Celebrating Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day

27th of June every year is Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day, a UN-recognized observance in celebration of smaller businesses that punch above their weight and form the backbone of many emerging economies. While this year is no different, there are extra reasons to pay close attention.

In emerging markets, a staggering 70% of most formal jobs are generated by SMEs. Yet, those economies are under more pressure than ever. Conflicts in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza have created humanitarian crises with ripple effects throughout the globe. Inflation continues to be persistent in many economies, devaluating local currencies and contributing to increased costs of living. Severe weather phenomena caused by global warming have wreaked havoc on every single continent.

Small and medium businesses, which so often face cash flow challenges, have less resilience built in to deal with the pressures that all these macro events bring upon them.

Yet, MSMEs are fundamental to a global effort to achieve the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals. Their ability to create jobs, foster innovation, and promote sustainable practices makes them indispensable in the journey toward a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient world.

Hence, this year more than ever, we wanted to cast a light on how the work that some SMEs do can have an impact on their respective communities. We reached out to business leaders across sectors as varied as film production and fintech and collated their responses below.

Note: Scroll down below or click on each name to read their quote.

Table of contents

Ann Summerhayes, CEO of Inside Job Productions

We’re Inside Job Productions, a film production agency and social enterprise. The film production bit is easy – we make films of all genres and styles, for everything from adverts to explainers, training guides to brand stories, events and social media – and you can see some here. However, the social enterprise element may need more explaining.

As a social enterprise, our mission is to have a positive impact on the world around us. At Inside Job Productions our focus is on supporting people with lived experience of mental health, providing training and employment opportunities for those underrepresented in the film industry, supporting those in the criminal justice system, and engaging marginalised communities.

Through our Production Trainee Scheme, we offer training and employment opportunities. Paying the London Living Wage, we train an individual over a 6-9 month period on key skills needed in film production, and they work on live projects such as our Mental Health Media Production Unit in prisons, with Clinks, and our new venture with Rethink Mental Illness.

Since beginning in 2020, the Mental Health Media Production Unit has worked with over 100 people in the criminal justice system, producing over 20 films and reaching 7000 prisoners. The programme, at HMP Wandsworth and HMP Isis, with a grant from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, focused on mental health and the wellbeing that comes from engaging with film.

TJ Ooi, Founder, Curated Connectors

As with most countries in Southeast Asia, Singapore has an economy comprising more than 90% MSMEs across varying sectors, with the large majority being run by women. Curated Connectors, with its vision of Empowering Lives through Connecting Businesses, has been actively connecting MSMEs in Southeast Asia.

Since our inception in March 2020, we have also provided opportunities for MSMEs to share thought leadership through our unique partnerships with inter-governmental organisations such as the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), especially during the pandemic. Such engagements have included women entrepreneurs, as well as organisations advocating disability inclusion, and have allowed them to gain greater exposure to regional and global audiences.

Donna Moore, CEO and Chairwoman, LoRa Alliance

As a global IoT alliance, the LoRa Alliance® develops LoRaWAN, which is a key, cost-effective technology that can greatly improve the well-being of marginalized communities. Our members’ LoRaWAN deployments support local economies and improve quality of life by using data from thousands of sensors to effect positive change.

One example is supporting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in its mission to provide water to millions of people worldwide. Adopting a LoRaWAN solution enabled real-time monitoring of the water supply in refugee camps by providing accurate and efficient data about the quality and quantity of the water supplies in remote locations.

Another example is its use in UK social housing, where poor property conditions lead to issues for tenants and property health. Using LoRaWAN sensors to monitor humidity, temperature, carbon dioxide and movement enables landlords to identify and repair unsuitable living conditions, improving tenant health and quality of life.

Iffi Wahla, CEO and Co-Founder, Edge

Ask any senior business leader what one of their main challenges is and they will undoubtedly mention finding the right expertise for their business, with 42% of startups reporting an absence of the right talent to meet their needs. Edge’s platform offers the possibility that the answer could be found in recruiting a global remote workforce, tapping into less developed regions which have an excess of affordable talent but not necessarily the jobs to meet demand.

For skilled workers living in developing nations, this opens the doors to a world of possibilities. These individuals can secure high-paying jobs, which brings more money into their local economies. Crucially, it also retains talent in these countries. People can gain valuable experience and knowledge by working with Western countries and then apply it in their home market. Enabling a global remote workforce could indeed lead to a boom in entrepreneurship in these developing nations.

Dr Thomas Funke, Co-Founder & CEO Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences

At Tomorrow University, we empower learners to support their communities through our purpose-focused programs that emphasise community-centred learning and real-world skill development, enabling students to make a positive impact on what matters most to them. Our online asynchronous learning model offers flexibility, enabling learners to develop their expertise from anywhere and pursue their goal of making a tangible societal impact on vulnerable communities.

“Take Maggie Garcia – student and founder of slow fashion brand, Alpaca MGO. Through our Responsible Entrepreneurship and Management Bachelor’s degree, Maggie is honing her skills to preserve traditional Peruvian artisanal techniques of Incan ancestors – at risk of extinction due to modernisation. Through this initiative, she is committed to supporting fair trade businesses and creating work opportunities for local alpaca farmers and artisans.

“Our students engage in a range of diverse initiatives, including renewable energy, local food systems, marine conservation, and waste reduction. These efforts contribute to building resilient, sustainable and ethical societies, fostering inclusive and equitable economic growth.

Ajoy Krishnamoorthy, CEO at Cin7

Many SMEs are family-run operations with generations of hard-working individuals giving their all to businesses they believe in. They’re entrepreneurs, determined to make a difference in the world with the products or services they offer. But too often SMEs have to close their doors due to rising inventory costs and low sales.

A recent study projected inventory distortion would cost the retail industry $1.77 trillion in 2023 – a cost many SMEs can’t afford. And it creates a negative impact on local economies, as people may lose their jobs and struggle to make ends meet.

Our platform at Cin7 helps these businesses weather potential storms by enabling more efficient inventory management, finances and cash flow. We are committed to optimizing inventory through real-time tracking and visibility, which helps sellers keep the right amount of inventory on hand – not only allowing their business to grow but their local economies as well.

Georgia Falzon, Co-Founder & Philanthropist at meetmagic

meetmagic supports the local economy and makes a significant impact on vulnerable groups through our sustainable fundraising model.

We facilitate meetings between corporate executives and charities, helping non-profits gain valuable exposure and funding, which in turn stimulates local economic activity.

Our platform’s intelligent algorithm connects world-class technology vendors with decision-makers for meetings, creating an ecosystem that contributes to economic growth.

Through the meetmagic impact card, we support several causes, each with its own campaign that the meetmagic funds directly support.

Regarding empowering women, meetmagic advocates for female representation within our own organisation, and encourages our partners to do the same helping create more opportunities for female leaders. We are currently working on a partnership with a well-known women-led organisation, to support funding for their female scholarship programs.

Frode Berg, Managing Director – EMEA, Provenir

Traditionally, the world’s credit markets have only been open to those individuals with established credit, relegating those individuals who could benefit most from financial resources to the category of “credit invisible.” This is both a developed and a developing-world problem – the product of longstanding disparities in the age-old credit infrastructure establishment.

It’s time for a sea change in the entire industry. Without acknowledging this and taking the requisite action, the industry will remain prejudicial and oppressive by default.

To do this, we must push credit decisions to the edge, leveraging behavioural and alternative data, AI and analytics to shed light on previously credit-invisible candidates.

Jason Sun, Co-Founder and CFO at XTransfer

In China, compared with the rapid development of personal consumption payment, B2B cross-border payment is more complicated because it involves multiple organizations and multiple links. However, there are more than 5 million small, medium and micro enterprises（SMEs）engaged in cross-border trade in China. Many of them are faced with the difficulty of opening an account in traditional international banks, low efficiency and high cost of capital circulation. This not only hinders their transactions with buyers in different countries but also forces some enterprises to use non-compliant channels, such as underground banks, for cross-border remittances, resulting in significant capital risks.

SMEs are the driving force of the Chinese economy, making substantial contributions to tax revenue (over 50%), GDP (over 60%), innovation (over 70%), and urban job creation (over 80%). They have also been instrumental in China’s poverty alleviation efforts. In the first five months of 2024, SMEs accounted for 54.7% of China’s total foreign trade value, according to the China General Administration of Customs.

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