Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many organisations have realised that in order to remain relevant in their respective industries, they need to cultivate relationships with other like minded businesses, bodies, and the like through strategic partnerships.

These partnerships have the ability to broaden market coverage and customer bases. They can also be instrumental in building brand awareness as well as broadening and strengthening an organisation’s products and services.

Below are some great examples of how partnerships have worked for organisations in industries such as technology, travel, and more.

Ensuring online safety through strategic partnerships 

MFS Africa, a leading  digital payments hub in Africa, aims to provide access to financial solutions to individuals and enterprises alike, enabling transacting across borders. In continuing to expand its business across the continent, the organisation has forged some significant acquisitions. In the past year, major acquisitions by MFS Africa have included Baxi, a leading super-agency network in Nigeria, and the US-based fintech GTP, a top processor of prepaid cards across the African continent.

But expanding has meant that there is exposure to more risk. To combat this, MFS Africa has recently partnered with ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology. The collaboration aims to protect MFS Africa’s growing network of services against financial crimes. Through the agreement, Thetaray will provide MFS Africa its SONAR SaaS solution, including AI-powered AML transaction monitoring and sanctions list screening, enabling it to stay a step ahead of complex and emerging financial crime typologies, and increase growth opportunities with a trusted and secure service.

MFS Africa’s full-service digital payments network connects over 400 million mobile money wallets, over 200 million bank accounts across Africa and over 200,000 agents in Nigeria, to enable cross-platform and cross-border payments for remittance companies, mobile network operators, banks, non-bank financial institutions, and global merchants.

A partnership to revive tourism and encourage inclusivity 

Earlier in 2022, Airbnb launched its Live and Work Anywhere initiative to identify some of the most remote worker-friendly destinations in the world, and support governments and Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs) in helping to revive tourism and provide economic support to communities after two-plus years of travel restrictions.

As part of this initiative, Airbnb is working closely with Cape Town Tourism on a range of initiatives, including a dedicated custom-built hub for Cape Town that showcases top local long-term stay listings as well as important information relating to entry requirements and visa policies to attract remote workers.

Airbnb and Cape Town Tourism are also partnering on educational campaigns to promote responsible hosting and travelling as a remote worker. “In the two years since the pandemic began, a new world of travel has emerged in which many workers are untethered to an office,” said Velma Corcoran, regional lead for the Middle East and Africa at Airbnb. “Together with Cape Town Tourism, we want to make it easier for people to enjoy the newfound flexibility to work and travel, and help local communities capture the benefits of tourism.”

Staying competitive and creating value

The rapid acceleration of digital transformation, spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to the increased adoption of digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing, which is completely transforming the way that businesses make decisions, with data-driven insights informing business strategy, product development, and customer experience, says Jonathan Hurvitz, CEO of Teljoy.

“This has led to an increasingly competitive business landscape, calling on organisations to innovate on all levels to differentiate themselves from other businesses doing the same thing. Collaborating with the right partner can help organisations create or access fresh opportunities and build new capabilities that enable them to keep pace with the transforming business environment.”

The increased adoption of technology has also had an impact on customer expectations, as customers now demand more convenience, transparency, and a seamless customer experience.

“These shifting consumer wants and needs are exactly why value creation should be a dynamic and evolving part of any business strategy. Businesses need to be constantly engaging with the question of how to continue to add value for customers, and by forming mutually beneficial partnerships with brands and suppliers, they will be able to create consistent and relevant value,” says Hurvitz.

“However, it’s important to note that when building these partnerships, businesses need to ensure that they are designed in such a way that the experience remains seamless for the customer and that all partners involved benefit equally, whether in terms of brand exposure or sales,” he concludes.

Successful partnerships should benefit the customer

When companies enter into strategic partnerships, it should ideally not just be to enhance profits but to add value to the product or services for the benefit of the consumers and clients, particularly if either of the companies’ markets hasn’t readily had access to the other’s offering.

Online booking platform, Jurni’s recent partnership with Wings Travel Management is an example of this. They partnered to help get smaller accommodation providers onboarded on the jurni.travel platform secure online bookings more efficiently and timeously through the seamless interchanging of data between the two companies. Head of Marketing and Communications at Jurni, Tshepo Matlou explains, “Successful business partnerships benefit all stakeholders, including customers and clients – who are the end bosses. If one party feels undone at any point, then the partnerships should be reviewed.”

With global business travel bookings now exceeding pre-pandemic levels, there is little doubt that SMEs are playing an outsized role in economic recovery. According to business travel specialist Corporate Traveller, clients have cited reconnecting in real life as the main driver of their return to travel and the vital factor for business success.

With 16,000 clients globally, Tom Walley, Corporate Traveller’s Global Managing Director is attuned to their needs, and believes that boosting efficiency and productivity is crucial to smart recovery.

“As the backbone of the economy, SMEs account for the majority of businesses worldwide and are important contributors to job creation. At Corporate Traveller, we play our part in supporting this dynamic segment through a range of travel management services as well as informative resources,” said Walley.

Walley revealed the SME travel segment leader has tapped decades of industry know-how to produce the Business Travel Game Plan, an easy-to-use playbook that drills down on the essentials to help SMEs gain more visibility and control over their business travel programmes.

“We recognise that SMEs are adjusting to new priorities as they propel their businesses forward in this changed world. Through the Business Travel Game Plan, we have set out to show that by adopting an inclusive and more unified approach to travel, this translates into more savings, greater insight and business success. We know that when a travel programme goes well, it actually helps our customers win.”

Available to read and download via the Corporate Traveller website, the playbook shines a light on eight core areas including diversity equity and inclusion, technology, service and more, to optimise programme performance. A variety of educational assets show businesses how to assess and address pain points to gain better oversight over how to organise and improve the management of their travel.

Assets like the travel policy benchmarking tool assist in creating an effective travel policy and allow for benchmarking against others within the industry, while guidance on the Duty of Care essentials prepares travellers for any hitches before, during and after trips. These are just some of the helpful resources available.

Each section features a handy ‘score card’ to enable users to identify where the gaps are in their current programmes, and provides recommendations on how to get back on track.

In keeping with the company’s customer-centric approach, the Business Travel Game Plan also shares examples of relevant client challenges resolved with Corporate Traveller’s guidance.

It envisaged this content will appeal to both growing SMEs that typically organise their own travel, as well as benefit companies looking for advice as they reconsider their own programmes.

“Post pandemic travel is complex and not without its challenges for SMEs. By sharing vital guidance from Corporate Traveller’s team of travel pros, we hope that this playbook will encourage them to reassess and improve how they currently manage their business travel,” added Walley.

The Gameplan is ready to view now via the following link:

https://www.corporatetraveller.co.za/resources/whitepapers/your-business-travel-game-plan-how-win-visibility

About Corporate Traveller

Corporate Traveller is a division of the Flight Centre Travel Group, dedicated to saving businesses across Southern Africa time and money. Corporate Traveller has the benefit of being part of the world’s third-largest travel retailer, leveraging its global negotiating strength. It has access to over 50 of the world’s leading airlines and deals with more than 100 000 hotels around the world to guarantee savings for clients. Corporate Traveller provides clear, consolidated reporting of all its clients’ travel activities, helping them to control travel spend and identify opportunities to save costs.

Every business is founded to solve a customer problem, and the vast majority of products and services are designed to alleviate a specific customer pain point. But it is still important to let each customer know how their specific problems are being solved.

One of the best ways to build brand credibility is to understand a customer’s journey and build long-term relationships with them. In this article, we ask industry professionals how they meet the needs of their customers.

Always look for the next pain point – and solve it 

According to Aisha Pandor, co-founder of SweepSouth, Africa’s largest on-demand home services platform, if you truly want to make a difference with your business, you must always be on the lookout for the next pain point. By doing so, Pandor says, you’ll soon make an impact.

“At SweepSouth empowerment means earning higher than market rates and giving people the power to choose who they take work from, where, and at times that suit them. As such, empowerment is also about connectivity, and technology is one of the most important enablers of connectivity. Through our platform we wanted to leverage that potential to ensure that domestic workers and other home service providers are able to connect with as many work opportunities in the most convenient way possible,” Pandor says.

Build engagement with customers

It’s no secret that we live in a time of unprecedented technological acceleration. Nowhere is that more true than in the customer experience space. Things that ten years ago seemed completely impossible are now commonplace and almost expected.

“Many organisations want to make changes in line with accelerations in technology and customer experiences, but the range of options available out there stops them from even starting, or worse, they settle for an option that they deem to be “good enough,” comments Brent Haumann, Managing Director at digital communications firm, Tilte.

Importantly, however, is that as technology accelerates, so do customer expectations, and what was considered good enough yesterday is not good enough for tomorrow. It is critical that organisations aim to meet and even exceed these expectations, because if they don’t, their competitors will happily oblige. “The problem is that engaging customers is not about sending an email or introducing a chatbot.” Anyone can do that. It’s about how to get your customers to actually engage with your brand and build a loyal relationship that will see their customer lifetime value grow. This is a lot more difficult and requires expertise in these spaces.” concludes  Haumann

Enhance the user experience

While the use of technology to streamline customer-facing processes is an integral part of SME growth, the user experience of such technology can often become a pain point for the business if the right tool is not chosen. “While SMEs need technology to reduce manual tasks and automate repetitive processes, complicated software packages and platforms can be more of a hindrance than a help. “In fact, as many as 70% of startups fail within the first five years, according to research from the University of the Western Cape, because they don’t have the technical support they need to get the basics done,” says Andrew Bourne, Regional Manager, Africa – Zoho Corporation.

Integrated, seamless solutions need to meet the needs of the user, regardless of the scale of the business. This means having a full-featured Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that will improve  the user experience and enhance customer service.

Provide access across borders

It’s no secret that mobile money has revolutionised the financial services industry, allowing individuals to transact within and across borders – opening up a world of possibility for small business owners on the continent. However, consumer pain points such as a lack of access to financial services, high transaction costs, and regulatory requirements still hurt interoperability and the cross-border payments innovations that are key for scaling access across Africa.

Remittances, as an example, are important to African countries, but the cost of intra-African money transfers still remains high. In South Africa, the average cost of sending remittances was 8.14% in 2020 as against the global average remittance fee of 6.01%. Not only are billions lost to high transaction costs, but they also limit financial inclusion and aid to the vulnerable.

MFS Africa has been driving the next step in this revolution, addressing this pain point by bringing more possibilities, more connections and more interoperability to the mobile money user. The organisation’s full-service digital payments network now connects over 400 million mobile money wallets, over 200 million bank accounts and over 150,000 agents in Nigeria.

Harness technology to enhance the experience

“Solving the customer’s pain point is the foundation of a great customer experience. And experience is everything. We know that more consumers and business buyers are noting that the experience companies offer matters as much as their products.” says Zuko Mdwaba, Area Vice President Salesforce South Africa

This is all about meeting the customer where they are. Today, customers’ use of social media, knowledge bases, and live chat is near parity with phone and email. With the decline of in-person service since 2020 showing little sign of recovery, the use of mobile apps, online communities, and video support have seen massive expansion over the past two years.

Mdwaba continues that “Given the rising importance of digital channels, strengthening partnerships between service and IT departments is often key to breaking down data silos, saving on software cost, agent empowerment and resulting in faster time-to-market for new technology solutions.”

By investing in advanced technology, organisations can address customer pain points effectively to achieve greater customer satisfaction, which ultimately boosts engagement and revenue.

Ever-evolving customer demands, and increasingly challenging market conditions have kept many manufacturers and distributors on their toes. Navigating this landscape requires business leaders to take a step back, reassess the bigger picture with their company purpose in mind, and adjust where necessary to steer their organisation towards success. The manufacturing and distribution sector is working through a re-tooling from economic factors and workforce displacement to a new era of digital technologies. Now is the time to refocus on activities that will balance your risks with your projected rewards. Decision-makers looking to channel this growth mindset should consider adopting these recalibration tactics to drive growth and maintain relevance.

Tactic 1: Innovating with cost-saving strategies

One of the top economic concerns impacting business productivity and profitability is rising inflation, driven by several factors, including the ongoing geopolitical volatility. Many manufacturing and distribution industries are feeling the burn, with costs for materials, goods, shipping and more soaring, impacting their operating costs, output levels and, ultimately, their bottom line.

These industries have had to innovate with cost-savvy strategies to remain competitive and, indeed, to stay afloat. For some, this has meant leveraging technology to automate certain labour- and time-intensive tasks to lessen the number of hours and associated costs spent on task completion. Other businesses have been buying inventory in bulk with the view that these costs will continue to rise. However, as consultancy firm CFO Selections warns, this may be a risky move – in the short-term, it means restricted cash flow. These funds could be channelled elsewhere to better drive cost efficiencies, or they might be needed to respond to unforeseen costs due to further economic or climate crises. Plus, adds the firm, there’s the more obvious risk associated with an excess in the scenario where purchased inventory isn’t used quickly enough – think “spoilage, deterioration, damage, theft, or obsolescence”.

I believe that business leaders opting for automation as a driver of cost efficiency are placing a safer bet, especially because this means they’re building business resilience to economic shocks in the long-term. Technology like ERP software is making this possible. For starters, something as simple as automating time-draining admin processes using ERP could reduce labour costs, for example. Furthermore, organisations are better equipped to streamline how they work, thanks to real-time, data-driven insights into critical business processes through the consolidated, end-to-end overview an ERP platform provides.

Tactic 2: Embracing smart technology

Intelligence around customer-buying patterns, market-trends forecasting, and effective risk-management planning. These are just some of the benefits a business can reap from an accurate, real-time source of data. This source enables an organisation to better absorb macro-economic shocks brought about by changes like a health pandemic or war, and localised operational shocks, like equipment failures, in a proactive manner that boosts agility and therefore productivity and cost efficiency, too.

The key to harnessing this agility lies in data extraction and management, which is where smart technology comes in. Chatbots, rooted in AI technology, are a great way to automate intelligent data sourcing. A feature of ERP, AI-based tools can retrieve business-relevant insights from their environments, such as through interactions with your customers, to inform decision-making around functions like marketing, sales and more. Beyond this, chatbots can free-up crucial human resources to answer customer queries and analyse customer interactions to predict future needs for a better client experience. They can also assist internal business users on time-intensive tasks like stock lookups or ordering status, creating efficiencies that ultimately help improve productivity and revenue.

Tactic 3: Taking advantage of shifting employment trends

Remote and hybrid working are here to stay, but these employment trends needn’t dampen business continuity or productivity. In fact, I believe it’s quite the opposite. It’s clear that business leaders and their employees need to be productive no matter where they’re working from (on or off business premises), with access to real-time data to guide informed decision making. For example, in a scenario where a business is engaging with a customer off-site, having instant access to up-to-the-minute sales and service information to address concerns or confidently respond to queries is crucial to maintaining that client relationship.

Unsurprisingly, digital transformation is how businesses are taking advantage of the on-the-go nature of today’s working environment. Manufacturers and distributors who have digitalised operations with mobile ERP technology have boosted business agility by empowering staff. Their teams can securely access and control a multitude of processes in real time – planning, forecasting, budgeting, targeting, scheduling, accounts, purchase orders, inventory, sales, workflow, asset management, reporting and analytics – right from their smartphone, anytime and anywhere. Investments like this are helping give these businesses a competitive edge that sets them apart.

Tactic 4: Prioritizing vulnerability management as a cybersecurity measure

Of course, business downtime isn’t only caused by factory equipment failure. With more industries digitizing operations to keep up with demand, the threat of cyberattacks is a rapidly growing one. Without proper cybersecurity measures and regular reviews of security vulnerabilities (which can change quickly as hackers find new ways to unleash their attacks), these companies could become targets. This not only leads to business downtime but could also result in a loss of protected data and customer loyalty, reputational damage and more.

Manufacturers in particular have serious cause for concern. The recently published IBM threat intelligence report revealed that this sector overtook financial services as the most targeted by cybercriminals in 2021. The report added that nearly half of all cyberattacks on manufacturers were the result of security vulnerabilities that “hadn’t yet or couldn’t be patched”, which, the report continues, highlights “the need for organisations to prioritize vulnerability management”.

Keeping this advice in mind, manufacturers would be wise to earmark part of their budget to secure vulnerability management (VM) applications from a reputable cybersecurity provider. VMs scan the business’s IT assets to flag any weaknesses requiring immediate security interventions. It’s an upfront cost that will deliver on its investment in the long-term by reducing the (potentially financially crippling) risk of cyberattacks.

Futureproofing is the goal of any savvy business. To realise this goal, business decision-makers must take a strategic approach, which this article helps to shape. Recalibrating requires innovative cost-saving that doesn’t come at the expense of quality service delivery. Cost reductions, in turn, can be achieved through short-term investments in smart technology that deliver big pay-outs in the long-term. This smart technology automates business-critical processes to free-up valuable human resources who can channel their insights into other revenue-generating activities. This technology also guides informed decision-making through predictive modelling, ensuring a business is prepared to tackle potential risks. Lastly, speaking of risks, business leaders must balance progress against vulnerability. That’s why I strongly suggest you examine your cybersecurity risk to ensure the benefit that technology has unleashed is not outweighed by the financial fallout of a cyberattack. To sum up, your recalibration for success must be driven by responsible investments in technology. This is how you remain competitive and relevant in a world defined by change.