BGEN mulls capacity development in Nigeria through academy

BGEN, a specialist, multi-discipline engineering solutions business, has said it will be investing in human capacity development for local talents in Nigeria through its academy which kicks off soon.

Vinnie Edge, the international and strategic business director at BGEN speaking during a press conference in Lagos recently, said BGEN is growing organically at the moment and over the next couple of months, after building its core team, it will open the academy and start to train local talents, however, the firm is at the moment will be depending on volume of sales and orders.

“We do have some interesting work in the pipeline. We have started interviewing people just a small number for now. But once we hit our target, in the next 12 to 24 months, then we will open the academy for training.

“The talent and the hunger I have seen in this country to learn and develop is inspirational. We want to use our UK expertise to help nurture and develop the talents and provide experience and also if we feel the people have during the six months probation, are committed and have the hunger, we will then look out for more qualifications,” Edge said.

Edge explained that the training will be diverse ranging from design engineers, to project management to electricians amongst others, adding that BGEN has invested about half a million pounds in Nigeria already.

Read also: LG drives healthy living, launches free wash centre in Oyo State

He disclosed that BGEN plans to extend its service offerings to farmers, chemical processes, just to mimic what we do in the UK.

“We are at the early days of our operations at the moment. We plan to grow organically in order to build a very good team of engineers, managers and artisans, electricians and mechanical fitters in order to execute our projects with support from our UK expatriates, designers, managers and specialist engineers, he explained,” he said.

Furthermore, he explained that the services the firm provides are mechanical and electrical services including design and management, HVAC and building services, instrumentation and control systems, LV assemblies and system integration, LV/MV power distribution, piping systems and steel fabrication.

Bolaji Sofoluwe, the chairperson, BGEN International Nigeria, speaking at the occasion said one of the things that BGEN always recognizes even abroad is that when a Nigerian is hired, they put in their best because they will work hard.

“Nigerians are usually very intelligent, smart and resilient. They can adapt to very difficult circumstances. We discovered that this could be a really challenging environment to work but when you have the right local talents, then you can overcome those challenges because that is their local habitat and that is where they have grown up and lived,” Sofoluwe explained.

Sofoluwe reiterated that being able to train local talents and being able to bring them up to the world standards, means they will be pushing better engineers and entrepreneurs into the eco system and this can then help SMEs to grow.

“Why should it be only the corporate and multinationals that can afford expensive mechanical engineers to make sure their facilities function well? Smaller industries and SMEs should be able to afford the same and the only way to do that is to push quality into the system. That is why we are very focused on training local engineers because it is not just about us, it is about the general ecosystem,” she added.