Head of Digital transformation at Stanbic Bank, Patrick Quantson, has urged Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana to be bold and daring in adopting and adapting to digital solutions in enhancing their business practices.

Speaking at a Webinar organized by Stanbic Bank for SMEs on Thursday, September 3, Patrick Quantson noted that although the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore the importance of digital solutions for business agility, the world was already on the path of digitization and businesses should take advantage of the benefits thereof.

“COVID-19 has hastened the adoption of digital solutions but the fourth industrial revolution had begun long before the pandemic and will continue after it.

One thing we can be sure of is that COVID-19 will definitely pass and when it does, there will be clear winners and losers. The winners will be the ones who were agile enough to pivot their businesses to support where their customers are”, Patrick Quantson said.

Patrick Quantson further noted that although COVID-19 has exposed our weak fundamentals, it has also prepared us for tackling the future head on.

According to Patrick Quantson, “What the pandemic has done is to expose our ill-preparedness for the fourth industrial revolution but at the same time, the digital tools deployed in managing the impact of the pandemic should prepare us for a future of digitalization.”

He further encouraged SMEs to enter into partnerships and tap into expertise and competencies that they themselves do not have. This, according to Patrick Quantson, will help them leverage their ecosystem and develop resilience and agility during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Stanbic SME Webinar is part of a series of virtual conferences targeted at SMEs with the aim of supporting them with the necessary tools and skills that enable them not only to survive the COVID-19 pandemic but to thrive despite the difficulties.

The September 3 webinar was held under the theme ‘Business agility in the COVID-19 era: Digitisation and payment solutions – implications and opportunities’.

Other resource persons on the panel included Mr. Archie Hesse, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPPS), Ms. Estelle Akofio Sowah, tech expert and Country Manager of CSquared Ghana and Mr. Derrydean Dadzie, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Technology.