How to get small businesses organized so they can focus on work, not the business of work

When serial entrepreneur Itzik Levy sold his desktop virtualization company, which targeted large corporations, he started looking for new ways to make an impact. He noticed that many small and medium-size enterprises struggled to organize their businesses, particularly when it came to managing multiple software platforms. 

So Levy launched vcita, a business management platform that streamlines everything from invoices to email marketing. And now the CEO spends his days helping small business owners get organized enough to focus on what really matters to them — be it yoga, car detailing or executive coaching. 

Levy first connected with Mastercard as part of its Start Path startup engagement program to find ways to scale its business. Now vcita is a key technology partner in Mastercard Biz360 — a one-stop-shop business management tool that integrates vcita’s technology with Mastercard’s suite of solutions, empowering small business owners to seamlessly manage customer relationships, marketing campaigns, payments and more, all in one convenient platform. Levy recently sat down with the Mastercard Newsroom to discuss the new platform and how digitization and artificial intelligence are driving innovation for small businesses.

Vcita has been on a remarkable journey since its founding. How has the company evolved over the years? 

Levy: When we launched, we served SMEs with a business management solution, starting from the scheduling space. We then moved toward payment, customer relationship management and an all-in-one business management solution. Today we serve about 150,000 SMEs worldwide with a number of different partners. 

Digitization has dramatically changed how small businesses operate, mostly for the better, but has created new challenges. What are some of the biggest roadblocks small business owners still face, and how is vcita working to address them? 

Levy: People digitize because they want more order. But what happens is they end up with different systems for different functions and cannot reliably track key data. For instance, with one software platform for payments and another for marketing, a business can’t tell how much money its recent email campaign earned. They need the ability to analyze past information to learn what’s best for the business. 

We get them to a place where they are much more organized and more productive and have a better understanding of how the business is running. Then we help them sell to their customers. Vcita doesn’t only provide back-end software for SMEs; it also provides front end to improve the customer experience so they can interact with their customers in a more advanced, modern way, which clients today expect. 

Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere, but do you believe AI will change the typical workday for small businesses? And how is vcita preparing for this new era?

Levy: AI can make a huge difference by helping SMEs with their day-to-day business through the value of automation. They can save precious time, letting them focus on what they do best, while AI handles the administrative tasks. Our hybrid approach lets AI do most of the work, but the small businesses give the final approval, so they stay in control. For example, AI can create an estimate based on a client’s request, but the small business owner approves it before sending it out.

Vcita recently collaborated with Mastercard to enable Biz360. From your perspective, why is Biz360 such a game changer for small businesses? 

Levy: What we’ve done is make sure that managing your time, money, clients, marketing — everything, really — is in one solution. Mastercard provides the solution on top of the core vcita business management platform, adding new capabilities around finances and payments to make it an even more complete solution for owners. 

It streamlines financial management, giving them a holistic view of their finances and helping them better understand their cash flow, and optimize how they work to develop more financial resilience. 

There are so many different areas that we can help, if we let AI suggest best practices be implemented for a specific business. Managing time for a dental office is very different from managing time for a yoga instructor. Same goes for payments. Do you do estimates before quotes? Do you sell products or services or both? We’re helping organize the whole thing — just pick and choose the models they need, the capabilities they need, and put it in one place and relieve some of the burden. 

Looking back on your collaborations with Mastercard, what advice would you give to other startups looking to scale through strategic partnerships? 

Levy: Partnering with bigger businesses is a very different rhythm than being a vendor. They have their demands, their agenda, their own key performance indicators. You need to match them. When you are a vendor, your goal is to sell as much as you can. When you are a partner, your goal is to enable your partner to succeed. You need to get to a point where you measure yourself by the success of your partners.