Seven-Up Bottling Company (SBC) has hosted the first edition of its SME Scale-Up Bootcamp, in collaboration with Zenith Bank and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), to empower 80 small and medium-sized firms (SMEs).

The ‘Dream Big, Scale Bigger’ bootcamp was a two-day session meant to educate CEOs of fast-growing SMEs on the complexities of scaling enterprises in Nigeria’s ecosystem.

Ziad Maalouf, Managing Director of SBC, addressed the participants and underlined the substantial contributions of SMEs to Nigeria’s GDP.

He praised Nigerians’ entrepreneurial spirit and noted that the bootcamp was designed to help more entrepreneurs scale up their firms.

“I’ve lived in Nigeria for 17 years; this scale-up is a means for me to make a meaningful contribution to the economy. If we empower all of the SMEs here to scale up and grow into billion-dollar businesses, they will employ millions of Nigerians in ten years, and we will be able to claim we have paid back,” Maalouf added.

Maalouf, who also serves as Chairman of the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance, identified eleven conditions for developing SMEs.

“Companies that must grow must pay attention to these 10 things: the big idea, passion, cash, value, teamwork, strong business acumen, purpose, network, artificial intelligence, and business transformation advice,” he told the audience.