The Covid-19 pandemic has caused an upheaval of the global economy and significantly disrupted markets, supply chains, and business operations. As governments around the world take measures to control the spread of the disease by instituting partial or full lockdowns and curfews, business operations have been brought to a slow down, putting their survival at risk.
Small businesses (MSMEs) are particularly vulnerable, as they lack the financial and technical muscle to weather a catastrophe of this magnitude. For MSMEs to survive, they must rapidly adapt their operations to the new environment, build resilience, and work to ensure business continuity during this period.
Toolboksi is a technology startup that increases job opportunities and access to upskilling to the handymen/fundis operating in the informal sector. Like many other businesses, it has been affected and is struggling to provide jobs to the handymen on the platform during this period as most of the businesses have temporarily closed shops and household customers are reluctant into allowing strangers into their homes due to the fear of the spread of the coronavirus.
Toolboksi is an early-stage business disruption that, instead of solving a Silicon valley problem, is solving Tanzania’s specific problems. The company has taken a large segment of the informal sector, which is one of the biggest employers in Tanzania and formalized it, giving people protection and security in their working environment.
In order to survive the current pressing situation, Toolboksi has adopted a number of strategies to help support their struggling handymen on a platform, and those include;-
1. Provision of education to the artisans/handymen/fundis on the platform on the best practices to protect themselves and protect the customers against the spread of the coronavirus and health practices during the performance of jobs including social distancing, cashless payments through mobile money as well as providing handymen with protective equipment such as face masks and hand sanitizers.
All these make booking services with Toolboksi more safe and reliable, Try it now through https://toolboksi.com/hire-fundi
2. Created a new service offering of installing sanitizer dispensers to homes, offices, schools, and churches to help protect against the spread of the coronavirus to the public and also as a new source of income to our struggling handymen during these difficult times. We have installed more than 420 dispensers so far and planning to launch a commercial cleaning service into the platform.
3. Introduced affordable workstation tables, desks, and chairs to help people work more comfortably at home, as many people had no conducive environment to help them work at home. This helped to get revenues to support our struggling carpenters during this difficult period.
4. Launched an E-Commerce to sell most frequently sold and demanded hardware supplies such as furniture and building equipment online, as now people cannot go to the brick and mortar stores and have resorted to online shopping. To shop for hardware supplies visit https://toolboksi.com/hardware-store now.
5. Offer virtual assistance for fixing minor issues for a small fee, as some of the customers are still reluctant to allow handymen to their homes because of the fear of the Coronavirus. This helps provide income to our struggling handymen during this difficult time.
Want to support the struggling informal handymen? Book service through https://toolboksi.com/hire-fundi or call 0652 000072 now.
