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IBM and the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank, have announced a major initiative to design and build a new business management platform, which will deliver interactive tools, online collaboration and educational content for small businesses in the developing world, as well as for women- and minority-owned businesses in the United States.
"Access to best practice and business management tools is a significant barrier to the growth and sustainability of small and medium enterprises (SME's) in developing countries. IBM's contribution to support our SME Toolkit will enable us to bring state–of–the–art information and communication technologies to small businesses throughout the developing world," said Lars Thunell, Executive Vice President of IFC.
The SME Toolkit is a free on–line program which provides information and communication technologies to help small businesses in emerging markets learn and implement sustainable business management practices. The Toolkit provides these businesses with highly developed information, tools, and training services usually only available to Fortune 1000 companies. Originally launched by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2002, it is available in 22 emerging markets such as Vietnam, Philippines, and Bangladesh and is now expanding in the U.S. to include underserved communities in the United States, such as women, Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian businesses.
Partnerships established by the IFC in each of the 22 countries hosting the site are responsible for localizing, customizing and translating content so that it speaks to the local respective markets. These partners, such as Elite in Nepal and Dunn & Bradstreet in Singapore, can also help nurture local businesses and improve their chances of survival.
IBM is dedicating close to $2 million to build the Toolkit platform in order to improve usability and performance, provide enhanced functionality and create a resource hub, learning location, and meeting place for small and medium businesses. As a result of the partnership with IBM, the toolkit includes open source platform and Web 2.0 technology. Some of the new features include live chat, online forums, and survey capabilities. For example, a group of small businesses could gather in an online forum to devise a strategy to bid on a large supply contract rather than compete against one another with separate, smaller bids.
"We see the SME Toolkit as a way to accelerate economic development and job growth in geographies and communities not yet engaged in the market economy as well as to help spur development of women– and minority owned- businesses in the U.S.," said Stanley S. Litow, President of the IBM International Foundation and Vice President, IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs. "We are excited to bring our technical resources to this project that has the potential to reach so many."
The SME toolkit and its regional partnerships can be found at www.smetoolkit.org
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