Uganda Global Business Association Equips Business Leaders with Digital Skills

Uganda Global Business Association (UGBA) recently conducted a five-week digital skills training for entrepreneurs at Muyenga, a Kampala suburb, to mitigate effects brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Grace Mugonero, the UGBA Programmes Coordinator, said the best investment for any business in the post-COVID world is an investment in people and that as UGBA, they believe the training for marketing teams can be a huge boost by enabling business directly reach customers and attain immediate feedbacks on sales and company products. Mugonero urged the government to support the organisation meet the cost of delivering the much-desired skills.

“UGBA also aims at mainstreaming business through managerial hands-on skills for member companies and empowering modern business career building in Uganda. We, therefore, call for support from government bodies to enable us run these programmes throughout the country so as to improve on the business skills capacity of Ugandans,” said Mugonero.

Jimmy Moses Otim, a trainer, thanked marketers in attendance for being positive at the call, noting that every successful marketing team, has to always seek new knowledge as learning never stops. “I feel that this is not an initiative that is ordinary and we are not about to stop, I, therefore, urge you to always run up for new information as we all know learning will never stop,” he said. Robert Okello, another trainer said that it’s high time businesses got prepared for the new global community, where upskilling will soon be a necessity for any business’s survival.

“It will soon to be a necessity for every business administrator to keep learning a new skill to create a new business value,” he said. Samuel Nkaka, one of the participants from Mente Engineering limited thanked UGBA for spearheading such a great initiative saying that it greatly fits the new prevailing COVID-19 situation that has since made analog marketing ineffective. “With the prevailing circumstances, I come to terms with my trainers that a virtual showroom is quite important as there are very many customers out there that wouldn’t risk their lives coming to our congested sales points yet we need to go for their needs,” he said.

“Besides, the new digital marketing knowledge will enable us to reach more people as well as provide a descriptive analysis of one’s market and I think it’s an idea worth implementation by all businesses,” he added. Fatimah Nandera, a marketer from Shule Cables Limited, also credited UGBA for boosting her confidence in digital marketing; an initiative she initially thought couldn’t work for her. “I initially thought digital marketing is a hard nut to crack but with completion of this training, I have gained more confidence in using it and I believe it will in addition to other mechanisms help me meet my sales targets,” she said.

But the Uganda Global Business Association (UGBA) promises to change the fortunes of struggling businesses by focusing on equipping business leaders and staff with digital marketing skills. Through continuous training, UGBA officials say they can retool staff to embrace traditional as well as digital marketing skills. UGBA attracts investors who have the potential to come and invest in Uganda while at the same time helps to build bridges between Ugandans and other nationals to form business partnerships.

The initiative, whose projection is to have over 100 members by end of 2021, has so far seen 44 member companies join the cause since its inception in 2013. Besides new knowledge and skills, participants walked away with two certificates with one from Google Digital Skills for Africa, which is an international award by Google, and one from UGBA.