Washington, D.C.— NFTC’s Global Innovation Forum (GIF) released a new report that examines how pandemic has demonstrated the importance of digital tools in mitigating the economic impact of COVID-19 and maximizing small businesses’ access to global markets to bolster their resilience.
Global, Digital & Resilient expands on research represented in the report Digitally Driven: U.S. Small Businesses Find a Digital Safety Net During COVID-19. The original report from Connected Commerce Council (3C), in partnership with Google, is based on a survey of more than 7,000 U.S. small business owners.
GIF’s new report highlights the international and export-oriented research findings alongside case studies of U.S. small businesses to underscore how SMBs that leveraged digital tools to reach global markets are more resilient and were able to adapt better to the COVID crisis.
The report outlines how four businesses, Kettlebell Kings, Caribu, Shady Rays and Deering Banjo Company, utilized a collection of digital tools, platforms and strategies to grow in international markets.
“The only reason the app was able to grow globally was because of access to a variety of [digital] platforms,” said Maxeme Tuchman, CEO & Co-Founder of Caribu, an interactive video-calling platform that helps kids have virtual playdates. “We never would have entered the markets we did” without Android, the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.”
To enable an inclusive, global digital economy, GIF offers recommendations for how governments can maximize access to digital tools and advance equity for women- and minority-owned small businesses.
“Global markets are especially critical for underrepresented businesses, which on average experience higher productivity, generate larger profits and have more employees than their non-exporting counterparts,” said Jake Colvin, Executive Director of the Global Innovation Forum. “Governments have a responsibility to ensure that digital trade policies enable the entire e-commerce ecosystem to establish a stronger and more inclusive digital economy,” he added.
Global, Digital & Resilient: How digital tools are powering U.S. small businesses’ global engagement amid COVID-19 can be downloaded at https://globalinnovationforum.com/reports/global-digital-resilient/
About the Global Innovation Forum
The Global Innovation Forum is a nonprofit effort to connect startup, small business, development, and university communities with policymakers and select corporations to explore the opportunities and challenges of engaging in the global marketplace. GIF serves as a hub for business, university and development communities around the world to communicate with officials and corporations, discover public and private resources to help them succeed, and improve the public policy landscape to enable global innovation. GIF is a project of the 501(c)(3) National Foreign Trade Council Foundation.