I chat to Cheslin Denman, head of business development at Trustlink Africa Hub, to find out how the company is helping small/medium enterprises.
The Trustlink Africa platform addresses a challenge all SMMES face, how to remain business/industry and financial compliant without the need of hiring expensive consultants that are not focused on guiding and educating the business owner focused on a specific goal. Business/Industry and Financial Compliance enables SMMES to get access to banks, supply chains, funders and tender opportunities.
While I was working at a large corporate company servicing the similar market sector, many business owners paid to get access to opportunities but never saw great results. Many buyers and procurement departments would agree that 65% of businesses applying for opportunities would not make it to the first stage as they did not meet the business compliance criteria. This was a common barrier with funding, supply chain and tenders. My partners confirmed the mistakes they and many business owners were having thus leading to Trustlink.Africa.
Trustlink Africa Hub is a digital compliance platform focusing on guiding companies through common challenges faced by small and medium businesses when trying to access greater opportunities within government, private institutions and supply chains. Some of the main challenges are:
We do this by focusing on three aspects of the compliance journey
During the early stages of Covid-19 we helped raise over R1.5million for SMES through our partner network (SEFA, DEDAT, NYDA), utilising our platform. We also helped over 200 business become business ready to access funding and business opportunities.
One of our main challenges has been the impact of Covid-19 on the business we serve as many businesses went from growth to focus to survival, thus led to many customers wanting the service but putting it on hold due to budget constraints.
Starting a business is the easy part, running a successful business is the challenging part. You need to have grit, perseverance and handle all the challenges that comes your way whether it be financially or mentally. “Strongest lives the longest” is the saying that truly applies to business. I think you have to believe in your vision and have a purpose.
Our startup assisted in securing over 30 jobs that were about to be cut due to businesses being closed during lockdown, thus was done in partnership with our funding partners.
Covid was a challenge for us as we had a subscription service and many businesses couldn’t keep up the payments. We therefore changed our pricing structure to month-to-month payments and this kept us moving forward.
Greater access/awareness of angel investors, as South Africa still lacks in early stage funding and more collaboration between everyone in the startup space, instead of each region being isolated.
There is definitely a rise in more businesses needing to adopt a digital business model or at least have a digital strategy to facilitate their future aspirations. Customers have become used to doing more digitally due to Covid-19 forcing all of us to remain indoors.