Presented by DocuSign
The pandemic has only accelerated demands from customers and employees alike for digital solutions that make business more seamless. Learn how digital transformation helps businesses adapt to today’s environment in this VB Live event.
The pandemic is fast-tracking digital transformation right now for SMBs, says Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, head of revenue and growth for the Americas at Stripe. COVID-19 has accelerated the shift toward the online economy, with both businesses and consumers conducting a lot more business online.
“In ecommerce, we’ve seen more growth in the last three months than we had in the last five years,” DeWitt Grosser says. One example of this is a Stripe product called Atlas developed for new business incorporation — in April 2020, they saw a 220% increase in incorporations over April 2019.
And digitization is powering the move for companies to expand geographically. “Businesses going online aren’t just serving local customers — they’re also able to increase their reach around the country and the world,” says DeWitt Grosser. “We believe the momentum is going to continue.”
Of course, food delivery companies, such as Doordash and Instacart, as well as online retailers are experiencing well in the triple digits year-on-year growth, while a lot of small businesses are directly using online for order-ahead, pick-up-in-store processes, too. Telemedicine was already a growing trend, but now that it’s often the only option, consumers are adopting it in large numbers. Education is moving online, deals and agreements are being brokered digitally, and employees are growing more comfortable with being part of an online team.
B2B companies are adding direct to consumer, as well. For example, farms which usually distribute fruit and vegetables to other outlets are building online platforms to sell directly to consumers.
“One of the silver linings of COVID is seeing how many businesses could pivot rapidly,” DeWitt Grosser says.
To support that pivot, there are an increasing number of tools to enable digital transformation for small businesses, across software tools, video platforms, and more.
“These technology platforms are allowing businesses to move quickly, augmenting the pivot rather than delaying it, because there’s less that a company is going to have to build themselves,” she says. “We’re getting close to business-in-a-box, where you can get everything that you need pre-integrated, set up, and not need to be technical in order to have great technology at your fingertips.”
For instance, she points to the way payments can be pre-integrated into the broader business stack, whether that’s DocuSign or Squarespace or Shopify, with no additional work to do. Businesses going online have often needed to replace many of their existing services as well as add new functionality to adapt to things. But platforms that can provide some of those new, less familiar services while being just fast as the things that you already have –and already know you need — is changing the game for smaller businesses that need to respond quickly to a changing market.
“The first thing that folks should do is look at as many out-of-the-box tools as possible,” DeWitt Grosser says. “There’s no reason you need to build your own online ordering or pickup app.”
For payments specifically, she recommends that small business owners not just focus on trying to have the lowest rate possible for credit card payments. There are many hidden costs and monthly fees that are buried in the bill at some of these legacy providers that frequently have gotten overlooked by customers because of the opacity of their billing model. These solutions aren’t often well integrated into many business software platforms.
“To create the customer experience you’re looking for when you’re picking a software provider, make sure you understand exactly what you’re paying for and exactly how it will work with your whole stack,” she explains.
To learn more about the tools that are helping SMBs adapt to a changing market, how to select the right software platforms to build engaging customer experiencing, and how to develop a digital strategy, don’t miss this VB Live event.
Don’t miss out!
In this webinar, you’ll:
- Hear from industry experts from DocuSign, Stripe, and ChowNow
- Understand market trends impacting the speed of business transactions
- Learn how technology platforms are helping businesses shift to the new world of work
- Enable your business to use digital tools as a competitive advantage and key differentiator
Speakers:
- Brent Kraus, SVP Sales & Restaurant Success, ChowNow
- Dave Simon, Vice President, Small Business Commercial Sales, DocuSign
- Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, Head of Revenue and Growth for the Americas, Stripe
- Stewart Rogers, Moderator, VentureBeat
