Hardship Can Create Opportunity

Today, 6 July 2020, it will be 102 days since the hard lockdown was implemented and all South Africans were asked to stay at home.

Unfortunately this has had a devastating effect on the economy of our country, and especially on small businesses as well as their employees. This is a simple fact – if you cannot trade you do not have any income, and you are unable to pay salaries. Many hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs during the past three months. One would hope that the majority of these people will be rehired now that most businesses are allowed to open, but as they are trading at less than full capacities, they are unable to take back all the employees that were laid off.

Even major corporates had to scale down on their staff numbers, and with the success of Working From Home (WFH), many corporates saw this as an opportunity to restructure their business models that includes a permanent reduction in staff numbers. The job market post-Covid-19 will therefore be brutal and thousands of skilled and experienced people will in all probability not be able to find work for the foreseeable future. This unfortunate chain of events created the best breeding ground for entrepreneurship, and with some cash in the bank after pension pay-outs or perhaps severance packages,

Marbee believes that small businesses will mushroom during the next 6 tot 12 months. Research has shown that many (or most) new small businesses fail within a short period of times as the owners lack the necessary skills to effectively manage a business. Alternatively they get bogged down by all the paper work and admin of running the business rather than to focus on the products and/or services that they offer to consumers. Solopreneurs in particular cannot afford to appoint staff to manage the basics such as building a business plan, developing a marketing plan, financial and budgetary aspects such as opening a business banking account, invoicing, financial reporting and annual audits, etc.

Marbee offers a number of affordable packages designed to support the small business owner with a range of services designed to build successful companies for the future. Marbee is a family business, and we invite small business owners to join our family.

Sarel du Plessis, COO, Marbee

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