Monday, October 17, 2016
Diamond Bank Plc has called on Small and Medium
Enterprises, SMEs, operating in the country to embrace the changing trend in
the business world by leveraging technology to boost their businesses.
Ms Njideka Esomeju, Head, Emerging Businesses,
Diamond Bank Plc, made the call at the SMEs Business Club seminar organized by
the bank in conjunction with HP, Microsoft, Intel and MTN Nigeria in Lagos, to
provide tools and insights on how small businesses can accelerate growth using
technology.
She stated that taking advantage of technology would
give them unlimited access to their target market., saying, "You need to
re-brand your business to follow the trend especially taking your business to
social media platforms and moving your sales and marketing online."
She said that experience garnered in her years of
working with SMEs showed what most small business need was not access to
finance but someone that would provide financial advisory services that would
help such entrepreneurs better structure their business and make them more
profitable.
She said: "Part of our main focus is on
Growth", she the bank provides advisory services to SMEs as well help them
rearrange and reform their businesses to make it easier for them to access
finance. "We advise people to access finance in clusters by borrowing as a
group. This facilitates borrowing process and makes it a lot more easier,"
she said.
Esemeju noted that the bank has developed some
online solutions that would enable SMEs take their business to the level of
international visibility and listed such tools to include Diamond Mobile App
where SMEs can register their business, the Mpos, Diamond Esusu and Diamond
Business Advantage, an account designed specifically for businesses.
In his submission, Niyi Ajayi, SME Lead, Microsoft,
said that digtisation should be integrated into the business from inception,
saying that refusal to leverage technology would leave the business backward.
"Technology can be a major differentiation for
your business, but it can seem daunting when you look across your IT - from
servers to the cloud, PCs to mobile devices- to know where you should start and
how you can transition from what you have now to your new vision.
This is where Microsoft and its ecosystem of partner
experts provide something different, offering a unique approach for making the
benefits of modern technology a reality for SMEs," he added.
SOURCE: VANGUARD