MTN Business Urges SMEs to Embrace Cloud Services

As major drivers of economic growth, small and medium scale enterprises have been advised to adopt cost-effective, operationally efficient and flexible solutions in the management of their businesses.

This was the major talking point at the inaugural MTN SME Forum organized by Nigeria’s leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company, MTN Nigeria.

Citing the lack of awareness on the benefits of cloud services as well as the mistaken perception among SMEs that cloud computing is very expensive and beyond their reach, the MTN SME forum was organized to bridge these identified gaps.

MTN Cloud Services offer a range of prepaid cloud-based services designed to provide server, software, storage and security benefits over a secure internet connection without any of the associated IT infrastructure costs.

With this development, SMEs in Nigeria can now enjoy enterprise solutions and very affordably too.

According to Mike Ikpoki, chief executive officer, MTN Nigeria, technology has become a key differentiator and enabler for businesses and as such services like cloud computing can prove commercially viable for SMEs due to its flexibility and pay-as-you-go cost structure.

He added that cloud computing significantly lowers the cost of running an organization in the final analysis.

“MTN Nigeria is committed to adding value to the lives and helping to drive the growth of businesses in Nigerian, by delivering tailor-made, productivity-enhancing solutions to every part of this vast country. We will continue to explore opportunities to help in stimulating economic growth and provide tools necessary for the growth of small businesses in Nigeria,” Ikpoki added.

In his presentation, Adebiyi Mabadeje, Lagos State Commissioner of Science and Technology, highlighted the business imperative for SMEs to adopt cloud technology as a means of reducing the prevalent SME funding gap as well as achieving economies of scale.
 
“SMEs that embrace technology have the ability to grow faster, export more and employ more people, as cloud technology offers the opportunity to compete globally. The adoption of cloud technology not only brings down total cost of ownership, it also lowers risk and promotes innovation,” he added.

MTN Cloud services which are available on the MTN Business online portal include Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Security solutions, Human Resource Management (HRM), Customer Relationship Management, Sales Force Automation, Accounting and Finance, Virus and Spyware Protection, Firewall Protection, Browser Protection and Email Protection.
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