Hope of improved business opportunities for small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria may have been rekindled with the unveiling of a cost effective end-to-end marketing platform by Terragon, a data and marketing technology company.
Named TerragonPrime, the solution is aimed at keeping small and medium businesses in the country and Africa in business.
The company’s Vice President, Product, Oti Ukubeyinje, who unveiled the product to the media in Lagos at the weekend, said considering the prime position SMEs occupy in African business ecosystem, every innovation that can keep them growing will not only benefit the continent but will also keep it as a strong contributor to world economy.
According to the SMEDAN National Survey of 2017, there are around 41.5 million SMEs in Nigeria. SMEs are businesses with less than N100 million in annual turnover and have less than 300 employees.
Oti said that as a company creating personalised experiences for Africans on mobile, Terragon felt it was a responsibility to create products that will enable SMEs gain traction and grow with the trend of global businesses.
He described TerragonPrime as an end-to-end marketing platform that helps organisations to aggregate, enrich and activate consumer data to drive targeted and personalised experiences for cost effective customer acquisition and retention.
He said: “The product is targeted at small self-owned businesses, medium sized digital savvy businesses and organisations which provide services to SMBs-reseller opportunities.
“You may ask why we focused on Small and Medium businesses, but you would also realise that according to the World Bank, SMEs contribute about 50 percent of Africa’s GDP. They are the largest contributors to the African Economy, in the areas of jobs, contribution to Gross Domestic Products, GDP, among others.
“In Nigeria, SMEs contribute 48 per cent of GDP, account for 96 per cent of businesses and 84 per cent of employment. So, we believe that empowering them, will transform the continent” he added.
He assured that the product will help businesses grow, enable data driven marketing at scale and democratise enterprises’ Customer Data Platforms, CDP solution and take more businesses to the cloud to enable them scale.
Other benefits include allowing customers access to 115 million profiles, creating custom audiences based on various criteria, like age, gender, location, interest among others.
It will help users to understand customers better in order to reach similar customers even as it provides a platform for businesses to segment their audiences who may be interested in various aspects of life like sports, fashion and would be able to send them targeted messages on WhatsApp and SMS.
