Business

SMEs urged to adopt innovative strategies to promote efficiency

 Small-scale and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) must adopt innovative strategies to promote efficiency and reduce costs to make their businesses thrive, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Vodafone Ghana, Patricia Obo-Nai, has stated.

She said SME operators must do things differently to make their businesses competitive to withstand competition in local and global markets.

Speaking at the Vodafone Runway for SME operators in the country in Accra last Friday, the CEO of Vodafone Ghana indicated that surviving in such turbulent business environment would require businesses to be innovative in order to meet the growing competition in the local and global economies.

The programme, which formed part of activities to mark the Vodafone SME month marked in September every year, was or­ganised by Vodafone Business.

On the theme “Good to Great with Vodafone: Innovate, Comply and Expand”, it was attended by hundreds of SME operators in Accra.

Mrs Obo-Nai said high in­flation, high cost of borrowing, and lack of funding remained a challenge to SMEs.

“In these turbulent times surviving must not only be the priority of businesses, but creating shareholder value too,” she said.

 She said SMEs must devel­op unique selling propositions that would be difficult for other businesses to replicate to help drive down costs and respond to customer needs faster.

Mrs Obo-Nai said businesses must also be tax compliant in or­der to attract a lot of business.

She said the programme was to create a platform to give back to businesses, especially SMEs.

The Vodafone Ghana CEO said the theme and topics were carefully chosen because of the current challenging realities busi­nesses face.

Senior Lecturer at the Uni­versity of Ghana Law School, Dr Abdallah Ali-Nakyia, in a presen­tation on the topic “Navigating the Tax Maze”, said businesses decide the tax they want to pay if they organise their tax payment affairs well.

According to him, the tax laws of the country allowed businesses to deduct costs, including repairs, interest charges, research and de­velopment, and finance from their revenues before paying tax.

Charlotte Amanquah of Eco­bank, who took the participants through Access to Sustainable Financing, urged SMEs to access development finance to fund their businesses.

She said commercial banks could help SMEs to access devel­opment finance.

CEO, Dentsu Ghana, Andrew Ackah, speaking on building innovative brands, urged SMEs to explore social media to build their businesses.

He said social media was relatively cheap and SMEs could use it to build their brands at a cheaper cost.

The Board Chairman of Access Bank Ghana PLC, Ama Barwuah, speaking on the busi­ness plan, urged the participants to organise their businesses well and put better structures in place.

BY KINGSLEY ASARE

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