions.

However because of the sheer size of Nigeria’s economy, underpinned by its huge population, coupled with the geographical decentralization of economic activity in the country, deriving from its use of a Federal system of governance and the fragmentation of its urban population centres and consumer markets, the major, nationwide award schemes instituted so far have failed to spread their nets beyond the very largest economic centres for business, finance and investment. Even in those leading urban centers, emphasis has always been on the biggest corporations and the Federal institutions of state, because of the sheer numbers of eligible enterprises and institutions which far exceed the logistical constraints imposed on award conferment organizations.

At the other end of the spectrum are award schemes organized on a state by state basis, which, due to their limited geographical scope are better placed to capture relatively smaller, yet most outstanding enterprises as well as State Government institutions and corporations. However, being relatively small regional initiatives in scope, the award winners are not exposed to the national audience whose appreciation which would provide the potential to enable them expand their activities through participation in national level supply/value chains and give them full access to nationwide markets.

Our Hemisphere awards overcome the limitations of each aforementioned type of awards scheme by combining aspects of both. Our awards will identify and publicly recognize awardees on a regional basis but within a nationwide wards platform that would expose all regional awardees to a national – indeed international – audience, consumer markets and potential supply/value chains. Ultimately therefore this will give all the regional winners the opportunity to leverage on nationwide, - and indeed international – acclaim to expand and diversify into nationwide activities for nationwide business to business and consumer markets.

BENEFITS OF THE AWARDS SCHEME

The nationwide and international recognition that would accrue to hitherto largely regional enterprises and institutions would provide them the opportunity to expand and thus benefit from the huge economies of scale and synergies available to enterprises that operate on a national scale in Nigeria’s huge economy as well as the benefits of accessing the vast and lucrative national and ultimately the African continental markets. Similarly institutions of state would have the recognition of and access to economic operators from beyond their core geographical areas of operational purview in their business regulatory, promotion, revenue collection, financing and facilitation activities.

Resultantly, the Nigerian economy and populace as a whole would benefit from increased nationwide business activity from enterprises enjoying the benefits of increased economies of scale and synergies - at least part of which would be passed on to customers/business to business partners. Similar benefits would accrue to state institutions which would improve both their geographical scope and their operational efficiency from national recognition and operational purview.