MTN Ghana has launched its SME Month for this year with an assurance to provide small businesses and entrepreneurs in the country with the requisite tools and skills to take full advantage of the opportunities the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) presents. 

The leading African telco and platforms player also has a sharp focus on the risks AfCFTA presents to local SMEs and has therefore earmarked strategies to ready them to master and minimize those risks as well.

The theme for this year’s MTN SME Month is “Optimizing Business Solutions for SME Growth” and the key focus is provide SMEs with affordable but high-impact digital solutions among other things to enable them do business better.

Indeed, ahead of the launch of the SME month, MTN Ghana used its annual MTN 21 Days Yello Care this year to provide over 4,000 indigenous small business owners with digital skills and tools to enable them grow their efficiency and productivity through technology.

CEO of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh said SME Month is an additional major step by MTN to ensure that SMEs, which constitute 90% of businesses in Ghana and are responsible for 80% of employment and 60% of GDP, received the much needed boost to optimize their potentials.

According to him, the ultimate goal, is not just to grow the SMEs to reach bigger markets in Ghana, but also across the entire African continent within the context of AfCFTA.

He also noted that, much as AfCFTA presents immense opportunities for Ghanaian SMEs to go continent and possibly global, it also presents the risk of SMEs from other parts of the continue reaching into the Ghanaian market to compete with local SMEs.

Selorm Adadevoh said MTN’s goal, with this year’s SME Month is to ready the local players with all the tools, skills training, managed services and more to enable them compete locally and grow into other parts of the continent, to ensure that Ghana is the net winner under AfCFTA.

Acting Chief Enterprise Business Officer at MTN Ghana, Daniel Asare noted that SMEs have played and continue to play a crucial role in the growth and development of Ghana’s economy and that is why for over two decades, MTN has strategically invested in the growth of the Ghanaian SME ecosystem in diverse ways.

He said MTN’s commitment to growing SMEs is reflected in the fact that most of suppliers such as Valued Added Services (VAS) businesses, Content providers (CPs), FinTech businesses, vendors of digital services amongst others all started as small businesses, but today many of them have grown and expanded into medium and large businesses.

Beyond creating opportunities for businesses to succeed, we feel the need to develop solutions that enable businesses to operate more efficiently and remain competitive and sustainable,” Daniel Asare said.

According to him, MTN’s business solutions for SMEs are based on several conversations wit the SMEs themselves, which revealed that they are looking for ways to reduce costs, improve turnover and increase productivity and efficiency.

He said based on the insight gathered, MTN is convinced that the SMEs stand a better chance of surviving when they adopt digitalization and technological solutions, hence MTN’s focus on providing them with digital solutions and skills to help them effectively integration into both local and global markets.

We are also aware that SME’s face a financing gap in adopting technology and this is why MTN business is making it easier for SMEs to leverage fintech and innovation to improve their operations at affordable rates,” he said.

Daniel Asare said, as a partner for SMEs, MTN Business will throughout the month of July get closer to SMEs and expose them to MTN’s SME Solutions such as SME Plus, Messenger and Business Manager, Microsoft 365 suite and Business Website.

He said “These Solutions offer various Voice, Data and SMS packages that will enable them to reach more customers with their products and services. Also, SMEs will be exposed to solutions that allow them to efficiently manage their finances and other administration functions.”

Meanwhile, the SME Month activities are earmarked mainly for Accra and Kumasi, where activities such as SME Activations, Training Sessions for Selected SMEs, Focus Group Discussions, Customer Appreciation Programs, Training on Chenosis for Young Developers, Presentations on MTN Business Solutions, Exciting Product highlights and quizzes and two  Market Fairs to crown it all.

One particular activity that excites me most about the SME month is an initiative we are introducing called the SME Pop Shop. One SME (within our base) would be invited to MTN House and other MTN branches every day in July to display their business to MTN employees. What a fantastic way of supporting SME’s and getting them to reach more people.

“These activities will afford us the opportunity to get closer to the SME community and offer them relevant world-class digital tools and solutions to help grow and scale up their businesses,” he said.

MTN Group Head of MTN Enterprise Business, Tumi Chamayou urged SMEs and small business owners in Ghana to take full advantage of the opportunities provided by MTN to master the necessary digital skills that will help the scale their business and gain access to markets beyond Ghana.

She noted that Africa is the youngest population in the world today, and that means supporting young business owners in the SME sector is the smartest way to secure that future of Africa and not sell the continent short to foreign multinationals who are poised to capture the opportunities on the continent “if we let them.”

Some SMEs who have benefited from MTN Enterprise Business solutions took turns to testify of how the tailor-made affordable solutions from MTN Enterprise Business and the continuous support services from the MTN team helped them to work more efficiently and  meet the aspirations of their respective clients.

MTN SME Month this year is in collaboration with several local banks and businesses interested in the growth of the SMEs sector.