Indians are not only good business managers, but also are imbued with entrepreneurial skills. What is the secret of this India’s business acumen? SIAKA MOMOH, BusinessDay’s Industry Editor, spoke exclusively with Mahesh Sachdev, High Commissioner of India in Nigeria, on the issue and reports. Excerpts

Yours sincerely is going on retirement, effective from first quarter of this year. Yes, first quarter, but hold it: He will still be very much around. His employer has graciously given him a consultancy status for one year. At the same time, he is free to run his own show. That is what you get when you have done well, when your services have been considered meritorious.

A new study by Microsoft has shown that huge finances losses can accrue to businesses or individuals that use pirated software in a bid to save money.

Experts are of the view that one of the biggest trends in family business is the growing number of women taking over their family businesses. In the past, succession was reserved for the first-born son, then it moved on to any male heir. Now, women account for approximately 11 to 12 percent of all family firm leaders, an increase of close to 40 percent since 1996.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contribute nearly half of Nigeria’s GDP and are central to its future prosperity and social balance. Yet too little is known about Nigeria’s SMEs and what obstacles stand in their way. A new, Pathbreaking study carried out by SMEDAN, Nigeria’s apex body for small and medium enterprise development policy in collaboration with the German Agency for International Co-operation (GIZ), highlights some of their challenges in Nigeria and also possible ways to help their businesses grow.

Bilateral trade between Nigeria and India has gone up by 34 percent between April 2010/March 2011, and April 2011/March 2012, with total trade moving up from $12.9 million to $17. 3 million between the two periods, BusinessDay can confirm.

No matter the storms, some small businesses are likely to prosper in 2013, as Domino Information Company Limited (DICL) recently got the operators to make storm-proof plans with expert guidance.

In 2010, a group of students at Aalto University, just outside Helsinki, Finland, embarked on the most constructive piece of student activism in the history of the genre. They had been converted to the power of entrepreneurialism during a visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When they got home they organised a “summer of start-ups” to spread the word that Finland’s future lay with new companies, not old giants. The summer of start-ups turned into a season of innovation.