Global technology company, Zoho, has inked a strategic partnership with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to improve access to affordable cloud technology for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across Nigeria.
 
The strategic partnership combines SMEDAN’s reach and mandate to promote and facilitate the development of Nigeria’s MSME sector with Zoho’s portfolio of affordable and scalable cloud-based business applications. Through the partnership, Zoho will make wallet credits totalling up to N20 billion available to a maximum of 25,000 eligible MSMEs associated with SMEDAN.
 
The initiative, sealed yesterday, aligns with the Agency’s GROW Nigerian strategy, which prioritises formalisation, access to finance and markets, productivity and digital adoption. This includes an ongoing partnership with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to facilitate the free registration of 250,000 businesses, bringing more MSMEs into the formal economy and positioning them to access wider opportunities for growth.

Director- General/CEO of SMEDAN, Charles Odii, said: “Our focus at SMEDAN is to ensure that small businesses are able to move from survival to growth and prosperity. That means helping entrepreneurs formalise, improve productivity, reach new markets and build businesses that can compete.”

Digital capability is now an important part of that journey, and this partnership with Zoho gives thousands of MSMEs within our ecosystem another practical pathway to strengthen how they operate and grow.”
 
On his part, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria, Kehinde Ogundare, said MSMEs are fundamental to Nigeria’s economic development, but technology can only deliver its full potential when businesses can access and effectively use it.
 
“Through this partnership with SMEDAN, we are reducing the access barrier to adopting world-class business technology while providing businesses with the training, consultation and support they need to leverage cloud technology to streamline their operations and catapult their growth. The partnership also reflects Zoho’s transnational localism strategy, which combines our global technology expertise with efforts to create self-sustaining local economic clusters.

Through this approach, we aim to deepen our contribution to Nigeria’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and support the development of a more digitally enabled and resilient MSME sector,” he stated.