Businesses urged to create value, build partnerships to scale

Small business owners across Nigeria have been urged to create value and build partnerships as they seek to scale and maximise value from their ventures.

This was stated during the recent webinar organised by Kuda Business, the enterprise-facing offshoot of Kuda, with the theme, ‘Leveraging Partnerships to Make More Revenue.’

Kuda Business monthly webinar is an empowerment initiative for business owners and SMEs, geared towards profitability and to help scale their operations. The monthly webinar is also knowledge sharing initiative for entrepreneurs towards building a community for shared experiences.

Vivian Ekwegh, the CEO of declutterdotcom, stated that business owners can leverage on partnerships to grow their business. According to her, seeking to build partnerships should look out for companies with similar values.

“Look for another business that is complementary, or even a competitor who has similar strengths. Your reach is beyond your network because you’re now partnering with someone who has done it for a while,” Ekwegh stated.

Oluseye Babatunde, strategic partnerships manager (B2B), Kuda, stated that it is important for business owners going into a partnership to look out for compatibility, especially on the back of identifying potential customers.

“If you don’t understand the value chain where you play, you won’t know how you can complement. After this, you begin to check out their integrity, you can also check out their track record of success. Then, read reviews about them,” he stated.

He stated further that it is equally important for business owners to learn more about the company or businesses to seek partnership with. “Don’t just assume you know these people. You’re going into a different relationship with different dynamics,” Babatunde stated.

Maryam Ibrahim, strategic partnerships manager (B2C), Kuda, urged business owners to highlight the value they are bringing to the table in building sustainable partnerships.

According to her, having a unique selling point is key to building sustainable partnerships and value creation towards growing the business.

“You need to show them why they are choosing you, or why they should go with you. You need to have your unique selling point,” she stated.