South African small and medium-sized enterprises Archives

#StandardBankSMESummit With more than 90% of South African SME’s having experienced revenue drops since April 2020 and with many businesses being left vulnerable, the need to support and boost South Africa’s SME sector which currently provides formal jobs for 28% of the population must be prioritised. This support is not just financial, but psychological as well. “Where people need to innovate and create their own jobs to sustain themselves and provide occupation and income for others, we need to provide the psychological tools to support those with ambition. We cannot allow innovators and entrepreneurs to give up on their dreams and visions at this critical time,” says Deenash Pillay, Head of Enterprise Banking Propositions at Standard Bank, ahead of the Standard Bank SME Summit which...

There has been a permanent change in the way that people shop and, in turn, the way that businesses need to operate. In the absence of brick-and-mortar stores being open during the lockdown, as well as a general fear of crowded malls when things were able to re-open, South Africa’s ecommerce sector exploded. According to Trevor Gosling, Co-founder and CEO of Lulalend – financing partner to South Africa’s small- to medium-enterprises (SMEs), he has seen a phenomenal growth in ecommerce businesses who have connected with them for SME financing. Between the period of October 2020 and February 2021, Lulalend saw an 86% increase in loans made to ecommerce businesses and online retailers in comparison to the same period between 2019 and 2020. “The loans were strongly linked to growth-related req...

Tag: South African small and medium-sized enterprises

Post-Covid recovery depends on a positive SME mindset

Why ecommerce matters for small businesses in SA