SACCI Flags an SME Skills Gap You Can Fill
This article will count 0.25 units (15 minutes) of unverifiable CPD. Remember to log these units under your membership profile.
If you have a client struggling to move sales online while the team cannot even keep up with the systems they already have, this one is for your next meeting. South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) has just published two back-to-back small business guides, and read together they are a brief written for the CBAP advisor. The first says digital is the only sales channel still growing. The second says SMEs do not have the skills to run it. You are the advisor who turns both into a plan.
What it is
SACCI, Absa and the Bureau of Market Research (BMR at UNISA) released two volumes of Small Tips 4 Small Business (ST4SB) in October 2025, both drawn from the H1 2025 Small Business Growth Index (SBGI).
Volume 2: Leveraging Digital Channels to Drive Growth
Online sales are the only channel with robust growth (+15% net increase). SMEs on digital platforms reported greater revenue resilience and access to new markets. SMEs dependent on traditional sales reported declining turnover and squeezed margins. The series' final word is blunt: going digital is the most reliable growth engine for South African SMEs over the next 12 months.
The same data shows SMEs cannot run a digital strategy without the right skills. Only 9.1% of SME owners and managers feel confident in cybersecurity. Just 12.2% rate themselves as competent in digital management. And 27.7% report hard-to-fill vacancies that are already slowing growth. The series' final word here is just as blunt: upskilling today creates the resilient businesses of tomorrow.
The two volumes read like one plan: SMEs need to digitize and upskill at the same time. Doing one without the other is wasted money. Behind both findings sits a financing problem. 83.2% of SMEs anticipate needing additional finance in the next six months. 40.5% are not using any formal finance products at all. The cash to fund the tools and the training is simply not on hand for most of them.
Who it's for
Almost every CBAP client with a customer-facing business. The combined brief is especially urgent for:
Retail clients still trying to drive growth from foot traffic alone.
Hospitality and tourism operators dependent on one sales channel.
Services SMEs (salons, panel beaters, plumbers, electricians) with no digital storefront at all.
Manufacturers and wholesalers chasing provincial markets without geo-targeted reach.
Any owner-managed business under 50 staff where one or two key people carry the whole load.
Financial skills, you already are. Digital and customer skills, you can help them plan and fund.
What you should do
Forward both guides. Then go further:
Fund the transition.
Help clients pull together the financials, cash-flow forecasts and management accounts they need to access finance. With 83.2% of SMEs needing capital in six months and 40.5% sitting outside the formal credit system, this is where you earn the engagement fee.
Make digital spend tax-efficient.
Marketing on Facebook and Instagram is deductible under Section 11(a). Tech equipment qualifies for wear-and-tear under Section 12C or the small business asset write-off. E-commerce setup, payment gateway fees and WhatsApp Business costs are all deductible business expenses. Track them properly so the deductions are not lost.
Activate Section 12H learnership allowances.
Where a registered learnership is in place, the annual allowance plus the completion allowance can take a real bite out of taxable income. Many SME owners simply do not know it exists.
Plan SDL spend to recover.
Help clients structure their Skills Development Levy so the training is mapped to SETA-recoverable categories. Plan the training spend, track it, and claim back what is yours.
Build skills into the BBBEE scorecard.
For any client chasing corporate or government tenders, skills development spend is one of the cleanest ways to lift the scorecard. Wire it into the procurement strategy from the start.
Set a quarterly digital and skills target.
Vol 3 recommends one skill gap closed per quarter. Pair it with one digital adoption goal (a WhatsApp Business profile, a one-page landing site, a Google Analytics install, a Yoco or PayFast integration). Review both at every quarterly meeting.
Sell the planning work.
A 12-month digital and upskilling plan with the tax relief and BBBEE upside built in is fee-justifying advisory work, not free admin.
The bigger picture
Vol 2 and Vol 3 are sides of the same coin. A digital tool without a skilled person to use it is shelfware. A skill without a tool to apply it is wasted training. SMEs that buy WhatsApp Business but never learn the analytics, or run a learnership but never digitize the sales those new skills were supposed to drive, get almost nothing back.
You are the advisor who plans both, funds both, makes both tax-efficient, and tracks the return. Every SME client who survives because they finally got online with a team that can actually run it is a job kept, a tax base widened, and a small piece of GDP defended. This is what business development looks like at ground level.
For your client: Download SACCI's Small Tips 4 Small Business Volume 2 (Digital Channels) and Volume 3 (Upskilling for Competitiveness). Volume 4 on building networks and reducing isolation is next in the series. Direct any SACCI partnership queries to Tshidi Ndebele at the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The next steps
Download SACCI's Small Tips 4 Small Business Volume 3 on building networks and reducing isolation is next in the series. Direct any SACCI partnership queries to Tshidi Ndebele at the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
