Top 100 mid-sized firms urged to embrace digital transformation
Sponsors and participants in the Top 100 survey (L-R): General Manager Commercial at NMG-Uganda Sam Barata, Head of Strategy at Equity Bank James Olang, Public Relations and Content Lead at the Innovation Village Electine Oyaga, Growth Services Lead at the Innovations Villag Cosmas Koech, Industry Solutions Manager at Huawei Technologies Gerald Olaa Innovations Village and Partner for tax and regulatory affairs at KPMG Peter Kyambadde during the forum at Sheraton Hotel yesterday. PHOTO/STEPHEN OTAGE
What you need to know:
Experts say most SMEs are not able to identify opportunities that come with technology to scale their businesses
Companies participating in this year’s Top-100 mid-sized survey have been advised to invest in digital transformation to scale efficiency and effectiveness.
Speaking at the Top 100 Forum on Technology in Kampala yesterday, Mr Sam Barata, the general manager commercial at Nation Media Group (NMG) Uganda, said technology is the way to go for businesses as it spurs innovation.
“As a media house, we are helping put together a narrative for them to understand how to digitise their processes and adopt e-commerce,” he said.
“Over the years, we have noticed many participants improving on their financial reporting, they are now able to attract financing from financial markets, many have automated their accounting systems, others have improved on the quality of people they are employing,” he added.
Mr Barata said participation in the annual Top 100 surveys has made the companies better.
Mr Cosmas Koech, the growth services lead at the Innovations Village, noted that because of failure to automate their systems, most SMEs are not able to identify opportunities to create competitive advantage and scale their businesses.
He said for the companies to achieve growth and scale up their production, they need to address the customer needs.
“People are always preoccupied with ways to get their products to the market. They always depend on business as usual but there is an opportunity of leapfrogging the rest of the peers by ensuring that you address the consumer needs. One way is coming up with solutions which empathize with the consumers,” he said.
Mr Gerald Olaa, the industry solutions manager at Huawei Technologies, who was the keynote speaker, said as an IT solutions company, they have designed different tools and equipment which can be customised to enable specific SMEs to digitalise their systems.
Mr Peter Kyambadde, the partner for tax and regulatory affairs at KPMG, warned the SMEs about the cost of remaining analogue.
For instance, he said that schools, which are still giving parents bank slips to pay school fees, risk losing clients because technology has eased such payments.
Mr Kyambadde said technology has also enabled the processing of accurate information in real-time, improved decision-making in organisations and also ensured the availability of different skill sets in different organisations.
Yesterday, NMG, KPMG and partners that include the Innovations Village, Uganda Securities Exchange, Ministry of Tourism and Trade as well as Huawei hosted the Technology Forum at the Kampala Sheraton Hotel for the companies participating in this year's Top 100 Mid-sized Companies Survey, which started on July 22 and runs till October 31.
ABOUT THE SURVEY
Now in its 15th year, the Top 100 Mid-sized Companies Survey attracts more than
200 SMEs annually. The companies showcase resilience and a commitment to excellence. Participants complete a comprehensive financial and general questionnaire offering insights into their growth and facilitating the ranking of top performers in various sectors
