The country’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) need to beef up their digital capabilities to be able thrive in the digital economy. And the private sector is promptly responding to the call.
“MSMEs really are the key at ensuring the steady recovery of our economy in the next few years. Clearly, we must all work together in creating an environment where they can succeed,” Jaypee Soliman, VP and CXG-SME and Micropreneurs Segment head of UnionBank said in a recent webinar organized by the UnionBank GlobalLinker Online Academy—a joint initiative of UBGL and the Retail Academy of the Philippines (RAP).
“The UBGL Online Academy is all about championing education and growth for the Filipino MSMEs, and this webinar is just the beginning of an exciting journey with us,” added Soliman.
In his presentation, RAP President and Founder Eric Caeg talked on “The Market Opportunity Navigator: Steps for Discovering Your Most Valuable Market Opportunities,” stressing on how entrepreneurs can identify and assess these untapped markets to grow their businesses.
Citing a framework developed by educator-authors Sharon Tal and Marc Gruber, Caeg discussed how this can be applied to local businesses and cited a few case studies on how the scheme can be maximized.
The framework consists of three main steps, each represented by its own template. The first is the Market Opportunity Set, which as the name suggests, entrepreneurs can use to identify potential market opportunities. This is followed by the Attractiveness Map, which is used to evaluate the appeal of each market opportunity in the first step. The template features a compass characterized by four extremes: Gold Mine, Moon Shot, Quick Win, and Questionable.
The last is the Agile Focus Dartboard used to identify the Agile Focus Strategy. The template consists of three layers to define the opportunities that can be pursued right away, as well as those that can be saved as backup or utilized for future growth.
Caeg explains, “Know how important it is to apply the Market Opportunity Navigator whenever you need to rethink your strategy—to make sure that you are running and going towards the right direction and at the same time, remain agile while doing all of these steps.”
The webinar was the first free offering from UBGL Online Academy, a two-pronged program for the continuous education of MSMEs. Other channels also at no cost to attendees are podcasts and deep-dive MSME modules.
Connecting MSMEs to the market
Meanwhile, pure-play high-speed fixed broadband operator, Converge Information and Communications Technology Solutions Inc. said in a recent briefing that spreading the gospel of digitalization is being accepted by a big number of MSMEs.
Jesus Romero, chief operating officer of Converge, said the enterprise segment revenues grew by 25.1 percent year-on-year, from P749.7 million to P938.2 million during the same period, mostly from the strong growth in the small and medium enterprise segment, marking further revenue acceleration of enterprise business.
“Despite the pandemic, MSMEs ramped up their digitalization efforts not only in their Internet connections but also in their payroll and timekeeping operations.
Through a partnership with a software-as-a-service company, it recently introduced SweldoMo to provide MSMEs with reliable and efficient digital solutions. Romero said Converge plans to launch more solutions to provide convenient technology tools to MSMEs and large enterprises.
“Converge continues to become more than just an Internet service provider by giving opportunities for growth to businesses with our digital solutions,” Romero said.
SweldoMo, under Converge Workplace solutions, functions as an automated payroll and human resources (HR) management system that takes care of HR, timekeeping and payroll processes.
“We will make sure MSMEs will get the fiber connection for better connectivity,” he assured.