The Chief Executive Officer of Busara- Africa, Taaka Awori is admonishing businesses to be creative and innovative in their operations to rake in more revenue in tough economic times.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the world in the latter part of 2019, dealt a big blow to many medium and small-scale enterprises, affecting not only their revenues and profits but even their very existence.
Speaking on the topic, “Resetting Your Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) business in the Covid-19 era” on the On-Air series on Citi FM, Taaka Awori noted that in medium and small-scale businesses, the impact of those in leadership is critical to the ability of the business to enable them to recover and thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everything rises and falls with leadership. It is very hard for your business to grow beyond your growth. So resetting your business, particularly for SMEs, will highly depend on you. Because you feel the impact of leadership at all levels. If you are a leader, and you are not committed to digital transformation, and innovation or you are not open enough to innovation from different spaces, you won’t be able to transform to reset your business post-Covid-19,” she said.
She further advised business leaders to embrace failure and build resistance
According to her, no business is immune to failure, rather what distinguishes leaders who bounce back is how they respond to crisis and failure.
“I don’t think there is any business that has not seen 10 failures for every success story. It is not a straight line. It is about the valleys and highs. No business can say it has had a smooth run. The difference is how they respond. It is very important to reframe failure as a clarifying moment,” she said.
Taaka Awori emphasized the need for leaders to understand the value and empower others.
“Unless you are a ‘solopreneur’ you will need people. Resetting your business is not something you can do alone. It is something you do with your team. Leadership is about relationships. One’s ability to empower others and put them first is key to resetting and rebuilding a business.”
The entire month of June is dedicated to business on Citi TV and 97.3 Citi FM.
The Citi Business Festival is an extensive program of business events and on-air activities providing inspiration, business ideas, and information to persons who are starting, building, or growing their businesses.
The on-air series will air on the Citi Breakfast Show on 97.3 Citi FM every weekday.
ABSA Bank is the main sponsor of the Citi Business Festival 2022 and is supported by MTN Momo and MTN Business Support, IT Consortium and the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), and GIRSAL.
