CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDYThe contribution of small –scale business in fostering economic growth anddevelopment has been well articulated in different areas of this study .the specificattention on them based on their expected impact and potential contribution onbroad and diversified production base, as well as their accelerative effect inachieving macro objectives pertaining to full employment, income distribution andthe development of local technology. They are particularly most conducive fordiffusion of management skills and emulation of indigenous entrepreneurshipovertime.Small business provides financial opportunity and a chance to developwealth. It is a place where creative, motivated individuals can use their talents andexpertise to the fullest, because it provides satisfying careers and job opportunitiesand it’s also the back bone of the market economy of the word. Every big businessstarts as a small business, and it started with an entrepreneur (small business),who at first, earns little or no profit. It was the new ideas of small business thatbrought about Ekene Dili Chukwu Transport, the FAN Milk, Nnewi “Tokumbo”parts, and even the many commercial banks in Nigeria. Untried ideas becomeannulations that become concepts that changed the business world. And so it goes.Small business is the basis for the economic well being many developed nationsincluding USA/Japan.Entrepreneurship is what makes a small business successful.Entrepreneurship occurs when an individual develops a new venture, a newapproach to an old business or idea, or a unique way of giving the market place aproduct or service by using resources in a new way under conditions of risk. Smallbusiness triumphs and entrepreneurship are closely related to it. It is difficult toseparate them.The unemployment situation in the country coupled with the newgovernment instinctive towards easing social tensions among unemployed youths,through the programmed of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), wereintended to lure a lot of unemployed Nigerians, including graduates into selfdetermination through self employment. Graduates and school leavers are nowrealizing that government and the established private companies are not ready tocome to their aid directly, through paid employment due to the dividing state ofthe economy. Short of the alternatives, Nigerians including our graduates aretherefore launching themselves into various small-scale business ventures, such ascottage soap and cosmetics production, fairing, restaurants, fast food, publishing,writing, block making, garri processing, food processing, refuse disposal, taxidriving, cleaning services, weaving, baking tailoring, advertising and other samebusiness venture which depends mostly on local raw materials. The determinationto succeed is also fast becoming the order of the day.Government has been playing appreciative role in promoting the survivaland growth of small-scale enterprise in recognition of them flexible and adaptivenature as well as their re-generative power in promoting economic growth anddevelopment. Government also encourages people to establish their own smallbusiness so as to reduce the problem of unemployment in the country and alsoreduce the problem of importation of goods, more so, to produce exportationproducts.Government in believing that a dynamic and growing small manufacturingsub-sector can contribute significantly to the implementation of a wide rangedevelopment effectives, has thus enunciated various policies to encourage theirproliferation and make them veritable engines of growth and development. In thethird and for the development plans and the on-going three years rolling plan,priority has been accorded industrialization with greater emphasis on small-scaleenterprises. The basic activities of government policies as maintained in themonetary and fiscal policy measures, are to improve the financing and othersupportive services of small-scale business by expanding and improving access tocredit and infrastructural facilities, reducing their production costs, boosting theirprofitability, enhancing their survival and growth capacities as well as expandingtheir contributions to non-oil exports by making their products competitive in theexport markets.Hardly could any major industry succeed without the services of smallbusinessenterprise. The major goals of any profit oriented business are to makeprofit. A company will make more profit if statistics its customers need betterthem the competitors. Therefore in the contribution of small-scale business,bakeries would produce what the customers want and by so doing they maximizeprofit and only bakeries that are effective and efficient can satisfy customer’sneeds. In reality, it is possible to run a business without profit for a time, but it isnot possible for to survive for one day without customers. Customers are thecentral theme of any business. Without a total commitment to them, contributionto economic growth and development will have limited and brief effects.1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMBakery is in the production industry the quality of products rendered byour Bakeries have been attracting criticisms from people in all works of life. Thecivil servants, business men and the general public are all very critical ofproduction of cookies like bread, chi-chin, cake, meat pie, boons etc. Thecomplaints ranges from those of poor quality of products, poor packages, highprices, poor delivery, shortage of skilled manpower which affects productivity andrestrain expansive the use of potassium bromated which National Agency for foodand Drug Administration Commission (NAFDAC) banned for health purpose.Most bakeries do not put their customers in the prime place as theysupposed to be. There is now keen competition and to compete means tocontribute to economic growth and development. Dickson (1971:4), agreed withthis view when he said that small scale enterprises are ploughed by inadequaciesand serious miss-uses of business records and business information. The problemof poor or wrong location of an industry affects its production. Such as nearness toraw materials, market, sources of power and access to supply of labour andtransport facilities etc.Government incentive in industries has previously directed to publicinvestment neglecting private initiative. But a diversified and self-sufficienteconomy must take into consideration the importance of private sector in capitalformation.1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDYBased on the fact that one cannot build a house on a platter of gold withoutencountering one or two hassles here and there, so in the genesis and revelation ofthis work as the researcher encountered several problems the course of writing,which ranges from lack of time, financial and material constraints to the inabilityof reaching all members of the sample due to transport problems and even thosereached tend not to render full co-operation thus the total number of peopleinterviewed became smaller.Other limitations which the researcher encountered in the course of writingare that some of questionnaires distributed to the respondents were not returneddespite one or two reminders sent to them, while those that were delivered byhand were non-challantly filled. As such, there have been criticisms about thebakery industries in the way they render services to their customers. i.e. They donot see the customers as king lot in terms of national output and employment.Moreover, Nigeria has various policies on small-scale enterprises in recentNational development plan and also in the structural Adjustment programmed(SAP). The researcher wants to carry out a research on what bakeries do and therole they play in economic growth and development the researcher also wants tohave an idea base either to support all the sources about the poor impressionpeople have on how to improve their production so as to contribute effectively innational economic growth and development.Bakeries can do more individualized jobs for customers and thereby attractthem on the basis of specialty product quality and personal services rather than onthe impersonal of price or mass production of largely identical business. Based onthe above, the need for studying this topic is to show the effectiveness of smallscalebusiness in national economic growth and development.