GlobalLinker announces SME forum to help SMBs combat COVID-19 effects
This initiative, in partnership with Wadhwani Foundation, will provide a platform for discussions and real-time solutions for Indian MSMEs and SMEs.
The novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) has affected every continent other than Antarctica, taking away over 9,000 lives globally and infecting over 220,000 people. The pandemic has affected economies all over the world, with both the Indian and the US stock markets plunging.
India, which is struggling to curtail the outbreak, can see the effect trickling down to various sectors. One of the worst to be affected are the Indian Small and Medium Businesses (SMEs) and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
To ease the worries and anxieties of Indian SMBs, Mumbai-based SME networking platform, launched an SME Forum today in partnership with Wadhwani Advantage to help businesses be better equipped to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.
Announcing the launch of the forum, Summi Gambhir, co-founder & CEO of GlobalLinker tweeted,
Speaking to , Sameer Vakil, co-founder and CEO of GlobalLinker, said, “At such a time, we thought of having a single forum for SMEs where they can have conversations regarding the existing scenario and GlobalLinker, along with Wadhwani Foundation can provide some direction and confidence to the SMEs at large.”
Commenting on the partnership, Samir Sathe, Executive Vice President of Wadhwani Advantage, says, “This forum has been created to help you take advantage of the combined strengths of Globallinker and Wadhwani Advantage, to protect and transform your business by leveraging the experience of Wadhwani Advantage’s deep knowledge of small and medium business and curated network of advisors with the tremendous community reach of Globallinker.”
The platform is a one-stop solution for SMEs that provides capabilities in the transactional as well as knowledge domain. In the knowledge domain, people can post knowledge resources, comments and the experts can further provide perspective. The transactional domain will have solutions such as a free e-commerce store, a fully digitised supply chain for brands and lastly, a B2B marketplace listing for wholesale transactions.
The forum will help in achieving several benefits. First, businesses will not have to singularly speculate and combat the situation. They can become a part of a platform where many others like them can have dialogues and conversations with the help of industry experts. He also says that there is another side of the business that they are focusing on.
“During the normal course of their daily lives, SME entrepreneurs have plenty of things to focus on- often called as the burning issues,” he says, adding, “And in the process a lot of important things get missed out. This forced break will help the businesses revisit some fundamental aspects that need to be addressed.”
Sameer believes that when SMEs follow this route with the help of this initiative, once things get back to normalcy, they will emerge stronger and can expect better business outcomes. And lastly, businesses will be able to understand how to make the most of this forced break.
GlobalLinker was founded in 2015 by Sameer Vakil and Summi Gambhir. It is fintech platform that digitizes SMEs and makes a vast network by connecting them to one another. Currently, it hosts 2,60,000 SMEs on the platform
(Edited By Kanishk Singh)