It was a momentous gathering of stakeholders in Pharmacy profession and community pharmacists in particular, at the 10th Annual Pharmaceutical Business Seminar of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN), Ipaja, Dopemu, Egbeda, Akowonjo (IDEA) Zone, as business experts, drilled members on ways to become successful professionals and business men.
The event, which was organised by the ACPN, IDEA Zone and held at the Grand Ovation Event Centre, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos recently, themed, “Unlocking Your Financial Box”.
Chairman of the occasion, Pharm. Charles Ajibo, in his welcome address, described the annual business seminar which was the tenth in the series as laudable, saying the theme, “Unlocking Your Financial Box” was not only apt but also timely as community pharmacists in the zone are expected to be freed from all forms of financial restraints, when they diligently apply the rich learning they have acquired from the resource person.
In his lecture titled, “Why Financial Management”?, Pharm. Ajayi Tolulope Olugbadebo, a former branch business development manager with the United Bank for Africa (UBA), and chief executive officer, Shekinah Pharmacy Limited, who was one of the speakers noted that investment and managerial decisions are the root of every entrepreneurial success, adding that for business sustainability, financial management provides necessary analytical tools essential for rational investment decisions.
He noted further that the efficient and effective management of resources especially money in order to accomplish the objectives of the organization, involves planning, directing, monitoring, organizing and controlling of the monetary resources of an organization, saying it’s a specialized function directly anchored by top management of organizations.
“By nature and training, Pharmacists are entrepreneurial and committed multipliers of resources. However, more financial details and technicalities will boost their ability to excel at what they do,” he said.
Speaking further, Olugbadebo, stressed that in order to tap into the myriads of benefits of financial analysis, Pharmacies like any other business determined to grow and attain sustainability will do well to imbibe the culture of accurate and detailed reporting of financial activities that can be analyzed into very useful investment decisions.
Speaking in the same vein, the duo of Pharm. (Mrs) Bolanle Adeniran, chairman, PSN, Lagos State, and Pharm. Benedict Obideyi, chairman, ACPN, Lagos State, urged all community pharmacists in the zone to collectively tackle the challenges facing pharmacy practice in the state and ensure they gain back the trust which the public once reposed in them.
In his own address at the seminar, Pharm. Ismail Kola Sunmonu, zonal coordinator, ACPN, IDEA Zone explained that the main purpose of the programme which had spanned through ten years was organized to help members of the zone grow successful pharmaceutical business, while improving the image of the pharmacy profession at large.
Speaking further, he explained that the need for a paradigm shift to a more practical approach in the delivery of its lectures, which was born out of the desire to see the impact of the lectures in the lives of its members, even in the face of a more challenging economic situation in the country was responsible for the changing of the title of the programme from ‘Pharmaceutical Business Growth Seminar’ to ‘Pharmaceutical Business Seminar and Workshop’.
, Ipaja, Dopemu, Egbeda, Akowonjo (IDEA) Zone, as business experts,){kind=link}