Meta Supports India's SMB Sector With 'Grow Your Business Hub'

'Grow Your Business Hub' will be a one-stop destination for micro, small, and medium enterprises to access relevant information, tools, and resources customised to cater to their business goals depending on their growth path

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Meta has reaffirmed its commitment to India's small companies by hosting the inaugural 'Grow Your Enterprise Summit,' an event focusing on the country's small and medium business (SMB) growth strategy. Emerging and small companies from a variety of industries, as well as small towns and rural India, attended the summit to tell their tales on how they transformed their businesses utilising Meta's digital technologies and apps. 'Grow Your Business Hub,' a one-stop destination for micro, small, and medium enterprises to access relevant information, tools, and resources customised to cater to their business goals depending on their growth path, was also unveiled during the summit.

Every month, millions of small companies use the Meta applications to start their online adventures and develop their enterprises, with 15 million using WhatsApp alone in India. Because of Facebook and Instagram, these firms are increasingly able to reach a worldwide audience, with over 300 million individuals like or following an Indian small business page on Facebook. People in India have posted over 1.2 million photos and comments on Instagram in the last three months to demonstrate their support for small businesses and purchasing local. In India, almost half a million small companies have put a WhatsApp number, a phone number, or an email address in their bio, or are urging potential clients to contact them directly via DM. This demonstrates that small companies are increasingly using Meta applications to go direct-to-consumer.

Said Archana Vohra, Director, Small & Medium Business, Facebook India, “Small businesses are the engines of growth for India’s economy, and the role of Meta is more important than ever in unlocking growth opportunities for them as many of them move online and use digital to grow.  From curated and customized business skilling programs to launching initiatives that enable working capital for small businesses, we have been building for the growth of India’s SMBs with a localized, India-first approach. Keeping in mind the unique needs of small businesses at various stages of their growth journey, today we’re also announcing ‘Grow Your Business Hub’, a one-stop destination for small businesses to find resources curated to their goals.” 

In addition to ‘Grow Your Business Hub’, the inaugural edition of the summit also saw the launch of ‘Grow Your Business Playbook’ that is geared to inspire and equip early stage businesses to start their journeys on our apps. The Playbook is Facebook India’s first published book on everything small businesses need to know from starting a business page, creating content on the page, to the first steps they need to take to start advertising. The playbook’s first edition is aimed at helping businesses set up offline to online journeys and accelerating online sales for small businesses during the COVID-19 era and beyond. 

These new resources come on the back of several initiatives and interventions that Facebook has launched in the recent months to support the growth of small businesses. Most recently, Facebook launched the ‘Small Business Loans Initiative’ to enable business loans for Facebook’s small business advertisers through third-party lenders. 

The India findings of a Facebook commissioned study by Deloitte “Dynamic Markets, Unlocking small business innovation and growth through the rise of the personalized economy” from May 2021 found that more than 80% small businesses in India claim Facebook apps were important to making their business stronger today and allowing them to compete in the market. More than 80% surveyed SMBs also reported that personalized ads were important to the success of their business, to effectively reaching new customers, and for achieving a higher return on marketing spend.

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