The two-sided coin of digital transformation: Scaling companies and their small business customers
Even if your business has always existed in the digital world, you should still always be looking at what more you can be offering in order to scale and deliver the best experience for your customers.
That’s especially the case for the companies that support small businesses. By offering or integrating new white label digital products such as website and store builders, companies like telcos, banks and saas businesses can find a new way to gain small business market share and win the loyalty it has to offer.
And when you start thinking about your own digital transformation alongside the transformation your small business customers are trying to achieve, it’s easy to see how the two goals go hand in hand.
Heads: Digital transformation for scaling companies
Banks are an obvious focus of digital transformation. With the rise of challenger banks and fintechs, traditional banks are having to do more in the digital space to compete. That means diversifying, and extending more support to their small business customers.
But it’s not just banks looking to digital tools and the small business market as a means of scaling. White label software for small businesses is also helping telcos evolve their range of digital services, while SaaS companies are looking to transform their core offering into an all-in-one solution.
But often the challenge for these companies isn’t to do with the white label products themselves – it’s how to best market and position them to small business owners.
For example, you may already be supporting small businesses with your core services. But how do you progress from that to also being the source of their website or e-commerce store builder? How do you communicate that you’re a trustworthy source of software if that’s not your bread and butter, or show the benefit to small business customers who are unsure whether they need tech to begin with?
Tails: Digital transformation for small businesses
The key to positioning your digital transformation to your small business customers starts with understanding that many of them are going through a transformation themselves – one that’s enabled by the digital tools you have to offer.
Put yourself in the shoes of a small business owner and ask what digital transformation means to them. They might be looking to take their business online for the first time by building their first website. Or they might have a website already but want a way to sell their products directly from it. Or maybe they’re taking all of their bookings via social media messages and want a more efficient method.
If you’re a larger company offering digital tools to small businesses, you need to understand what those small businesses are looking for in order to position them.
For example, a site builder doesn’t just give a small business owner the toolkit to make a website – it helps them build a platform to reach a larger audience than their local area. Likewise, an online store or booking system is a way for them to spend less time manually making arrangements with customers via messaging, as well as to take payments and make money while they’re sleeping.
Why this two-sided coin is valuable for everyone
If you take the time to understand what small business owners really need and why, you stand a much better chance of making a digital services play that really helps them achieve their individual goals. And in return, small businesses have a lot of loyalty to offer the organisations that help them navigate the confusing world of digital transformation.
In order for your new products to be successful, you need your small business customers to trust in the robustness of the product, but more importantly they need to see the real benefits those tools could have on the everyday life of running a small business.
The more you can put yourself in their perspective and understand what digital transformation means for small business owners, the better you can position your white label digital tools in a way that will make them indispensable to your customers. And that won’t just help with adoption rates, but also with positioning your business on the whole as a true supporter of small business success.