Sophisticated simplicity: The key to unlocking small business market growth
There are around 400 million small businesses worldwide and it’s no surprise they’re recognised as the backbone of our global economy, representing 90% of businesses and over 50% of employment globally, according to the World Bank.
Within the next 10 years the World Bank also states that globally, we will need 600 million new jobs to absorb the new workforce. And to that end, many governments are turning their focus to entrepreneurship and small businesses to make that happen.
If you also consider that, according to Semrush, globally 91% of consumers support small businesses when it’s convenient, two-thirds look for ways to support small businesses even when it’s not, and 77% are willing to pay more if they receive excellent customer service, you can see why a focus on entrepreneurship is so important.
In addition, there’s evidence to suggest the appetite for digitalisation as a growth enabler by many small business owners is increasing. According to Gitnux, globally, 92% of small business owners do believe a website is the most effective digital marketing strategy. In the UK in 2023, according to Semrush, there was a significant increase (86%) in the number of people searching for “how to start a small business” online.
Yet, according to statistics, small businesses are the least digitally advanced business size. The reason, some say, is cost. In Singapore for example, according to McKinsey & Co, 56% of small business owners claim digitalisation is just too expensive. For others, they just don’t know who to trust to help digitalise their business. In the UK, BaseKit’s own study with YouGov found that 39% don’t know who to trust to provide digital tools for their business, and over a quarter don’t have a website.
Small businesses are important, in demand by governments, consumers back them, entrepreneurship is growing, digitisation acceptance is increasing, yet there is a disparity in the demand and supply of small business growth enablers – companies who serve and support the commercial growth of small businesses.
The market opportunity is vast. So what kinds of businesses can unlock growth for small businesses in the next 10 years, and snap up some of that market share the fastest? The key, in our opinion, is simplicity in the product, and sophistication in the offering.
At BaseKit our vision is a world where anyone with a business idea can thrive naturally, freely and successfully – powered by fast, simple and reliable technology. We exist to facilitate growth for small businesses by serving our website builder, e-commerce and bookings software to them via companies who serve the small business market.
We partner with many types of businesses with a mission to scale and grow with small businesses by complimenting their existing offering with more value, from one place.
SaaS companies are one such business type. Take the rise of “everything as a service”, it encompasses the many products, tools and technologies that vendors deliver to users as a service over a network. It’s a big trend which appeals across many sectors, with SaaS companies leading the charge. The reason, because it adds value to end users in three major ways, cost savings, agility and scalability.
Embraced by the likes of Revolut, Salesforce, AWS, Hewlett Packard and Shipbob, this trend has opened up the landscape for co-opetition – a growing number of companies collaborating to deliver hybrid, as-a-service models to customers, and share risk.
SaaS companies that serve small businesses often need to deploy all or part of their own custom solution via a website. Therefore integrating with BaseKit via our API means they get the benefit of using our robust technology and simple website builder to enhance the delivery of their own offering, via a trusted partner, and add more value for their customers. For example, one of our partners offers health practitioners a SaaS platform to reach customers and build a community around their businesses. They have partnered with BaseKit to offer websites to complement this core platform.
Then there’s large corporate companies such as telcos, hosting companies and banks who are also turning their strategies to co-opetition. They’re looking for outside help to ‘give more’ to their customers by complimenting their existing core offering with more ways to thrive. Telcos, for example, are not just looking to connect consumers to the internet, and provide a device, they’re looking to help them use that connectivity and device to start a business online. Banks don’t just want to provide a business bank account, they want to provide small businesses with the means to bank and transact online, offering a one stop service to start or take a business online.
Whatever the scenario, the key to the partnership, we believe, is sophisticated simplicity. If it’s going to succeed, and succeed fast, the added value being offered, has to be easy to deliver and easy to use.
BaseKit is a self contained, mobile-first platform with simplicity built in at its core. Sure, you can create a SaaS product easily, but it takes many years to produce one that is fast and seamless to deploy and simple to use. Something BaseKit is proud to deliver based on 15 years’ experience and counting.
This combination is the key to providing companies with the speed and flexibility they’re looking for to adapt to fast-changing markets to support small businesses. It saves money in the short term, by mitigating additional in-house personnel and heavy technical delivery costs. It saves money in the long term by reducing customer churn and delivering scalability, with sophistication and efficiency.
All the while it offers peace of mind. Leaving companies to focus on what they do best with their core brand offering, while their partner takes care of everything value add. From security and uptime to performance, product development and evolution, it’s all taken care of.
BaseKit’s website builder, e-commerce and bookings software is the most effortless and sophisticated value add for companies looking to support small businesses. It’s available to be resold as a white label product, giving full control over pricing, branding and positioning, or it can be referred as a co-branded solution from a marketplace.