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Where middle class growth and small business meet
Listen: Small businesses are more than just corner shops and local services. They’re a driving force of economic growth, making up 90% of all businesses globally. As the global middle class rapidly expands, new opportunities are emerging for entrepreneurs to launch and grow small businesses.
In the first episode of “Local to global: The power of small business”, host JJ Ramberg sits down with Shamina Singh, Founder and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and Homi Kharas, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution and Co-Founder of the World Data Lab. Together, they explore how the spending power of the global middle class is fueling small business growth from Taipei to Toronto and beyond.
The discussion also highlights how digital inclusion, access to finance, and cybersecurity are essential for small business success.
“Local to global: The power of small business” is a new podcast series from GZERO Media's Blue Circle Studios and Mastercard, where we'll look behind the curtain to explore the world of small businesses and why they’re positioned to play an even bigger role in the future of the global economy.
Empowering small businesses in the digital age
Rajiv Garodia, global head of government solutions for Visa, delved into the critical role of small businesses in the modern economy, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a GZERO livestream event presented by Visa, Garodia says the pandemic exposed vulnerabilities of small and medium sized businesses including the lack of digital skills among many small business owners. As consumer behavior shifted towards digital channels, small businesses found themselves unable to keep pace. The ability to collect payments became increasingly reliant on digital transactions and those unable to offer digital payment options risked exclusion from the broader economy.
To address this issue, Rajiv emphasized the importance of collaborative efforts between the private and public sectors. He says governments and businesses must work together to equip small businesses with essential digital tools, from fostering digital literacy to providing necessary technology solutions, such as creating digital storefronts, enabling digital payment acceptance, and utilizing digital tools for accounting and inventory management.
Technology plays a pivotal role in leveling the playing field for small businesses. Rajiv shared an ambitious initiative aimed at digitally empowering 50 million small businesses by 2023. The innovation here lies in simplifying access to digital payment infrastructure by enabling smartphones to accept payments, a transformational leap towards digital inclusion for small business owners.
To hear more about the challenges and opportunities that nation-states face when it comes to digitization, and how it could shape a more inclusive and resilient future, watch the full livestream conversation:
What Ukraine's digital revolution teaches the world
Adapting to a digital economy around the world
In the next decade, 70% of new value in the global economy will come from digital businesses. But more than 3.5 billion people without internet access will be cut off, and not all of them will live in the developing world.
“This is very much a global challenge,” Eurasia Group senior analyst Ali Wyne says in a livestream conversation hosted by GZERO in partnership with Visa.
Much of the developing world went digital during the pandemic. We see this, for instance: in Nepal, where it pushed people to go cashless and women in rural areas to embrace digital banking. Yet many remain unbanked, and that means they struggle to create wealth because they only deal in cash, according to Visa's Rubén Salazar. Having no bank account also makes it harder to send remittances, as we learn from a Mexican recipient and from the World Bank's Dilip Ratha.
There is hope, though. For Nextrade's Kati Suominen, digital payments are helping small businesses around the world reach new markets. The global move toward online shopping is a huge opportunity to scale, adds PayPal's Usman Ahmed.
In short, digital adoption faces many challenges but also huge opportunities to make things better for those who have the least.
Watch our recent livestream discussion on remittances and other tools for economic empowerment.
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Watch live October 19: Can access to digital tools transform the world's economy?
Is digitization crucial to economic growth? GZERO Media is partnering with Visa to explore what it means when 70% of the global economy’s growth in the next decade is projected to come from digitally-enabled businesses – yet 3.7 billion people lack internet access. What are the tools and initiatives needed to bring more people into the digital economy?
Live on Wednesday, October 19, our expert panel will explore the impact of digitization on empowering consumers and small businesses. Please register to attend.
Participants:
- JJ Ramberg, Co-Founder, Goodpods, and former host of MSNBC's Your Business (moderator)
- Usman Ahmed, Head of Global Public Affairs and Strategic Research at PayPal Inc.
- Dilip Ratha, Head of KNOMAD and Lead Economist at the World Bank
- Ruben Salazar, Global Head of Visa Direct
- Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group
- Ali Wyne, Senior Analyst, Global Macro-Geopolitics, Eurasia Group
Will Nepal cash out?
Like much of the world, Nepal saw digital payments soar during the pandemic.
Tulsi Rauniyar, a young Nepalese documentary photographer, experienced the transition firsthand. With COVID making human touch a big concern, e-commerce and cashless transactions became more commonplace — so much so that Rauniyar herself rarely uses cash anymore. This technological globalization is increasingly helping female entrepreneurs and businesswomen succeed in Nepal. But it still needs to reach rural areas — where many hard-working women are unaware of these transformative technologies.
Watch our recent livestream discussion on remittances and other tools for economic empowerment.
- Connecting the world: the power of digital trade - GZERO Media ›
- Why regulating cross-border digital trade is tricky - GZERO Media ›
- What We're Watching: Digital payment lifelines for cash-strapped ... ›
- The Graphic Truth: The digital payment boom - GZERO Media ›
- Adapting to a digital economy around the world - GZERO Media ›
- How digitization is accelerating international trade - GZERO Media ›
Connecting the world: the power of digital trade
In their work around the globe, Catherine Shimony and her partner, Joan Shifrin, saw many women artisans in need. “We saw beautiful products women were making but they often didn’t have a market to sell them in, even locally. Beautiful products languished,” Shifrin explains.
So they founded Global Goods Partners to help female artisans reach a global audience. Since launching back in 2005, GGP has partnered with more than 60 artisan groups in countries throughout Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
“What we brought to the partnership was market access. Global Goods Partners is all about poverty alleviation, and social justice … bringing the global economy to the most vulnerable of populations. Most vulnerable being women and children,” Shimony says.
One example of their work? Kandahar Treasure in Afghanistan, with whom GGP has collaborated for a decade. Many of the Afghan women involved in the Kandahar Treasure group are widows. Gathering and embroidering beautiful fabrics gives them a chance to earn money for their families.
Watch the video above to see how digital trade works as a game-changer for women around the world.
Watch our recent livestream discussion on remittances and other tools for economic empowerment.
- Hard Numbers: Global packaging boom, livestreamed peaches, the ... ›
- The Graphic Truth: The digital payment boom - GZERO Media ›
- What We're Watching: Digital payment lifelines for cash-strapped ... ›
- Why regulating cross-border digital trade is tricky - GZERO Media ›
- Will Nepal cash out? - GZERO Media ›
- Adapting to a digital economy around the world - GZERO Media ›
After COVID, Belgian small business began to bloom
Isabelle Nijs runs a hair salon in Begijnendijk, Belgium, about an hour’s drive to the northeast of Brussels. Nijs struggled to keep her business going through the pandemic during lockdowns and the lack of customers that brought. Rents and insurance premiums continued going up, but she didn’t get any financial support to meet the rising costs. Now, with people coming out of COVID restrictions, her business has begun to bloom … only to be impacted yet again, this time by the war in Ukraine. Now, she’s also dealing with supply chain issues, with prices going up and quality going down, not to mention long wait times.
Watch more from our conversation on how small businesses can thrive after COVID, which was recorded live on March 22, 2022.
Waiting for foot traffic to return in Tokyo
Shizuka Takahashi wants Tokyo’s foot traffic to return. Having face-to-face interactions with her customers means everything to her — in fact, the desire to interact with people is why she opened her Tokyo shop, PuRe Juice Bar. She got the idea while living in New York City, where people know and love smoothies. In Tokyo, however, the juice culture is less common. Takahashi opened in 2019 only to be hit by reduced sales as a result of COVID-19. By learning to market herself throughout the pandemic, and with government aid, she’s been able to keep her company afloat. Now she’s looking forward to helping her Japanese customers get hooked on healthy juice drinks.
Watch more from our conversation on how small businesses can thrive after COVID, which was recorded live on March 22, 2022.