The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has commenced training of 30 business men and women on digital skills in marketing of their businesses in Bauchi State.
The Manager, SMEDAN, Bauchi office, Mr Abdulrasheed Aliyu, said this at the training on Thursday.
Aliyu said that the programme was designed under the digital skill training of the agency, in collaboration with a digital institution known as ‘Mind the Gap Nigeria’.
Aliyu, who said that 19 states were picked across the country for the training, added that the participants were representatives of various unions in the markets.
According to him, things are changing in the business world where more people embrace online shopping, hence the training to equip the participants with skills to operate their businesses online and to compete with their counterparts from other developed countries.
“We understand that most businesses now go online and most people are doing their businesses virtually traditionally and one of the missions of SMEDAN is to develop small and medium enterprises to boost their businesses.
“We introduced this training to give them knowledge of how they can go online to do their businesses both nationally and internationally, and that’s why we call it digital skill marketing.
“We want to train our small business owners on how to go online and do their businesses by marketing their products and get more customers for them to get more profit,” he said.
Aliyu also said that the trainer, an expert in Information Communication Technology (ICT), would teach the participants how to go online, and also how to protect their websites as well as how to evade hackers or scammers.
He advised the trainees to take the training very seriously, adding that they would have spent nothing less than N50,000 to acquire the training from a private individual but they were now being given free of charge.
Speaking, Mr Zack Ibrahim, the Trainer and the Community Manager, Mind the Gap Nigeria, Bauchi State Chapter, said the trainees would be trained on how to operate their businesses online locally and internationally.
Ibrahim also said they would be trained on how to provide their services to the people beyond their reach and locality.
“A time will come when people won’t go physically to buy things and this is already happening, especially in advanced countries.
“They should take the training very seriously because by the time they know how to make use of the skills, it will help their businesses.
“It would grow their businesses very well, in fact even in their finances, they will see changes,” he said.
Responding on behalf of the participants, Malam Bala Wunti appreciated the Federal Government and SMEDAN for the ‘laudable’ training, adding that it would enhance their businesses.
He promised to pass the knowledge acquired during the training to other business people not lucky to have been selected for the training.
