MTN Nigeria Introduces The Marketplace to boost SMEs

As part of its commitment to contribute to economic development and improve the standard of living among Nigerians, MTN Business has introduced The Marketplace. The product is specific to small and medium enterprises across the country who desire real time value for their investment.

The Marketplace is a comprehensive, one-stop online platform, offering SMEs access to millions of potential customers in a borderless market, a wide repository of content for learning, an SME community, the ability to respond to business briefs, a categorized business directory and lots more.

“The Marketplace is in line with our deep belief that SMEs hold the key to our economic transformation as a nation and must be enabled with the right technology to succeed,” said Onyinye Ikenna-Emeka, General Manager, Enterprise Marketing, MTN Nigeria.

She added that “this also aligns with our previous and existing SME-tailored projects, such as The Next Level Initiative, geared towards inspiring SMEs for growth, and collaboration with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to move Nigeria’s SMEs forward.”

Explaining the modalities, Sharafadeen Mohammed, Senior Manager, SME Segment, MTN Nigeria, said “while there are online stores that have given SMEs access to customers and other sites with benefits for SMEs, The Marketplace is the first Nigerian site to offer SMEs a comprehensive range of benefits, all accessible in one place. As an incentive, we are offering all SMEs who sign up to The Marketplace at www.themarketplace.nginnovative, best-in-class SME-tailored services at a discount.”

Features on The Marketplace include “ Resource Centre (provides SMEs content, templates, articles and learning material in a wide range of business areas), Post a Brief (enables people post requests for professional services and view bids from specialists in those services), Deals Corner (enables people find great deals and purchase directly from sellers), Community (provides a platform for seamless interaction, networking and knowledge sharing among SMEs) and Directory (provides contact details of all SMEs on The Marketplace in their various categories to enable people find them with ease) Mohammed said.