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5 minutes with Google — Mr. Kaosiso Anaekwe (right) delivering a lecture at the 2013 Connect Nigeria e-Business Fair Seminar

During the 2013 e-Business Fair held at the Orchid Hall, Eko Hotel & Suites, Connect Nigeria caught up with Kaosiso Anaekwe, a representative of Google Business Group in Nigeria. He shares insights on how businesses can benefit from using Google tools. CN: If you were to explain to a layman that has no understanding of Google, how would you describe it? KA: You use Google to find information. You see, Google’s mission is to make businesses around the world organised. So for an ordinary person that wants to find information where he can buy things, where he can learn things such information can be found using Google. CN: As a business person, how can one benefit from using Google? KA: As a business, you’ll find out that you are always interested in getting customers. On Google platforms, people are looking for what you are selling everyday; there are billions of search going on every minute. So, you as a business person need to consider how to take advantage of this moment where people are looking for what you are doing in order to promote your business to your next prospective customer. And it is important to understand also that people are actively looking for what you are selling. CN: What kinds of platforms exist on Google? KA: Google is a bunch of tools for business people… CN: Which ones are business-specific? KA: Business specific tools include Google Apps, which is a suite of applications such as emails, documents, calendar, groups, chats, presentations and facilities for businesses to use. So it’s a set of collaborative tools for business people. Apart from Google Apps, Google also provides advertising for business people who want to advertise to their prospective customers. So, that’s one of the things available for businesses. Apart from the fact that you can advertise, you also need to understand how to position the content of your business on the internet so that people can actually see it. That’s part of what we do. It’s a community; we bring business people together and educate them on how these tools can help them to be more successful in business. From time to time, we hold events and tell people what to do by enlightening them on how they can profit their business. To make it more understandable for a layman, I liken Google to NTA (Nigerian Television Authority); every business man would be happy to have his business featured on the NTA network news because you believe that millions of Nigerians are watching the network news. Likewise, thousands of Nigerians are using Google everyday; so Google gives you that opportunity to showcase your products to a wider audience. Even with a fraction of your normal budget for traditional advertising, the result is incomparable to that of someone trying to advertise on a national daily or on national television. So that is some advantage. CN: In the United States, Google launched Google Fiber – a project aimed at providing quality internet access. Do you think Google might consider experimenting with such project here in Nigeria in the near future? KA: Well, one thing that Google is doing in Africa is that it is advocating for more internet connectivity for end users. Early this month, there was the Commonwealth Telecommunication Conference held in Abuja and Google was there to make a presentation on how they can make internet more available and affordable – solutions that wowed the telecoms. They were happy and looking forward to adopting such technologies. So Google is more interested in doing things that will help make internet connectivity available for people.