Experts charge organisations to embrace digital opportunities for business growth

With the evolution of technology and its rapid transformation in the business environment, organisations and individuals have been charged to embrace the associated opportunities for optimal growth.

They opined that for businesses to thrive competitively, corporate organisations must identify their level of operation and core competence by adopting digital applications where it has comparative advantage to grow.

The experts shared their views over the weekend at the 2019 Lagos Digital Transmission Summit, organised by the Institute of Enterprise Management and Analytics (IEMA).They submitted that since the emergence of Information Communication and Technology (ICT), many organisations are yet to take advantage of the disruptions, even as others are maximising the inherent opportunities it offers to transform their businesses to withstand competition and increase market share.

Chairman, Task Hospitality Limited, Sikiru Rufai, said: “Digital transformation is indispensable for everyone, and anyone who does not think along will soon crash because digital transformation is the future. So we must embrace it in line with our level of operations and our destination. Though it is a process but we must key in.”

Rufai stressed that innovation is key for all to be relevant, adding that government must redefine the education curricula to match with future demands in the business world.

On his part, the Director-General of IEMA, Dr Raymond Smith, asserted that the Institute is poised to enhance digital and innovative capacity of young men and women to meet future challenges in the global market, through extensive training and development in enterprise management and analytics.

According to him, “we are churning out people with the requisite knowledge to fill the gap and missing link in the business world through our cutting edge packed information, for them to manage and run prudent corporate administration of enterprises. This is imperative because no organisation can survive without the knowledge of digital communications and technology.”

Smith implored government to make the business environment digital and technology-friendly for businesses to thrive as well as make available funds for starters.Also speaking, the Academic Director, Lagos Business School, Prof Olayinka David-West, said digital transformation and its disruptions are social changers and should impact in all facets of human life.

She said health, education, and business sectors of the economy must make digital transformation an inherent part of their corporate wire that should be optimised for business success.According to her, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), is the way to go for building a science and technology-based nation.