Today in Global Small Business: Unlocking the Growth Equation for SMEs in Africa's Fragile Markets

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in fragile Africa need growth capital to thrive. Investors are constantly seeking promising businesses to invest in.
• Expand globally with confidence.
• Quote of the week:  “The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries." – Albert Schweitzer
• Small businesses wither under Trump’s tariffs: ‘It’s hard to breathe’.
• Five small businesses that helped knock down Trump's tariffs.
• How to boost exports?  Learn from France.

Note:  The Global Small Business Blog has been in operation since 2004 and is ranked number one in the world for entrepreneurs and small businesses interested in going global.  As of February 1, 2026, we have more than 900,000 readers on a monthly basis.

Happy 2025 from the Global Small Business Blog!

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"Be bold, persevere, set achievable goals, and expand globally.  When small businesses thrive, the world thrives.  Happy New Year!" – Laurel J. Delaney, creator of the Global Small Business Blog

Today in Global Small Business: Global Supply Chain Finance for Global Small Businesses

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• To support global supply chains, we need to help global small businesses.
• Tips for expanding your online business globally.
• How to grow your employee benefits as you expand globally.
• Quote of the week:  “Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.” – W. Edwards Deming
• How you can launch an international management career in an affordable way.
• Interested in reinventing your globalization efforts?  Try diversifying.

How to Bring Out the Greatness In Every Employee

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GrowthSpace – which leverages algorithms to match individual employees and groups of employees with experts for development sprints – was founded in 2018 by Dan Terner, Izhak Kedar and Omer Glass.

The company today announced that it raised $25 million in Series B financing led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund) and Vertex Ventures, bringing GrowthSpace’s total raised to $44 million. 

Glass says, "GrowthSpace will use these funds to expand globally to meet rapidly growing demand and to continue to expand its competitive edge through tech innovation."

Global Expansion and International Tax Challenges

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Small and mid-size companies, as well as large corporations, share similar challenges, either when planning or in the process of expanding overseas. With global expansion, businesses face multiple obstacles surrounding tax compliance and local laws, which is a significant time and financial commitment and can distract the focus from growing the company. 

When a company decides to expand globally, it needs to determine how it will create its products or offer its services in each specific market. For instance, will it leverage third parties to perform its functions or develop its own workforce within those countries? 

Learn more to appreciate global expansion and the international tax challenges businesses face.

Airwallex Enters the Billion Dollar Unicorn Club

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Started in Melbourne in 2015 by four Chinese founders, Airwallex  provides a service that lets companies manage cross-border revenue and financing in their business.  The company recently announced that it has closed a $100 million Series C round that values its business above $1 billion.

How does the Airwallex process work?

Its customers can, for example, set up overseas bank accounts if they have paying customers located overseas. When they want to move that revenue back to their HQ, they simply do so through the Airwallex system, which uses inter-bank exchanges to trade forex at a mid-market rate. That’s something that can save its clients as much as 90 percent on their foreign exchange rates, and it massively simplifies the challenge of doing business overseas.

Airwallex's goal is to go after small companies and help all businesses to grow and expand globally.

Learn more about Airwallex and their latest valuation.

Today in Global Small Business: Hand-Painted Silk Gifts and Souvenirs Become a Global Business

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What's affecting me, my clients, my colleagues and other global small business owners:

• Are global trade rules on e-commerce good or bad?
• How to tune up your website for global customers (n/c webinar on 5/10); learn from the expert, John Yunker, about what it takes to accommodate online customers worldwide.
• Hand-painted silk gifts and souvenirs are a global business.
• FedEx wants to help small businesses in India expand globally.
• Logistics might just be the next billion dollar source for e-commerce companies.
• Five international expansion mistakes and how to avoid them.

How to Expand Globally Without Breaking the Bank

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Zack Urlocker, former COO of helpdesk software leader Zendesk, was asked back in 2012 how to expand globally without breaking the bank. Like Salesforce, Zendesk at that time did about a third of its revenue internationally. But unlike Salesforce, Zendesk started out in Europe, and moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley.

Going global has the potential to increase revenue and help businesses find new markets.  It also, according to the article, has the potential to become an immense distraction.

Read the entire article:  7 Rules for Expanding Globally Without Going Broke

Innovation Has Become More Global

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According to Soumitra Dutta for Businessweek, innovation has become more global and the trend will continue in the immediate future. What's the impact on global businesses?

Senior managers considering global expansion should evaluate the local innovation scene to see if the dynamics are there to act as a petri dish for growth on an international scale.

Read the entire article:  Expand Globally, Innovate Locally

Note: Dr. Soumitra Dutta is dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

A Sign It's Time to Go Global

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It's never just one sign telling you to "go global!"  So how do you know when you are in the ready state?  It starts with a rapid growth stage with your business–doubling sales weekly over the past year, for instance–and then you’re ready to model that success into continuous growth through global expansion.

Here's an article I drafted for the MasterCard Business Network Blog.  See if your business is ready to take on the world.

6 Signs Your Small Business is Ready to Expand Globally

Expand Globally and Become a True Multinational

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In light of our current economic crisis and recent corporate scandals with a couple of Indian companies, do you think, in general, Indian companies will adapt and emerge globally?

The global economic crisis has slowed India’s growth, but it has not curbed the potential of its strongest homegrown companies. So says Nirmalya Kumar, coauthor of India’s Global Powerhouses: How They Are Taking On the World (with Pradipta K. Mohapatra and Suj Chandrasekhar; Harvard Business School Press, 2009). Kumar believes that many of India’s largest companies are poised to expand into international markets and become true multinationals.

Read all about it here:

strategy + business
For Indian Companies, It's Globalization as Usual

Posted by: The Global Small Business Blog