The beneficiaries with officials from Zenith Bank, Alibaba and World Trade Centre Accra
Over 250 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have benefited from a series of trainings to equip them for the global market.
The Masterclass sessions were held by Zenith Bank Ghana in partnership with the World Trade Centre, Accra and Alibaba.com.
Titled, “The Alibaba Global Seller Training E-Course Masterclass’’ the training provided the SMEs with the needed insight and resources to promote their businesses on Alibaba.com and other e-commerce platforms.
Zenith Bank Ghana, Alibaba.com and Ghana Export Promotion Authority experts took participants through practical training in proper bookkeeping and financial management, search engine optimisation and marketing as well as export requirement processes.
A participant, John Jaoudah from Pacific Clothing, expressed satisfaction saying “it was a very good programme bringing SMEs together and trying to identify opportunities for them. Alibaba is a big platform that we should take advantage of and see how we can put our products online.”
He, however, noted that a challenge for the SMEs is the cost of listing their products on the platform and called on organizers to find a way to make it less costly for SMEs.
Head Retail Banking, Gloria Cabutey-Adodoadji said although SMEs are doing well on the Ghanaian Market a lot of them do not have a way of marketing their brands outside.
She said the bank therefore decided to partner Alibaba to help its SMEs with the needed knowledge to go global.
Touching on the cost of going global, Ms. Cabutey-Adodoadji said customers who use the Zenith bank platform with world trade centre to register on Alibaba gets a discount of $200.
“This is what Zenith Bank is doing to help Ghanaian SMEs get their products to the world market.
We are educating them on what it takes to get access to finance, training and advisory support and Zenith is also partnering with Development Bank Ghana to help SME access funding with low interest rates,” she said.
Ms. Cabutey-Adodoadji thus urged SMEs to take advantage of the activities like the SMEs fairs where they can come and advertise their products as well as meet partners who can help them promote their businesses to the next level.
Alibaba representative, Annalie Gibson, said the masterclass is to help SMEs extend their market beyond Ghana.
“Alibaba has a lot of buyers and is over 200 countries so this is going to help the SMEs to maximize their profit,” she said.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri