Digitising Your Business Can Grow You Financially

The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises(MSME) that go digital could increase its revenue by 26 per cent and reduce costs by 22 per cent, according to recent research.

This emphasizes the significance of digitising one’s business, as it will notably lead to rapid rise in customer base and patronage, it will improve profitability over a short period of time, allowing you to get quick returns on investments.

“Statistical research in 2018 showed that digitally transformed enterprises contributed $13.5 trillion to the global GDP, and it is projected that in 2023, it will reach $53.3 trillion, which is more than 50 per cent of the global GDP.

“If we in Nigeria can digitally transform our MSMEs, it could add 26 per cent to GDP or to the revenue of the MSMEs. Today, MSMEs contribute 43 per cent to Nigeria’s GDP which is about $205 billion. 26 per cent of this means digitisation of our MSMEs can increase our GDP by $53 billion,” the director-general, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) says.

Speaking on federal government’s commitment on digitally transforming the economy, the DG revealed that the federal government regulations are not meant to stifle businesses rather to influence businesses to unlock opportunities using technologies to protect the market, enable innovation and improve service delivery.

To him, “the federal government, through NITDA, wants to achieve 90 per cent digital literacy by 2030. We want every Nigerian to be able to use digital devices to access digital services. Every country needs to field in-country skills and build its digital offering, so NITDA started the initiative of training one million developers in 2022. So far, we have trained 219,000 Nigerians on different aspects of technology. On digital literacy, NITDA has trained more than three million Nigerians through various channels.’’

He is optimistic that, as adopting businesses progress by leveraging digital platforms to market their goods and services, so also  Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) might rise by $53 billion.

On his part, the Managing Director of Autusbridge Consulting Limited, Olugbanga Johnson, said: “For me, I think what technology has come to do is bring speed, reduce error, improve quality delivery and reduce cost in business operations.

“What technology is doing is making us more efficient and is also able to give us more data and information that we need to be able to take business decisions. There are lots of things we don’t need to struggle with now because technology is giving us the right set of data and with the right analysis, you can make inferences and make decisions that will benefit your business.”