From Market Access to Economic Mobility: What We Learned From One Year of Smarter Business Connections, Stronger Communities in Colombia
From Market Access to Economic Mobility: What We Learned From One Year of Smarter Business Connections, Stronger Communities in Colombia
June 19, 2026 | Juan Pedromo
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are central to Colombia’s economy, but many still face structural barriers that limit their ability to access higher-value markets, formal supply chains, and more stable growth opportunities. For example, many Colombian SMEs produce high-quality products, but they sell to neighbors rather than to corporate buyers. That gap exists because larger companies don't know these businesses exist, and when they do find them, they don't yet have enough trust or information to buy. Building Markets works to close that gap.
Last year, with support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Gitlab Foundation. Building Markets launched Smarter Business Connections, Stronger Communities––a new initiative supporting high-potential small businesses in Colombia to expand their market access, grow their revenues, and strengthen economic opportunity for owners, workers, and their communities.
In the first year we have focused on firm digital readiness. We trained participating businesses in digital marketing, e-commerce, and cybersecurity, and supported the majority in applying those skills through hands-on toolkits. We engaged a network of buyers to map their procurement needs, localized our AI-powered matchmaking tool for the Colombian market, and today have businesses actively selling through online marketplaces including Rappi, Mercado Libre, and Exito.com.
What We Have Achieved
During the first year of Smarter Business Connections, Stronger Communities, Building Markets:
Assessed or updated 250 SMEs through verification and business diagnostics
Trained 200+ SMEs in digital tools and market readiness
Engaged 60 corporate buyers on behalf of SMEs
Built and tested an AI matchmaking tool to improve buyer-supplier connections
Facilitated more than USD 1.2M in sales and contracts
Contributed to the creation of an estimated 150 new jobs
Sustained 1,904 existing jobs
Why It Worked
A few things drove results:
We were selective: Building Markets focused on firms with existing sales, productive capacity,and readiness to grow. This increased the likelihood that commercial opportunities could translate into revenue and employment.
We prioritized sectors with real demand: The program prioritized sectors with stronger market demand and employment potential, including processed foods, cosmetics and personal care, textiles, light manufacturing, business services, and other value-added segments. These are sectors where better market access can realistically generate business growth and job effects.
Our model went beyond training: The approach combined verification, business strengthening, digital preparation, visibility, buyer engagement, and commercial follow-up. This integrated pathway matters because employment and revenue effects are more likely to come from access to markets than from training alone.
Buyers were actively engaged: We actively built corporate buyer relationships to create a deal pipeline. This reduced friction between SME readiness and commercial conversion, while expanding pathways for procurement conversations, business expectations, and potential contracts.
Our data and infrastructure improved match quality: Better verification data, diagnostics, and AI-enabled matchmaking helped identify stronger-fit opportunities between buyers and SMEs. The AI-enabled MVP represents an important step toward making market access more efficient, targeted, and scalable.
What We Are Learning
Firm growth should not only be measured only through sales. Growth matters because of what it can make possible for people: more stable jobs, stronger household income, and better conditions for workers.
Through the GitLab Learning for Action Fund, Building Markets has also begun exploring how SME growth connects to worker wellbeing, job quality, and household outcomes by asking questions like: When SMEs grow, who benefits? Under what conditions does revenue growth translate into better jobs? How do business practices influence worker stability, productivity, and household wellbeing? Answering these will help us design interventions that move the needle on economic mobility for the people those businesses employ.
Looking Ahead: What This Means for Inclusive Markets Systems
This work has reinforced a core principle of Building Markets: small businesses can be powerful engines of inclusive growth when they are connected to the right markets, supported with the right tools, and recognized as generators of employment and community resilience.
Smarter Business Connections, Stronger Communities is already helping to demonstrate that a data-driven, buyer-connected, and technology-enabled market access model can produce measurable business value while opening new questions about job quality, wellbeing, and economic mobility. In the future phases of the program, we will deepen our work with these businesses as they pursue formal quality certifications, building the credibility and compliance that larger buyers require. And we will focus on commercial readiness, strengthening financial management, sales capabilities, and export pathways so that businesses are not just visible to new markets but fully equipped to compete and grow within them.
Importantly for Building Markets Colombia and our partners, this work shows that when high-potential SMEs are connected to real demand, strengthened through data and technology, and supported through a people-centered lens, market access can become more than a business outcome. It can become a pathway to economic mobility.