Leading digital bank, Sparkle, on Thursday hosted a virtual session featuring esteemed economist and CEO of Financial Derivatives, Bismarck Rewane; Founder of The Dew Center, Omon Anenih; and Sparkle's CEO, Uzoma Dozie. The session focused on effective cash flow management strategies for small businesses, with a strong emphasis on the adoption of digital solutions.
The 90-minute webinar, titled ‘Keeping Your Cash Flowing: Simple Tips for Small Business Owners,’ drew over 140 business owners from across Nigeria eager to learn strategies to navigate current economic challenges. Rewane kicked off the session with a 20-minute presentation on Nigeria's shifting economic landscape, addressing key issues such as currency devaluation, FX losses, minimum wage adjustments, high inflation, interest rates, borrowing costs, reduced profit margins, and declining consumer spending. This was followed by a panel discussion and Q&A, where experts underscored the critical role of a digital mindset in achieving entrepreneurial success amidst these challenges.
The webinar titled, ‘Keeping Your Cash Flowing: Simple Tips for Small Business Owners’, was attended by more than 140 business owners from across Nigeria keen to gain insights to navigating their businesses. In a 20-minute presentation that preceded the panel discussion and Q & A session, Rewane provided an overview of Nigeria's evolving economic landscape. He highlighted the impacts of currency devaluation, FX losses, minimum wage reviews, high inflation, interest rates and borrowing costs, squeezed margins, and declining consumption, on businesses in general.
He said, “In 2014, Nigeria was Africa's largest economy; about 23% of Africa's GDP was in Nigeria and we were the sixth largest oil producer in the world. 10 years later, things have changed. By 2017 we had gone into recession, followed by Covid-19 and another recession in 2020…these factors all have a significant impact on small businesses today..’’
Despite these challenges, he stressed that small businesses can still succeed by adopting a digital mindset, building efficient operating models, and tapping into high growth sectors such as agriculture, healthcare, telecommunications, media, renewable energy, real estate, and tourism. Rewane also encouraged small business owners to persevere, noting that many mega-corporations, including Amazon, started as small businesses. He cited Amazon's journey from a garage-based online bookstore in 1994 to a $2 trillion enterprise.
Speaking at the webinar, Uzoma Dozie highlighted that adopting a digital mindset can enhance small business operations, reduce costs, and enable data-driven decision-making. He shared that Sparkle supports this transition by providing tools for expense tracking, invoicing, payments, performance monitoring, payroll, savings, and investments, all through a mobile app.
Omon Anenih shared her entrepreneurial journey, advising small business owners to manage cash flow effectively by planning, tracking expenses, cutting costs without sacrificing value, staying lean, making data-driven decisions, and diversifying revenue streams. She underscored the importance of digital tools in boosting productivity and profitability, saying, “Cash flow is the lifeblood… digital is your friend.”
Sparkle Business simplifies business management for small and medium enterprises, allowing them to monitor activities, manage products and customers, identify top-selling products and high-patronage customers, and track business metrics, all from a mobile device.
The webinar was moderated by Nneka Okekearu, Director of the Enterprise Development Centre at Pan-Atlantic University.
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