Mrs Kate Quartey-Papafio, Sector Chairperson, Electricals and Electronics, Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), has asked businesses to do aggressive branding and enhanced digital marketing transaction for higher visibility and continuity in a post COVID-19 era.

Mrs Papafio said since the outbreak of COVID-19, face-to-face business transaction had become difficult and called on businesses to explore and maximize the benefit of online transactions to remain competitive in the emerging world of business.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra on the impact of the pandemic on businesses, Mrs Papafio said creating a website was no longer a luxury for businesses since the COVID-19 pandemic had brought about changing trends of which demanded companies to take advantage of all digital platforms for their growth.

She emphasized that a transformed consumer would now opt for online shopping and delivery services as opposed to the traditional and physical walk-ins, urging businesses to quickly migrate to online transactions to meet customers' needs and as well minimized the level of human interaction.

Additionally, she encouraged captains of industry with the relevant capacities, to employ the use of Intelligence Automation and Robotic Process Automation, an accelerated digital transformation that would better improve their ability to meet the high demands of consumers.

She stated that digitisation in micro and small businesses was an effective platform for companies to create their our own 'Alibaba' and 'Amazon' space for the continent and the global market at large.

"The growth of SMEs in post-COVID-19 will be heavily reliant on change in trade behaviour, change in delivery model, change in global sourcing and change in their unstructured nature. The consumer is now constantly processing what is and what is not essential at any point in time," she added.

According to her, the SME must identify and understand the dynamics of this paradigm shift to survive and thrive in post-Covid-19, leading to sustained growth.

She noted that the underlying principle for the growth of SMEs was to ensure a holistic transformation to match the corresponding change in the socio-economic and environmental situations.