Grab have recently announced that they have launched a Small Business Booster Programme to help small businesses in Southeast Asia adapt to the COVID-19 new normal. According to Grab their new programme will help businesses get online and grow through better visibility, and relevant adaptations which will ensure they are included in the growing digital economy.
Grab have made a commitment in helping the growth of small businesses and this gift of empowerment to SMB’s in such testing times is vital to the growth of the global economy. It is interesting to see how digitalization is an important focus and how it is being implimented outside of the UK.
“COVID-19 has accelerated change. We have seen dependency on online services grow exponentially almost overnight. This is spurring innovation in Southeast Asia, but is also putting us at risk of widening the digital divide. Small businesses make up the backbone of Southeast Asia’s economy, but the vast majority of these businesses are offline. They will need to embrace technology and digitalise or risk falling further behind. Through our Small Business Booster Programme, we hope to help small businesses navigate this new normal. We will draw on our technology and reach to find new ways of doing business that can inclusively support everyone,”
– Hooi Ling Tan, co-founder, Grab
Key components of the Small Business Booster Programme:
- GrabMerchant: An all-in-one, self-serve merchant platform for business owners to help grow their online customer base, optimise their operations, while keeping costs in check. Key features[3] include:
- Offline to Online (O2O) Merchant Support Programme: Grab is enabling offline businesses to go online via partnerships with e-commerce solution providers that allow for easy set up of online stores with GrabPay integration.
- Merchant Discovery: The feature aims to increase discoverability for businesses and drive more foot traffic to their physical stores as Singapore moves out of the circuit breaker period and more businesses look to reopen.
- $3.5 million in free ads for Southeast Asia small businesses: The “Homegrown Heroes” initiative will see Grab creating personalised ads for approximately 6,000 local businesses in 28 cities across 8 countries, and feature them on the most prominent spaces within the app for a 5-week period starting in July.
