e-Business fair 2015: Speakers call for diversification of economy

DigitalSENSE Business News:

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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