Tag: Small and Medium Enterprise (SME)

The global economic landscape has undergone a seismic shift since the arrival of COVID-19 over a year ago. However, while the pandemic caused significant business challenges, it also triggered and accelerated many innovations as organisations adapted to change, often simply to survive.

It has been just over a year since COVID-19 has hit our shores, and as a small business we are still struggling to find our feet. COVID-19 has introduced new ways of business survival and operations, the 'adapt or die' quote has become a reality and small businesses have had to make crucial changes and learn new skills.

Cybersecurity for small business has come to the fore as more Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) shifted towards digitalisation to survive in the unstable by COVID-19 circumstances. Yet, shockingly, according to research from IBM and the Ponemon Institute released in 2020, a whopping two out of five companies in the United States and the United Kingdom with 50 or fewer employees do not have any type of cybersecurity defence plan in place.

Business liquidity is king, especially in a time of crisis. But small business owners who take an uncompromising approach to their liquidity provisions do a disservice to their long-term sustainability and future growth potential.

South Africa cannot afford to lose its mall and medium enterprises (SMEs), says financing expert. As local business relief initiatives such as the COVID-19 Loan Guarantee Scheme come to a close, many SMEs continue to struggle, with an unfortunate number of businesses’ liquidity eroded by the pandemic and various lockdowns - especially those that operate in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Being an entrepreneur is stressful at the best of times, but what happens when unforeseen circumstances (like a pandemic for example) cast its dark shadow of doubt, forcing you to rethink everything about your business and yourself? It’s more important than ever to bring discussions around mental health and wellbeing into the light as we all learn to adapt to a rapidly changing world and an uncertain future.

Economic analysts recently reported that by August 2020 as many as half of South African small businesses had closed down due to the national lockdown. A more frightening statistic awaits our economy as, 6 months later, many more find themselves on the threshold of survival as the impact of the lockdown continues to distress small, medium and micro-businesses (SMMEs).

The rise of e-commerce in the country over the past year may have been driven by the pandemic, but it was long overdue. It is worth noting that South Africa was arguably too slow in initially adopting e-commerce, chiefly because it appeared focused on the niche upper end of the market. Thus, many retailers did not view it as a necessity.

Most small and medium businesses in South Africa had a very difficult 2020 financial year, with many, particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors, having to close their doors. Those that survived the pandemic now find themselves having to rebuild – a task made more difficult by a stunted economic environment, with low levels of consumer discretionary income.

The Minister of Small Business Development has been parading a draft National Small Enterprise Amendment Bill. The period for allowing interested parties to submit comments about the draft Bill to the department has just ended. This ill-considered proposal would authorise officials to break contracts deemed 'unfair', no doubt causing commercial uncertainty and thereby discouraging larger businesses from contracting with small enterprises. The Bill defeats its own purpose.