World of Business | |
World of Business | |
707 VIEWS | |
![]() |
Sunday, April 26, 2020 / 11:01 PM / Zedcrest
The Group Managing Director of Zedcrest, Adedayo Amzat
has advised corporate organizations to rethink their business model and adopt
technologies that would keep the green-light on - should another pandemic of
COVID-19 scale ever happen again.
In an Instagram Live Chat with the Editor of
TechEconomy, Peter Oluka on the theme; "Implications of COVID-19 on
Nigerian Economy: Way Forward for Businesses", Amzat stated that the battle
against COVID-19 is one that leaders today must win if we are to find an
economically and socially viable path to the next normal.
According to him, "This is worse than the worst case
scenario that businesses plan for"; noting that the last time the world
experienced a pandemic like this was 1918 (the Spanish flu).
"No company or individual could have foreseen and made
adequate preparations to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on
economies and businesses. Businesses are shutting down in their numbers because
this crisis is unprecedented. In order to stay alive, businesses will require a
shift from a brick and mortar mind set to exploring digital channels to reach
their consumers. What we have now are opportunistic winners. Digital businesses are taking over brick and mortar businesses", he
said.
He stated that very few insurance packages have
pandemics in their contracts which unfortunately means that many businesses
will struggle after the pandemic.
The financial expert also urged the government to restructure its finances and to give more support to
agriculture, mining and other sectors that can create jobs to cushion the
effect of the COVID-19 crisis on the Nigerian economy.
"Before now, the government have been trying to
move the economy to
an export driven economy from a consumption driven one. There should be more local aggregate demand
to drive the economy. Government has heavily invested in supporting the
agricultural sector. With lessons that we have learnt during this COVID-19
crisis, it is expedient to deepen internal
competences across different sectors.
"Agriculture has the capacity to employ more people.
Our first problem in Nigeria is unemployment, if we can develop our agriculture
value chain, a lot more people will be employed. Almost 100 million Nigerians
live in abject poverty, but remember, poverty isn't just the lack of money, and
it is also lack of access to information that can lift you out of that poverty.
Agriculture can increase aggregate demand and we can generate more tax
revenues, which can make our GDP more liquid. We have a GDP of $360 billion,
but we don't make up to $20 billion in tax revenue. We can make our GDP more
liquid by ensuring that people get to work", he explained.
Amzat opined that the government also needs to
increase funding and encourage more research in the health sector.
"There was a video by Bill Gates that he did after the
Ebola crisis, everything he said is happening right now. There is this theory
that anything that can go bad will one day go bad. We have to have a plan for
every possible situation. We need to create our health sector response and
model it after the military. The military is funded even when there is no war,
it's like an insurance. Every year there is one health crisis or the other so
why do we not have the same response like that of the military? What if HIV comes back what are we going to do? We have
to have reserve health doctors that can be called upon for periods of health crisis that can overwhelm the health sector",
he urged.
The Zedcrest Group boss concluded that this is the
best time to reduce the cost of governance by slashing the prodigious salaries
and allowances of political officers; needless tours and other ostentatious
expenses.
For now, Zedcrest Group has since activated its business continuity plan which amongst other elements include a work from home arrangement for staff. The Group's consumer finance outfit, Zedvance Finance Limited remains one of the lending firms that are still active at this time through their digital channels.
Related News
1. Standard Chartered
grants COVID-19 Relief measures to Clients
2. Can Africa Afford
COVID-19 Lockdowns? - Chukwuma Soludo
3. Roadmap to Rebooting
Nigeria's Economy from COVID-19
4. COVID-19:
What Can MSMEs Do Differently?
5. Oando and IoD Host
Webinar on Leadership Strategies for Navigating the Impact of COVID-19
6. COVID-19;
Nigeria Needs To Relax Foreign Exchange Management To Boost Industrialization -
Dr. Yusuf
7. Post
COVID-19: Remote Work To Become New Normal As Novel Technologies Redefine Job
Markets - Ashiru
8. COVID-19:
Global Remittances Projected to Fall by 20% in 2020
9. COVID-19:
Marketing And Advertising Companies Will Rise Amidst The Global Pandemic - Lolu
Akinwunmi
10. The
Nigerian Capital Market Community Launches Initiative To Support The Fight
Against COVID-19
11.
The
Disruptive Impact of COVID-19
12.
COVID-19:
Probability of Fatalities
13.
COVID-19:
Firstbank's Firstmonie Leads the Pace in Agent Banking
14.
COVID-19:
Visa Shares Tips on How to Stay Secured When Shopping Online
15.
Co-ordinated
Policy Key to Effective COVID-19 Tax and Fiscal Stimulus Measures - Yomi
Olugbenro
16.
COVID-19:
Impact On Supply Chains and The Implications For Business
17.
COVID-19 and the SSA Region:
Entering a Period of Negative Growth