How INFRATEL is helping make digital tools and solutions more accessible to small and growing businesses.
By Staff writer – Infratel
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are an important part of Zambia's economy. They create employment, support livelihoods, drive entrepreneurship and contribute to economic activity across communities and sectors.
As Zambia seeks to grow its productive capacity, strengthen competitiveness and expand private sector participation, enabling SMEs to operate more efficiently and participate in an increasingly digital economy is becoming increasingly important.
Digitalisation is not simply about putting a business online. For an SME, it can mean having better access to information, reaching customers beyond its immediate location, managing business operations more effectively, protecting business information and using data to make better decisions.
For the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), this is part of a broader development question: how can businesses become more productive, competitive and better positioned to participate in Zambia's economic growth?
Technology is one of the enablers.
Making Technology More Accessible to SMEs
For many small businesses, the challenge is not necessarily understanding the value of technology. It is having practical and affordable access to the tools, skills and support required to adopt it.
A business may begin with a professional digital presence through a domain name and website. It may then move towards cloud-based services, digital business applications, data analytics, cybersecurity and integrated systems that support day to day operations.
The opportunity is to move from simply being present online to using technology as part of how the business operates and grows.
This is where digital infrastructure and technology providers such as INFRATEL can play a role.
Through its digital infrastructure and solutions, INFRATEL supports businesses with connectivity, data centre and cloud capabilities, digital solutions, cybersecurity and business applications. For SMEs, these capabilities can help make technologies that were traditionally associated with larger organisations more accessible.
The broader objective is not technology for its own sake. It is to give businesses practical tools that can help them operate more effectively and create a better foundation for growth.
From Being Online to Doing Business Digitally
Having a website or social media presence can help a business become more visible. The next step is using technology to improve how the business itself operates.
Digital tools can help businesses organise information, manage customers, streamline processes and improve communication. Cloud services can provide access to computing and business applications without requiring businesses to build and maintain extensive IT infrastructure themselves.
As businesses generate more information, data and analytics can also support a better understanding of performance, customer behaviour and emerging trends.
At the same time, greater dependence on digital systems brings greater responsibility for cybersecurity. Protecting business information, systems and customer data is becoming an increasingly important part of digital resilience.
For an SME, therefore, digital transformation is not one technology or one product. It is a progression from establishing a digital presence towards using technology to improve productivity, decision-making and the way the business operates.
Turning Digital Awareness into Adoption
INFRATEL's MSME Digital Open Day is one example of an initiative focused on helping businesses understand and explore this journey.
Since 2021, the platform has brought together MSMEs, government, financial institutions, technology providers and other stakeholders to discuss practical issues affecting business growth, including technology, access to finance, skills development, policy and capacity building.
The initiative has evolved over time.
The 2024 edition, themed “Empowering the Future of Micro, Small and Medium Businesses through Technology,” focused on demonstrating how technology can address practical business challenges and create opportunities for growth.
In 2025, “ACT NOW: Accelerating MSME Digital Transformation” placed greater emphasis on moving from awareness towards action.
The 2026 edition, themed “Think Bigger. Build Smarter” takes the conversation further by focusing on how businesses can use integrated digital solutions to improve the way they operate and build a stronger foundation for growth.
The platform reflects an important shift, from simply creating awareness about technology to helping businesses understand how digital adoption can address real operational challenges.
This approach also extends beyond Lusaka. Through initiatives such as the Copperbelt Digital Experience, INFRATEL continues to take digital solutions and practical engagement closer to businesses outside the capital.
Helping SMEs Manage and Grow
One of the challenges facing growing businesses is managing increasing complexity.
As an enterprise grows, managing sales, customers, finances, inventory, employees and other business processes through disconnected spreadsheets, paperwork or manual systems can make it harder to maintain visibility and make timely decisions.
This is where integrated business management systems can become useful.
At the 2026 MSME Digital Open Day, INFRATEL will introduce its new SME ERP solution, designed to bring key business processes into a more integrated digital environment.
The significance of such technology goes beyond automating individual tasks. Better-organised business information can help owners and managers understand their operations, monitor performance and make more informed decisions.
For businesses seeking to grow, stronger records and more structured processes can also help create a better foundation for engaging with customers, suppliers and financial institutions.
Digital tools cannot remove the challenges that SMEs face. They can, however, give businesses better tools with which to manage those challenges.
Building a More Digitally Enabled SME Economy
The wider opportunity is to ensure that digitalisation becomes practical and accessible to businesses of different sizes and in different parts of the country.
For Zambia to grow its economy, businesses of all sizes need the capacity to participate in that growth. For SMEs in particular, access to practical digital tools can help improve productivity, reach wider markets, strengthen resilience and support the development of new business models.
It can also strengthen the connections between businesses and the wider economy – from financial institutions and suppliers to customers, government and other parts of the value chain.
This is why SME digitalisation should be viewed not only as a technology issue, but as part of the broader effort to strengthen enterprise development and economic participation.
INFRATEL's contribution is through the digital infrastructure and solutions that help make this possible, as well as platforms such as the MSME Digital Open Day that bring businesses and other stakeholders together.
The 2026 edition is another step in that journey.
Think Bigger. Build Smarter.
For Zambia's SMEs, the opportunity is not simply to become more digital. It is to use technology in practical ways that help them operate better, compete more effectively and participate more meaningfully in the country's economic growth.