Small businesses need technology lever
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been urged to leverage on technology as a blueprint to solve the problems they face in their businesses.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and co-founder of Leti Arts, Mr Eyram Tawiah, who gave the advice at the maiden SMEs Africa summit in Accra, said SMEs must find ways of using technology to make their work easier and better.
He noted that employees were often scared of getting fired and so they sabotaged the use of technology in companies. However, he said technology was the blueprint and that going through iteration was what made it a product.
“The goal of technology is to get you more to be more productive but not to fire you. It provides opportunity for you to learn how to use the machine to solve a need so you have to learn how to use the machine. The products of technology cannot replace us, it’s only solving a need so we have to learn how to use it,’” he said.
He said during iteration, technology created jobs through crowd sourcing and that with time, the product would bring back money into the system. That, he said, was why investment was needed and where SMEs came in; they get funds, get people, try to predict the need for the product and that would bring money.
He added that Ghana could use technology to enhance sectors such as entertainment, fashion, city planning and health planning, among others.
“We can jump things, we learn by doing, be open-minded to change, use technology always. The world is moving into smart cities which are estimated to be worth US$1 trillion by 2016. That is where Ghana has to be. Let’s build an ideal smart cites in transportation, smart Information and Communications Technology (ICT), smart utilities and in everything, let’s make things easier for us and we will definitely be somewhere better,” he said.
The SME Africa Summit
Creative Trends, organised the summit which was sponsored by Graphic Business. The summit brought together players in the SME sector, banking, telecommunication and other sectors for discussions on businesses in the context of changing societies as well as the fortunes of the masses.
It was on the theme: “Small Companies Big Impact.”
Other technology/software developers at the second day of the SME summit took turns to educate the SMEs on the need to employ the services of technology to promote and grow their businesses.
They included the CEO and Founder of Soronko Solutions, Ms Regina Agyare, the CEO of Horseman Shoes, Mr Tonyi Senayah, and the CEO of Rancard, Mr Kofi Dadzie.
The CEO of Rancard, Mr Kofi Dadzie, outlined that SMEs could leapfrog infrastructural gaps through crowd funding, crowd competing and crowd sourcing.
He said crowd funding had become an increasingly popular option for both entrepreneurs and investors and had proven itself to be a successful alternative in acquiring or investing money.
“In fact, crowd funding is poised to become the next big investment trend because it has proven to be convenient, validates a concept and reduces risk. Because it validates the market, both entrepreneurs and investors don’t have to worry about taking on as much risk,” he said. GB