In all my former interviews in Tech Turks, I have used it as a platform for showcasing the efforts and enthusiasm of young Nigerians and their innovations. Whether it was iROKOtv or Spinlet, the objective has always been to help a native start up gain prominence in a market that is otherwise highly dynamic and competitive. This time however, there was a complete paradigm shift. I have been conversing with the Country Manager of probably the world’s biggest Internet companies, Google! So let me share my experience of hosting Juliet Ehimuan, Country Manager – Google Nigeria.
While I did have a lot of questions for my guest, some of which due to time constraints could not be discussed about in detail, the focus of our conversation was on two areas:
- What is the strategy that Google is adopting for penetrating the Nigerian market?
- How is the market being segmented and how is awareness being created among people for using Google’s apps/tools in order to make lives easier?
Google’s strategy for the Nigerian market
Google as a brand is all about the Internet and how it can be relevant to everyday life. As a global brand it has its presence and use in different markets, and strategies are based on different socio-economic and technological factors prevalent in the markets. In Nigeria therefore, the strategies adopted has been built on three different pillars.
- The first is Accessibility to the Internet. The objective is to make internet access more available and affordable to the average user.
- This is complemented by Relevance of Local content and that’s where technology such as Google Maps, information on SMEs, creative content such as Nollywood etc. comes in.
- And finally it involves Sustainability and Capacity Building that mostly involves making people understand how they can leverage from proper use of the internet, the right kind of apps are being developed for people to engage with, and relevant skills and competence are available in the market place.
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