If familiar with “ Shoe Dog,” the book about Nike, you would quickly realize how they are similar to many small businesses. It is because many big companies started small, having many challenging moments. Supporting with invoice financing, Infidia helps small companies to overcome these moments.
Recently, Infidia was participating in the finals of the Elevator Lab Challenge by the Raiffeisen Bank. Seemingly, financial institutions have benefits from helping small businesses in an innovative way. And according to the Fintech trends of 2021, at FinTech connect, banks seek end-to-end digital, automated solutions.
Reasonably, lenders need financial criteria to determine which company can become the next Nike. Or survive in the long run by being able to service their obligations. For this reason, open banking has a great promise in utilizing the data for helping those that find it hard to obtain loans. For invoice financing, as well, where Infidia provides an additional set of data on top of financial criteria.
It is not the “Dog eat Dog” world
Even though we see many short-term gains, the Dog eat Dog strategy doesn’t work in the long run. In some cases, a zero-sum game works for big companies competing for dominance on the established markets. However, even big companies, when embarking on new markets, tend to boost the new market’s growth. The reason is apparent — “ the tide lifts all boats.”
Therefore, small companies need to understand that they are part of the large ecosystem. And when the ecosystem grows, the small business’s value increases, making financing more available. Counterintuitive or not, these are some of the right moves a small business can make:
Innovating in the Niche
When small, you should think big as it is a motivation to grow. However, having a small fraction of the enormous market is hard to obtain. For this reason, each company should define its TAM, SAM, and SOM.
Keeping in mind that the colossal market causes sweet dreams of grandeur, it is much better to innovate, tackling a need for a small number of users. And expand, later on, reaching the grandeur step-by-step.
Integrating and Partnering
Another common misconception is that we can do it all by ourselves. Even if we can, there is no need for that. The world of small business demands laser focus. Seemingly, too many distractions and unimportant tasks lead to failure. Because of this, servicing clients and partners make you naturally sort your priorities.
Moreover, to keep motivation as high as in the beginning, integrations and partnerships push the engine forward. Combined with the pleasant experience for solving the users’ problem helps overcome challenges.
Lucky Innovation
In overcoming these challenges, it is entirely appropriate to address stories like “Shoe Dog” as “Lucky Dogs” as one famous scientist did. It is no coincidence that the name of one of the biggest car manufacturers is Geely, meaning “lucky” in Chinese.
However, chance doesn’t come by itself, and positioning is the proper way to improve chances. And one of the best types of positioning is striving for innovation. Even when the market is just starting, prepared ones will reap the benefits of early adopters.
In a highly discussed “open banking” initiative, there is a problem that 90% of data is not structured. At the same time, this unstructured data is growing 55–65% each year. Also, there is a problem with the interoperability of this data. All of this forces all banks to hire vast numbers of data scientists. Seemingly, this practice is not sustainable.
Since the modern-day world struggles to satisfy customers’ needs, banks need to provide a superb user experience. Moreover, as the modern user seeks customization, banks would need to adapt integrations. In this case, they will keep the competitive advantage as the banking license holders. In the world of Banking as a Service, there is always room for the banks.
However, new banks are emerging. And some of these are lucky ones, growing from scratch like Sterling Bank. Focused on the superb mobile experience, some of these banks are taking market share from the established players.
Infidia Helps Small Companies
For all the abovementioned examples, luck came from multiple tries and solving the challenges. Over and over again, as persistence in business is sometimes the key when waiting for the stroke of luck.
As one of Infidia’s supporters mentioned: “it is same for ages, doing the work by the road, waiting for the golden chariot to jump in.” At the same time, not all roads are the same, nor gold is everything that shines. For this reason, Infidia is looking forward to the future, choosing specific businesses as companions in this “ride.”
For this reason, as described in our blog, Infidia helps small companies that follow ethical and sustainable practices. In the world of open banking, having proof of these practices would be attractive for any lender, for sure.
Originally published at https://www.infid.app on December 10, 2020.
