Multinational partnership boosts women-led small businesses a major digital advantage

Announced by ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO and Karima-Catherine Goundiam, founder of B2BeeMatch, as part of a webinar on connecting and digitising women entrepreneurs, the partnership will help women-led SMEs access the required tools, resources, and know-how to digitise their operations.

In line with ICC’s campaign to digitise five million SMEs in Africa, ICC and B2BeeMatch will use the B2BeeMatch matchmaking platform to support the digitalisation, scale-up, and up-scale of women-led business globally. When they join the platform, SMEs will be matched with other businesses from around the world based on their specific needs: web design firms, foreign exchange experts, management consulting services, and more. They’ll also get access to premium content on topics related to digital transformation, SME business trends, and women-led businesses.

ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO said:

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a particularly devastating impact on marginalised communities around the world. We are extremely pleased to announce our partnership with B2BeeMatch to help provide SMEs with the tools and resources to digitise their operations and expand their professional networks globally. Supported by ICC’s Centres of Entrepreneurship, this partnership will foster innovation and create opportunities that will have a real impact on the lives and livelihoods of people at the local level.”

B2BeeMatch founder Karima-Catherine Goundiam said:

“As a small business owner myself, I am very proud to be partnering with ICC to further extend the reach of the B2BeeMatch platform into communities all over the world and contribute to the digital transformation of small and medium businesses. B2BeeMatch is the platform I wish I’d had when I became an entrepreneur, and I’m proud to be in a position to empower small business owners as well as women entrepreneurs. Digital business is not just the way of the future, it is the way of right now, especially as COVID-19 continues to drastically affect how the business world operates both locally and across borders.”

The partnership is supported by  ICC’s Centre of Entrepreneurship, a pioneering initiative to prepare and mobilise the next generation of entrepreneurs around the world, as well as ICC’s worldwide network of chambers of commerce. With regional hubs in Istanbul and Beirut, ICC will announce future hubs in Africa and South America in 2021.