SMMEs
Telkom Business’ izwe.ai Brings Multilingual Translation Services to SMMEs
Image sourced from News24 Telkom Business, in collaboration with Enlabeler, has introduced izwe.ai, an artificial intelligence-driven transcription and translation platform that provides businesses with speech-to-text services to create a cost-effective and convenient communication experience for SMMEs. Transcription and translation Through izwe.ai businesses can engage directly with multilingual transcription and translation services. The platform allows SMMEs to eliminate the manual work by automatically transcribing and translating important information into text with a high level of accuracy. “Every business needs digital tools to remain competitive and you cannot think about digital without mentioning AI. Through this platform, the aim is to enable several different speech...
Telkom Launches New Mobile Pay App for SMMEs in SA
Telkom Financial Services has launched the Telkom Pay Mobile Point-of-Sale (mPOS) app, a fintech tool that allows small, micro, and medium business owners to make and receive payments through their mobile phones. Telkom says that the said businesses will be able to use the app anytime and anywhere. The South African telecom provider says it is committed to providing SMMEs with solutions that will enable them to fully participate in the digital economy. Through the app, business owners can register and receive payments in a matter of minutes. “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for businesses to digitize their operations and become fully immersed in the digital economy. The app will enable businesses, who normally only take cash payments, to reach a wider customer base. It enabl...
Orderin CEO Gives 5 Simple Ways SMMEs Can Become Competitive in eCommerce
Thembani Biyam, CEO of Orderin SA. A few years ago, the majority of South Africans had never made a single purchase online. Today, the local e-commerce market has experienced a massive boom as lockdown restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, made online shopping feel like the safer, and sometimes the only, option for consumers. According to a 2018 report from shopping centre and property research company, Urban Studies, retail sales in the country reached a new high of R1-trillion ($65-billion) in 2017 and yet online shopping merely accounted for 1.8% of total retail spend that year. To give some context to just how far South Africa lagged behind in the e-commerce market, 19% of all British, and 10% of American retail spend in the same year, came from online purchases. Fast f...
To Emerge from COVID-19 Businesses Will have to “Re-Think” Traditional Models
Sourced from Tech Loot Traditional models of business funding need a re-think if South Africa’s small businesses and entrepreneurs are to emerge from the financially crippling “winter of coronavirus” into a spring of growth and rejuvenation. Accepting that downturns, recessions and economic crises are inevitable, one needs to shift the focus into building “Zebra” companies – sustainable businesses with steady growth, strong balance sheets and cash flows, and able to withstand downturns – rather than “Unicorns that will die without the next round of funding”, says University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) Senior Extraordinary Lecturer, Daniel Strauss. “In the past, we had a mindset of ‘or’ – we either had a traditional SMME that was funded through debt or we had a start-up that was f...
