Online pivots key to SME success
Businesses had to react quickly to the arrival of Covid-19 and the ongoing uncertainty and changes in expectations.
Online solutions – whether virtual delivery methods or online sales – took on much greater importance for many SMEs as they sought to find ways to continue to serve their customers.
And for those of an entrepreneurial mindset, the pandemic has also seen a reassessment of priorities, with side hustles becoming more central, and lifestyle businesses more attractive – both helped by the attractiveness and ease of adopting e-commerce solutions.
On a webinar hosted by TheBusinessDesk.com a panel of business owners and advisors discussed how SMEs had overcome the challenges of 2020 and the lessons that had been learned.
Lisa Gawthorne, Bravura Foods
“Our biggest lesson that we learned last year is that online really is king for us moving forward,” said Lisa Gawthorne, managing director of vegan food distributor Bravura Foods.
“Self-confession, we weren’t really ready to really push things forward with e-commerce to take advantage of the increase in digital shopping.
“But we’ve been spending quite a lot of time on our plans there and now moving forward to really harness those opportunities that we see coming from an online space.”
Mark Fitzgerald-Cooke is the managing director of business brokers Intelligent, which speaks to around 3,500 SMEs every month.
He said: “There is a real appetite in this country for people that want to be their own boss and run their own businesses and the circumstances have forced themselves to say, ‘what am I waiting for? Life’s too short’.
“As a result – and to pick up on Lisa’s point – we saw a multiple-fold increase in the number of e-commerce, relocatable business enquiries.
“There’s a huge amount of interest for people to become their own boss, and the lower barrier to entry to that is ‘how can I do something in e-commerce. The enablers in the market, the Shopifys of this world, etc, obviously Amazon and eBay, and people looking and thinking ‘What can I do my hobby? Can I turn it into into something more?’.
“For us, 2020 going into 2021 is the year of the side hustle and how those opportunities turn into something more material.”
Stewart Haworth, debt finance director at OakNorth Bank, said: “Resilience and now starting looking for opportunities is really what we’ve seen in the last four months from borrowers.
He added: “Some businesses have pivoted into online and other businesses will grow either product or capability.
“I think what we will see as well is through the end of the furlough scheme and through unemployment that undoubtedly will come, is the opportunity to pick up good, entrepreneurial staff.
“Businesses looking to grow may be looking to do so in a slightly different way than they thought 12 months ago.”
Marc Yaffe, partner and head of commercial litigation, JMW
Marc Yaffe, partner and head of commercial litigation at law firm JMW, said the biggest lesson for him was “to take nothing for granted”.
He added: “I think, when times are good, you enjoy being on the crest of the wave, and here at JMW, we’ve enjoyed fast growth over the last few years. But when lockdown hit in March, I think we had to really react very quickly.
“We had to pull together to get a knowledge bank for our clients and the speed at which we managed to do that, in order to furnish them with information almost on a daily and rolling basis, really impressed me.
“From a business perspective, the one thing I learned was really the real measure of our staff, in terms of their loyalty, their commitment.”
