Business News
How SME’s can digitally export their products
As part of efforts to enable SMEs access the global market, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), has given some pointers.
As part of efforts to enable Small and Medium Enterprises to access the global market, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), has given some pointers to SME’s on how they can export their products through digital marketing.
The message was conveyed by the Regional Coordinator, South-West, Mr Babatunde Faleke who represented the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of NEPC, Mr Segun Awolowo, during a two-day workshop organised for the SME’s.
Leveraging digital platforms: According to Awolowo, finance is one challenge that greatly affects the ability of Nigerian SME’s to access international markets. However, with the aid of e-platforms which are made possible by the internet, SMEs can now do large-scale exports from the comfort of their homes as this method does not require huge finance.
[READ FURTHER: How to standout in a saturated market]
In a related development, a partner at Neukleos, Olubukola Akingbade, during a recent interview with Nairametrics, highlighted some tips for SMEs to leverage digital platforms in the promotion of their businesses. See the tips below:
- Have a website
- Do videos especially on YouTube to boost your ranking
- Have a strong social media presence
- Know who you are as a brand and be deliberate when you put them out on social media.
Awolowo added that SME’s should be effective in their approach because “having a website is not enough, but getting the right impact from the website is the important thing. If they know the right thing to do, they can attract their target customers and also track them.
“Digital marketing also involves market segmentation, where the products are targeted at particular segments of the consuming public.”
Digital marketing strategist, Mr Moses Ololo, also shed light on how small business owners could use digital marketing methods to export products from Nigeria to the outside world and also get the right focus and the right clients.
“You have to have target consumers, people who want to buy the products. You cannot just target everybody. You should be able to know tools to get your products to the countries that are interested in the products.
“If you are targeting a company for instance, you have to target the procurement officer of the company. The tool you can use to get this, of course, is the social media tools LinkedIn, Facebook and others. You can search for them, get their information and send them e-mails.”
Why this matters: As stated earlier, the financial capacity of SMEs is rather too limited to accommodate large-scale exports in Nigeria. Moreover, even if they do manage to load containers with goods, they will have to deal with the challenges that have bedeviled the Nigerian export sector for decades; including delays in getting goods to the port, cost of documentation, and Customs Tariff. This is why there is a need for digitalization.
[ALSO READ: Phillips Consulting to hold webinar on digital transformation]
Profiles
Atsu Davoh is building ways for Africans to easily acquire and spend cryptocurrency
Atsu Davoh has gone from failed projects to running one of Ghana’s most innovative startups.
In recent times, the tech space in Africa has experienced immense growth, with the introduction of several key players and disruptors across various sectors. One sector that is also rising is the cryptocurrency space with Africa experiencing greater crypto ownership and trade volume.
The number of Bitcoins processed on a single day reached its highest value at the beginning of 2021, as more people displayed interest in the cryptocurrency. Due to its fast adoption, more fintech players have created platforms that have made trading with cryptocurrency easier. One of such players is Atsu Davoh who calls himself the “product guy.”
Atsu Davoh dropped out of college (Carleton College) in the United States and moved back to Ghana to help innovate on Africa’s financial infrastructure. Atsu first discovered Bitcoin in 2017 during the first boom when it became mainstream. Before then, he and his co-founder Samuel Baohen had been involved in many failed projects.
He developed a USSD system where people could buy bitcoin through their phone numbers, like tying crypto to phone numbers in a native way. This was one of the first iterations of Bitsika.
Atsu was invited to Join Binance Labs Incubator by Yele Bademosi where he got $150,000 after graduating from the incubator. Bitsika went on to raise around $900,000 from investors. This brought the total seed raised to $1,050,000.
This USSD system worked in Ghana but didn’t work in Nigeria. Atsu and his team then pivoted the platform to a donation crowdfunding platform, which allowed people living in other countries to send donations to African nationals in need of the funds before finally building it into a cross-border crypto remittance platform.
Bitsika users can deposit and remit money across multiple currencies using the app, with all monies deposited in Bitsika stored in USD credits or stable-coin.
Bitsika has over 50,000+ downloads on Playstore and processed nearly $40 million in 2020 with $18,872,474 in deposits, $17,890,807 in payouts (withdrawals), and $3,189,834 in internal peer-to-peer transfers.
Despite a few unfavourable regulations surrounding cryptocurrency in Africa, the market has shown no signs of slowing down as more people are building products that will make trading seamless.
Business
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