Lack of e-payment solutions a bottleneck for MSMEs

Vantage point: Insights from cutting-edge research

E-commerce is transforming the global trade landscape and opening up the international market, but for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), especially from developing countries, considerable challenges prevent them from tapping into its potential. “New Pathways to E-commerce: A Global MSME Competitiveness Survey”, published by the International Trade Centre, polled over 2,200 MSMEs in 111 countries and identified the challenges they face when engaging in e-commerce. Stories of entrepreneurs building online business empires from their garages in Boston, Bengaluru, or Beijing are on the rise, and serve as new business models, said the report. “Beyond this optimistic picture, however, there are challenges, especially for MSMEs in developing countries. Barriers to setting up an online international presence often limit firms to the domestic market. This matters because e-commerce offers great potential to deliver economic growth, jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.” Major bottlenecks for MSMEs in developing economies when establishing an online business are a lack of online visibility and business knowledge, lack of technical and language skills, high cost of membership fees in e-commerce platforms, poor Internet access, limited access to finance, and difficulty in registering or complying with platform requirements.

If MSMEs are able to overcome these initial barriers, many move on to struggle with limited access to international e-payment solutions. “The limited availability of e-payment solutions was frequently reported as a bottleneck, with a visible gap between developed (14 per cent) and developing countries (20 per cent),” noted the paper. Main e-payment challenges reported in the survey include a missing link between third-party e-payment service providers and local banks, foreign exchange controls, no availability of e-payment providers, no online banking system, lack of knowledge in e-payment, and difficulty in signing up for encryption solutions.

Treat candidates well or lose them as employees, customers

A new survey of professionals conducted by the Futurestep division of Korn Ferry shows how critical it is for organisations to place a strong emphasis on the candidate experience during recruiting. Three-quarters of respondents say it is unlikely they would accept a job offer if they were treated poorly during the recruiting experience, even if they felt the role was a good fit. In addition, 56 per cent say it is unlikely that they would remain a customer of a company if they had a bad experience as a candidate, and 34 per cent say they would also be likely to urge their friends and family members to stop being a customer. When considering applying to a company, 98 per cent respondents say they take to social media sites to see what others say about both the hiring experience as well as working at the organisation.

“Companies risk alienating not only strong candidates, but also loyal customers if they don’t make a concerted effort to create an efficient, welcoming and informative environment during the hiring process,” said Adam Blumberg, Korn Ferry Futurestep vice-president, key accounts. “This equates to significant costs, both in terms of the time and money wasted during the hiring process, as well as loss of revenue from fleeing customers.” When asked what would aggravate them most during the recruiting process, 53 per cent cited not hearing back from the recruiter or hiring manager.

“The best recruiters and talent acquisition professionals take the time to understand the strategic objectives of both the company and the role for which they are recruiting, and communicate to the candidate how they will fit into the organisation if hired,” said Neil Griffiths, Korn Ferry Futurestep’s global brand, marketing and communications leader. A key tactic to help bring the employer brand to life is to use digital channels. Survey respondents said that beyond recruitment process details, the elements that matter most to them on a career website are information about the company's culture and its philanthropic efforts.