As part of efforts to increase opportunities for women, accelerate their participation in economic activities and encourage digital equity, AXA Mansard, a member of AXA Group has empowered over 100 young female entrepreneurs with digital marketing skills in Lagos.
The two-day digital marketing training held in Lagos according to the Chief Customer and Marketing Officer AXA Mansard, Jumoke Odunlami, is part of the company’s programmes to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day.
With the training, the company seeks to empower female SME owners with skills to improve their digital output and position them for the immense opportunities available in the digital space.
Odunlami noted that this is in line with AXA Mansard’s inclusivity agenda; explaining that the company was convinced that support for women through its inclusive protection programmes, was important to AXA’s purpose of acting for human progress by protecting what matters.
She said focusing on digital equity as a sub-theme of this year’s International women’s day is because the company realised the importance of digital to the growth of the SME sector in Nigeria and wanted to ensure that women were empowered enough to be a consequential part of that growth.
“It’s almost trite to say that SMEs are the engine of economic growth, especially in developing countries like Nigeria. What needs to be continually discussed is how Nigeria is going to unlock that potential for economic development and how much of those potential will be unlocked by women and for women “.
“For us at AXA Mansard, we are aware that digital will play a major role in Nigeria’s economic future. So to ensure that women are equally represented in unlocking these future potential; that’s why we have collaborated with SME 100 Africa to support them in developing the required skills”.
“Our choice of digital marketing as the skill to leverage is also deliberate. We understand the power of marketing6”he stated.
Odunlami said AXA Mansard understood that helping SMEs with the skill to attract more customers would be a faster means to empower them, observing that they had amazing products and services, but needed to understand how to attract value for themselves by attracting the right customers.
“You will agree with me that virtually all customer segments are online in one way or the other today. So, if we can empower them with digital marketing skills, we would have been helping them with the heavy lifting of trying to find and attract customers”. Odunlami explained.
Commenting on the programme, the Chief Executive Officer, SME 100 Africa Charles Odin explained that the company was happy to partner with AXA Mansard again to empower women within the SME space. He said AXA Mansard management believes that for the world to truly experience progress, there must be an equitable distribution in the creation and access to opportunities for men and women noting that this quest for balance informed the digital marketing training.
