FNB has opened what it calls a “vault of valuable business information”, most of previously accessible only to account holders, to any business in South Africa.
The FNB Business Hub includes free educational videos, strategic leadership guidance for rebuilding a business and enhancing its resilience going forward, as well as thought leadership articles, videos, general business, industry and sector news and information, and an array of tools, templates and process guidelines to help businesses become more resilient and profitable.
Jesse Weinberg, SME Segment Head at FNB, said while this FNB Business Hub really came into its own as a useful business support platform during COVID-19, the content it offers extends beyond managing the immediate impact of the pandemic.
“COVID-19 revealed that most businesses, and especially SMEs are grossly under-equipped to deal with a significant economic crisis, even one at a far smaller scale than the pandemic, which is why, despite most companies now being able to return to operation, FNB is continuing to build its Business Hub platform, including its COVID-19-focused Business Toolkit, with the aim of helping businesses address the core shortcomings and fundamental issues that made them so susceptible to the current crisis.”
Jason Goldberg, co-founder of Edge Growth and the 10X Entrepreneur, who worked with FNB to develop the content for the FNB Business Toolkit, said: “It’s understandable that businesses that survived the massive challenges of lockdown are today 100% focused on restoring an immediate cash flow of some sort, but it is imperative that business owners also invest at least some time and effort into making their businesses stronger, more resilient and more strategically sound; and that can be achieved by leveraging the many hard lessons delivered by Covid-19 while these are still fresh in their minds.”
Goldberg added that while the toolkit’s main focus areas — like scenario planning, liquidity management, expense cutting and planning — were developed primarily to help business owners to survive the pandemic and then “bounce back” in the post-pandemic world, these fundamental business strategies are relevant and very valuable to business owners under any conditions.
The Business Toolkit covers the four phases of crisis management and consists of educational videos, extensive reading material and a range of templates, tools and process guides designed to enable businesses to equip themselves to react, respond, re-strategise and re-launch when they face a crisis.
