Telecommunications company Cell C Business has unveiled a new strategy to support the connectivity needs of South Africa’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), following a new study highlighting how connectivity underpins core business operations.

Extensive research, conducted with research house Kantar, into South Africa’s SME landscape, revealed that SMEs, the backbone of the country’s economy, are facing rising pressure as connectivity directly impacts their ability to operate, serve customers and grow.

SMEs describe downtime as a business failure, rather than a technical issue, with connectivity underpinning sales, bookings, payments, delivery management and staff coordination.

Infrastructure gaps, unreliable Internet access and rising operating costs are weakening SME competitiveness, with many business owners concerned about long-term survival if connectivity challenges persist.

“SMEs cannot afford downtime – not even for a moment. They told us they want reliability, simplicity and affordability,” says Cell C sales, regions and customer care chief officer Chris Lazarus.

“They want solutions that work every time, are simple to manage and come with real human support. We have redesigned our entire SME offering around these priorities to mirror their realities and remove the barriers that slow growth.”

The study highlights that SMEs deeply value human support and trusted advisers at every tier, with each solution required to deliver connectivity and simplicity, be cloudready and provide support when it matters most.

While the research focuses on SMEs, the pressures are equally felt across growing midmarket corporates, sectoral operators and small enterprise clusters whose operations depend on reliable connectivity, Lazarus comments.

“In response, Cell C Business has repositioned its SME offering around a single, powerful conviction: Nothing should stop a South African business because of connectivity.”

Cell C has enhanced the value to SMEs with bespoke cloud solutions that enhance productivity and operational resilience and reflects three SME-driven priorities that combine reliable connectivity, radical simplicity, predictable spend and human support.

“SMEs do not all look the same, neither do their challenges. Recognising the differences in not only size but digital maturity and operational, Cell C has structured its offering to meet businesses exactly where they are.”

Cell C Business is applying the same reliability, simplicity and humansupport principles to small office/home offices (Sohos), large multisite businesses and sector specific operations that require consistent uptime.

Cell C’s structured offerings include affordable, integrated mobile voice and data propositions and fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) for Sohos, which typically operate with one to nine people.

For small businesses, with 10 to 50 people, the company is offering business-grade mobile voice and data connectivity and cloud-based time and attendance solutions, as well as FTTB.

Business-grade mobile voice and data connectivity, digital pen and form-flow solutions, FTTB, Cloud PBX and time and attendance solutions are on offer for medium businesses, with 51 to 500 people.