The 2015
e-Business fair with the theme ‘e-Business and the growth of your Enterprise’ kicked
off in Lagos, with speakers calling for diversification of the economy, reports
DigitalSENSE Business News.
The two-day
event organized by Connect Nigeria which took place at Eko Hotel and Suites,
Victoria Island Lagos, commenced Saturday February 21, 2015.
The fair is
said to be the second annual e-business fair and the biggest in Africa that is
organize to help the SME’s develop more skill and take their business to the
next level.
The event DigitalSENSE Business News gathered featured guest speakers
like Ibukunoluwa Ayodeji, Head of e-business, representing Union Bank, Mike Ogbalu
Jnr from first Bank, Olujode Ayodele representing Sky Bank, Femi George
representing Microsoft and Mr. Barow Osas that represented the Bank of
Industry.
Speaking at
the event Mr. Osas advised participants to key into the thriving growth of
technology in the world, and always think of doing businesses that could never
drop its value in the business.
He gave an
instance with the Nigeria oil market that has dropped tremendously lately,
saying that if the country had gets back to agriculture, the nation’s economy
will not drop as such. “If Nigeria focuses on agriculture, our economy will
never drop,” he said.
Mr. Osas
also made mention of products that the Bank of Industry has put in place to
assist the SME’s and to contribute to the growth of agriculture stressing that
the Cassava Scheme Fund, the Rice Intervention Fund and millions of milling machines
that have cut down the price for rice importation by less than 50 per cent.
Mr. Osas
also added that one of the major roles of the Bank of Industry is to train
young entrepreneurs and give them the opportunity to grow their business by
funding their business as long as they don’t deviate from production because
the BOI is trying to address the issue of unemployment.
“The Bank of
Industry can Finance anything as long as it involves production” he said.
For Mike Ogbalu
Jnr from First Bank said that the FirstMonie platform is the fast, safe, and
convenient mobile money service from First Bank, adding that with about 170
million Nigerians, 58.5 million adults own a mobile phone or device and 47.3
per cent have access to financial services, which means that FirstMonie is the gateway
for fast growing businesses.
Mr. Mike also
encourage the SME’s to subscribe to FirstMonie platform as it is a fast way to
grow their businesses saying that currently there is 2.4 million subscribers on
the Firstmonie platform but only 20% are active today.
Femi George
who represented Microsoft also explained to the audience what the giant company
has developed to help and encourage the SME’s saying that people should stop
seeing Microsoft as that big company that build computer machines, because it
has gone beyond that.
Femi George
pointed out and explains the Cloud Technology developed by Microsoft. He said
the platform is out to take away the burden from SME’s and also fresh business
starters as it is a set of free
configured building block that allows you to speed up and develop your business
ideas.
“Leverage
the cloud you will see that you can speed up your businesses and reach out to
more customers or client just through you mobile devices from where ever you
are,” he said.
+chidozie kingsley +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +ConnectNigeria.com
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