Facebook launches new measures to help small businesses fight coronavirus crisis, says Director, SMB Facebook India
Facebook has built tools and resources that will help businesses manage their day-to-day activities during coronavirus crisis. Recently, it also announced a $100 million grant to support 30,000 small businesses globally.
Archana Vohra, Director, SMB Facebook India
The world is facing an unprecedented crisis with communities and economies everywhere getting affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The coronavirus outbreak has become one of the biggest threats to the global as well as the Indian economy and financial markets, leading to subdued global manufacturing activity.
Small businesses are the hardest hit. According to the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Annual Report 2018-19, India has more than 63 million MSMEs, many of which will get severely affected as the outbreak escalates. In response to this emergency, Facebook has been working closely with businesses to understand ways to help them, and to build resilience during the crisis.
More than 140 million small businesses across the globe use Facebook family of apps every month. To help MSMEs tide over these difficult times, Archana Vohra, Director, Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) at Facebook India, tells SMBStory how Facebook is helping small businesses fight the coronavirus pandemic.
“At Facebook, we are continuing to take measures to enable small businesses, and build resilience during the COVID-19 outbreak. We’ve launched a Business Resource Hub that can guide SMBs on what they should immediately do to navigate through the challenges. We’ve also started virtual formats for many of our key skilling and mentoring programmes.”
Recently, Facebook announced a $100 million grant to support 30,000 small businesses globally.
“We also continue to work closely with our advertisers to support them with customised business solutions and guidance that they require right now,” Archana adds.
Facebook has additionally built tools and resources that will help businesses manage their day-to-day activities during these challenging times: It has come out with a guidebook, Small Business Resilience Toolkit and the Quick-Action guide.
The Small Business Resilience Toolkit provides a framework for SMBs that may not have the time or resources to create an extensive plan to recover from business interruptions. This toolkit is designed to educate businesses on basic business resilience activities and approaches. These resources will guide SMBs toward addressing preparedness issues while building the flexibility to handle potential business disruptions. The toolkit is designed to lead any business, even one with no disaster experience or knowledge, towards greater resilience.
The purpose of the Quick Action Guide is to provide an initial response framework to reference during a business disruption. This guide provides direction on how to coordinate response activities that impact all or a part of one’s business operations, with a focus on protecting people and property, while minimising downtime.
(Edited by Javed Gaihlot)
Edited by Javed Gaihlot