The Essentials of Packaging
A Guide for Micro, Small, and Medium Sized Businesses
by
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Some Challenges Facing the MSMEs in the Developing Countries 1. Many lack capital adequacy to support their operations. This is because many of them start as one-man businesses and they have limited access to conventional sources of funds, like banks and other financial institutions. 2. Poor and inadequate infrastructural facilities, such as power, water, and roads not only hinder their progress and performance, but also add so much to the cost of running their businesses. 3. Government support is at best feeble, weak, and can hardly be relied upon for sustainable operations. 4. Most of the machines and equipment they use are locally fabricated and are rather crude, hence efficiency and productivity suffers. 5. Though labour abounds in many developing countries, they lack the relevant managerial competence and technical know-how to make the impact on the enterprises. 6. From the point of view of pricing and product quality, many MSMEs in the developing countries cannot compete in the global market, particularly in the advanced countries of the West. 7. Satisfactory product packaging remains a sore issue for many MSMEs, which is the reason for writing this small book. 8. As vital as the MSMEs are to the development of any economy, they are the most vulnerable to the vagaries of economic and political instability of any nation, as we are presently witnessing in many parts of the world, and the reasons for this are . It is important to know that production creates the wealth of a nation, while other functions assist with its distribution. For a nation to grow industrially, government must truthfully and faithfully be committed to assisting the MSMEs to achieve their goals. The truth as Noah Webster put it is, ‘You may reason, speculate, complain, form mobs, spend your life railing at Congress and your rulers, but unless you import less than you export, unless you spend less than you earn, you will be eternally poor.’ The solution to poverty is high productivity and the ability to compete globally. Vibrant MSMEs hold the ace.
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About the Book
Packaging remains the most effective medium through which goods can be made available to the consumer wherever he resides. The Essentials of Packaging: A Guide for Micro, Small, and Medium Sized Businesses has been written to guide manufacturers or anyone who has any marketable product to package. As the book’s title shows, some emphasis has been focused on MSMEs that are at a disadvantage for various reasons, among which is their lack of financial muscle to engage full-time packaging professionals to handle their packaging needs on a routine basis.
About the Author
Sola Somade is an industrial/analytical chemist, having received a BSc degree in industrial chemistry from the City University, London, and an MSc in analytical chemistry from the Imperial College, University of London. She worked for Unilever Nigeria Plc for twenty years, where she held several key positions in product development, quality assurance, packaging development, and packaging buying. She was a diploma member of the Institute of Packaging, UK, and she is now a Fellow of the Institute. Sola is recognised by PIABC as an Accredited Packaging Professional (APkgPrf) and an IOM3 Approved Assessor. She is the co-author of 111 Questions & Answers in Packaging Technology, and the co-founder of Superior Packaging Consultants Ltd – a firm of packaging consultants and trainers based in Lagos, Nigeria. Tunji Adegboye holds a BSc degree in chemical engineering from the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, and an MS degree in operations research and statistics from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, troy, New York, USA. He worked for both Unilever Nigeria Plc and Cadbury Nigeria Plc for a total of twenty-seven years where he held such key positions as quality assurance manager, packaging development manager, and technical manager, among others. He was a diploma member of the Institute of Packaging, UK, and is now a Fellow of the Institute. Tunji is recognised by PIABC as an Accredited Packaging Professional (APkgPrf) and an IOM3 Approved Assessor. He is the co-author of 111 Questions & Answers in Packaging Technology, and the co-founder of Superior Packaging Consultants Ltd – a firm of packaging consultants and trainers based in Lagos, Nigeria.