20 April 2020
Published also in Business Mirror
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are being prodded to tap digital tools to remain competitive even in the midst of a crisis, as new kinds of businesses are expected to arise following the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.
Ginger Arboleda, chief operating officer of Taxumo and founder of Manila Workshops, identified some digital marketing tools which can be used to run a business, such as Google for more complex products, or services, to create a content in the Web, Facebook for brand awareness, and even bloggers and influencers.
“I foresee there are a lot of businesses that are new, different [developments] that will happen, or that will arise from all of these things [Covid-19]. A lot of businesses will be open to digital workers so freelancing, which was not much talked about before, will become sort of an option already for small business owners or even big corporations…,” she said in a webinar.
Arboleda said there are 1.5 million freelancers in the Philippines who have the skills and digital know-how who can help entrepreneurs adopt to the technology.
“A lot of them now are helping people—these are the tools that you can use, they teach like how to maximize your time at home, how to be more results-driven, how to go through the day and still have time for yourself after working,” she added.
Vice President of SME Platforms of Unionbank of the Philippines Jaypee Soliman pushed the use of cloud-based systems in operating a business, noting such systems are not easily hacked.
“And actually getting more softwares into the cloud makes it cheaper, more accessible to everyone so consider cloud-based [technology],” Soliman said.
MJ Panganiban, chairman of E-Commerce Committee at Fintech Philippine Association, said that with the Covid-19 experience, it is a leverage in pushing the use of digital technology among the MSMEs. “The entrepreneurs should not be married to their current business model. They should fall in love with it because everything is driven by passion but they should not get married to it because they should be ready to always adjust and tweak at some point of their business what can be digitalized. If a lot of them are afraid that digital [adoption] is difficult, [they can] study. It’s not always dependent on their own capacity,” he said.
Panganiban also cited the freelancer model, wherein entrepreneurs need only to pay for a particular task. “There is [also] plenty of resources, especially this time, it’s a perfect time to learn, we have so much time to kill and let’s try to use it wisely. There are a lot of resources, there are a lot of online webinars like this one, online content, and e-books that a lot of us can read. There is a lot of YouTube content that we can actually watch on how we are going to start digital,” he said.
The implementation of Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has been extended until April 30, 2020, from the original April 12, to curb the spread of Covid-19. Soliman also sees more people going into digital but only the “persistent will survive.”
“What I mean about being persistent? Who will seek out to learn, will seek out to get guided, who will look for mentors, those who are serious are those who will survive,” he said, citing online learning and mentoring sessions, among others. RJ Ledesma, founder of Mercato Centrale and co-founder of EnterPH, foresees many “great businesses” that will emerge from the crisis.
“Right after the crisis, I see a lot of businesses coming out that have to integrate social distancing into doing their business,” he said.
“I also see an increase in people doing health and immunity-based supplement products, food-based products, also emerging at the same time. Immediately, we see a lot of people are going online for delivery of their products, we will see a lot of development of paid webinars, seminars going online,” he added.