Hosted in partnership with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the B2B Lab was held on the 7th and 8th of December, 2021 in Lagos, Nigeria as part of The West Africa Competitiveness Programme (WACOMP). The West Africa Competitiveness Programme (WACOMP) aims to support a number of selected value chains at national and regional levels to promote structural transformation and better access to regional and international markets, while taking into account social and environmental concerns. Its overall objective is to strengthen the competitiveness of West African countries and enhance their integration into the regional and international trading system.
Day 1 – the Learning Lab commenced with an interactive Design Sprint workshop hosted by Fola Olatunji-David. The MSMEs were guided on how to identify business challenges and identify solutions to these challenges for their business/end customer.
After which, we had Collins Nwosu of Priglobal Ventures give a practical workshop on Export Readiness where he took the MSMEs through the Export Market Strategy Canvas.
We closed Day 1 with a workshop on Business Digitalisation by Yoanna “pepper” Chikezie, CEO of the Assembly Hub, providing insights into what ICT and textile companies can do with digital tools to either reduce costs of business or increase revenue potential as well as supporting other secondary situations. Pepper took the attendees through a demo of Notion; a task, project and knowledge management digital tool, followed closely by a Live case study session where Baboa Tachie-Menson shared her story on how she built her brand, Balm Labs.
Day 2 – the Networking Lab commenced with a Partnerships and Collaboration workshop by Dewunmi Alugbin guiding the MSMEs on their understanding of relationship building and establishing deep-rooted connections and networks for their business growth.
After the workshop, we had the MSMEs engage in a B2B Networking session where the ITC and Textile companies present had the opportunity to interact and develop possible partnerships. To close the program, we had the pleasure of having industry professionals including Wunmi Akinsola of FashTracker, Olori Boye Ajayi of Borderless Trade Network, Halimat Ibrahim of DHL, Ebele Udoh of Africa Fashion Designers Mall and a representative of the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund present to network with the SMEs.
At The Assembly, we’re always looking for opportunities to get creatives together to have conversations and share experiences. It’s also very important to us to inspire new ways of addressing our collective industry challenges and find collaborative partners to help us do so.
We are looking forward to hosting more learning and Networking Labs in the future and hopefully we’ll see you at one of them.
Words by Annie Oti
Image Credit: Onafuwa Studios
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