To see young Nigerian entrepreneurs thrive and stay afloat amidst economic lapses is one of the ultimate initiatives of the BusinessDay SME television program—to foster growth and implement significant change in businesses.
This monthly program is designed to enable business owners to make informed decisions through an assemblage of thought-provoking experts who jointly share their experiences to provide insights and value to a range of business-related concerns.
Held on September 26th, 2024, and aired on BusinessDay’s Youtube platform, the September episode of SME Clinic was centred on the theme, “Digital Tools for Your Business.”
In this era of digitalisation, the relevance of this theme cannot be overstated. The episode aimed to provide practical insights on how small and medium-sized enterprises can leverage digital tools to improve efficiency, profitability, and overall relevance in Nigeria’s competitive business landscape. The panel for the show featured distinguished thought leaders who are experts in various fields.
They include Madam Ajoke Yusuf, Madam Mabel Adeteye, Mr Ekundayo Ayeni, Mr Damola Salvador, and Mr Temitope Ijibadejo, who all contributed intelligently to the theme’s central objective.
Ajoke Yusuf opened the discussion by reinforcing the belief that digital tools are the new source of empowerment for SMEs. “The only bankable way to grow your business from point A to Z is through the utilization of adequate digital tools,” she explained.
Ajoke defined digital tools as software, applications, or online-based platforms that enable technologies to streamline operations, leading to enhanced productivity and growth. She further explained that digital tools not only optimize internal processes but also improve customer relationships, leading to repeat business and sustained revenue.
Ajoke further categorized digital tools relevant to the business sector today into six areas, and they include finance tools, admin tools, marketing tools, sales tools, customer service tools, and learning tools.
While it’s important to apply each of these tools in a business, Ajoke hinted that the sales, learning, and customer service tools stand highly crucial. For learning, it’s important to grow and improve industry knowledge by taking courses on YouTube, Udemy, or LinkedIn to help identify trends and updates. The sales tools are tools that facilitate a smooth sales process, and they include Hunter.io, Apollo.io, or data analytics, which aid the study of customers and spotlight peak times for sales.
The last tool, which is customer service tools, Ajoke explained that these digital tools help to manage customer requests, issues, enquiries, and feedback. Typical tools in this regard are ticketing systems such as Zendesk, Freshdesk, Jira, Hubspot, Kayako, etc.
Building up from Ajoke’s foundation, Madam Mabel Adeteye explored different reasons behind the widespread adoption of digital tools, some of which include the need to accelerate innovation and learning, the need to have their workforce empowered to drive high efficiency, and the need to gain visibility in the industry whilst understanding intricacies in the industry’s market scope.
Mabel continued hitting the nail on the head by pinpointing major driving forces on why digital adoption is crucial. First, she mentioned that business owners are only quickly realizing that the Gen Z audience, which serves as the target audience for the business, can be appropriately reached online, which calls for the need for digital adoption.
Secondly, these audiences love online validation of businesses; hence, business owners are striving to have an online digital presence to get customers’ engagement and validation. Third is the ample market insights of customers online; digital technologies allow business owners to track market insights like competition rate, unique selling propositions for other brands, marketing trends, and new industry developments and the fourth driving force, Mabel stated that “Social media has become the new customer service desk.
Every existing or prospective customer would want to see your business on social media to get engaged with, and this can only be possible by utilizing social media in full, which are all digital tools.”
Finding the right digital tools for your business might sometimes pose a challenge, but with Mabel’s insight, fetching the right digital tools is entirely dependent on the needs and objectives of a business; understanding your customers and the problem intended to be solved.
She referenced that while a fashion brand might only integrate customer relationship management technology in business, a logistics brand would opt for service technological tools. She recommended digital tools such as Google Meet, Zoom, Buffer, Freshbook, Freshdesk, and Google Analytics as good digital tools for businesses to adopt to enhance the functions of communication, accounting, project management, and social media management, stressing that the scalability and flexibility of these tools make them ideal for businesses aiming to expand.
Mr. Damola Salvador, with a sense of urgency, hammered that the competition stake in the business terrain is more than enough reason to uphold digital tools. “It doesn’t matter the size of your business; the competition is high and the online space is already saturated; you’ll be at a disadvantage if you are not involved,” Damola explained.
Proving that the embrace of digital tools often leads to business success, Damola referenced Kuda Bank, which gained over three million users just by utilizing digital tools, especially with a USP that pushed free service rates. He further cited how Netflix made its competitors fall behind because of the utilization of digital tools.
Augmenting Damola’s opinion, Mr. Temitope Ijibadejo emphasized that the adoption of digital tools is non-negotiable for SMEs. He complimented the submissions of Mabel and Ajoke by highlighting that digital operations hold several benefits for SMEs: Increased efficiency; saving time and reducing errors. Collaboration; allowing easy flow of information among team members. Enhanced customer experience; with CRM tools, customer management is assured by detailing preferences, history, and feedback.
During the Q&A session, Temitope suggested that JIRA as a digital tool is proficient for helping businesses set and track goals, urging SMEs to embrace digital technology and that the right tools would resort to transformative operations.
Addressing the theme from a different perspective, Mr. Ekundayo Ayeni focused more on practical insights for SME startups struggling with the adoption of digital tools. While he quite agrees with the submissions from fellow panellists, he, however, argued that some of these suggested digital tools might be too expensive for startups to adopt.
Ekundayo stood on the ground that digital tools and their utilization aren’t so complex, stating, “a simple consistency in Tik Tok or any social medium could work the magic.” Ekundayo buttressed that startups should mandatorily own a website with independent attainment of domain and host, using Gmail’s suites; while Gmail is often overlooked, it offers some great services with a limited budget. Its services include presentations, email marketing, and meetings.
He urged startups to understand their niche and lean towards easily accessible digital tools before gliding up the radar. During the Q&A session, he added that some of the challenges SMEs might face when adopting digital tools may include a lack of business and industry knowledge, funding deficiency, not understanding the audience, and adopting digital technology full-time without mock trials. He advised SMEs to start small, continually do research, seek the right sources of funds, and balance both traditional and digital approaches before full adoption.
With the insights provided by experts like Ajoke Yusuf, Mabel Adeteye, Damola Salvador, Ekundayo Ayeni, and Temitope Ijibadejo, a road map for viable and prosperous business ventures becomes clear: digital tools are not optional; they are indispensable for growth and success, not only to survive but to thrive in the increasingly competitive market.
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