Reduce internet costs to support businesses - UNDP

The need to reduce the cost of digital transformation has been a pressing requirement to revamp businesses in order to ameliorate the impact of COVID-19 on the country’s economy.

Businesses that had been stalled or moved at a snail’s pace were shifting their day-to-day operations out of the workplace into homes to avoid further spread of the virus.

The result had been the increased use of internet thereby increasing the cost of service.

Over the past few months, digital platforms had been an effective space used by most firms to operate or transact businesses to avoid personal contacts.

Economic Advisor at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ghana, Dr Frederick Mugisha said in as much as businesses needed the digital space to operate efficiently, they also needed capital to gain the skills it came along with.

To this effect, he agreed with findings from a Business Tracker Survey that revealed that firms prioritized capital over information technology (IT) and training.

The survey which was conducted by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank, confirmed that the decrease in demand and the difficulties in financing cash shortfalls had placed many firms in difficult positions.

Thus, pursuing liquidity at subsidized rates, requesting cash transfers and deferral of payments were the most desired policies by most firms.

Dr Mugisha explained that since many firms were not involved in digitization, the cost that came along with using digital platforms was new to many.

“Businesses would now need extra cost to train and seek for digital infrastructure to be able to get on digital platforms”, he stressed.

Dr Mugisha said challenges that came along with digital transformation also needed to be addressed to ensure smooth work relations.

“One thing that keeps coming up has to with the slow internet and difficulties in connecting with the network” he emphasized.

Dr Mugisha stressed that since many enterprises were transforming their strategy, culture, processes, and information systems to become more digital, there was a need to reduce the cost it came along.

He indicated that data, information and knowledge were the fundamental core concepts that businesses needed to help drive the digital transformation of today's global society.