AS automation of production is seen to offer small and medium enterprises (SMEs) a steer toward growth, a fresh graduate founded a company in early 2018 with an end view of making production machines accessible to local producers.
Rina Benitua, 22 years old, saw during her days at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Taguig campus, the need by local SMEs, as well as backyard producers, for technology in optimizing production to achieve growth.
Known as Gushiken Trading Industries Corp. (GTIC), the company outsources production equipment manufacturers overseas to provide local producers of food, beverages, beauty products, household products and other industries with access to production machines.
“Currently, most of our clients are start-up SMEs,” Benitua said. “Some of them are doing well and have been in business for about five years now.”
The company began by outsourcing production machine manufacturers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, according to Benitua.
In November 2017, the company began to engage local companies to meet the demand of products that are not manufactured by the companies it outsources offshore.
“Right now we are tapping local designers and fabricators for highly customized items and products that are currently nowhere in the market,” the young entrepreneur said.
By directly outsourcing manufacturers abroad, the company can offer the machines to SMEs, as well as backyard producers, at low prices, Benitua pointed out.
As a start-up, Benitua anticipated her company would compete for the local markets against established and big companies.
“Our company is getting known for our prices,” she said. “Right now our competitive advantage is our price. We understand that most of the small and start-up companies engaged in manufacturing usually lack for funds and resources to invest on machines to automate production. They need it, but most of them cannot afford it.”
Getting into e-commerce
WHEN she started outsourcing and selling machines, Benitua was still fresh out of college. Her knowledge and experience about her markets that time was inadequate, the young entrepreneur admitted. But by harnessing online social networking and media services like Facebook, she made a good start.
“I had no paid ads, nor other medium to advertise the products,” Benitua said. “Today, I’m still using Facebook to sell.”
The company would venture into e-commerce this year to tap the online market, she noted. As a requirement for going online, the company would have its own web site designed, developed, maintained and secured.
Benitua understands the need to secure her company’s web site as a platform for advertising and selling products. She is also aware of the need to safeguard the company’s data and clients’ personal information in its custody.
“I understand that as a company, we need to protect the privacy and sensitive information of our customers,” Benitua said.
The company would tap information security practitioners once the web site is turned over to them, assured the young entrepreneur.
Social entrepreneurship
BENITUA saw the big potential for growth among SMEs and backyard producers, and her company came in to facilitate them in acquiring access to affordable and advanced technology. She saw the growth of the local enterprises as one big contribution of the business sector to the nation.
“We are not after profit only,” the young entrepreneur said. “I have seen in my engagements with our clients that they are not doing it for profit only, as well; they also have a dream for their company and people.”
By providing access to technology and technical support, the SMEs and backyard producers can steer toward growth and, eventually, realize their dream for their company and people, she added.
Having seen SMEs and backyard manufacturers striving to grow and dream for the good of their employees and the nation had somehow sparked her patriotism as an entrepreneur.
Local manufacturers are rapidly growing, Benitua said. The beauty industry, for one, has achieved an over 5-percent growth in 2017, citing a research she conducted. The same industry has achieved a growth in a higher figure last year.
“The country’s growing beauty industry is one of our main markets,” she said.
Aside from the cosmetics industry, the company’s markets include, among others, producers of food, beverages, condiments, according to Benitua.
Everybody’s online
MORE enterprises are going into e-commerce today to sell products and services, as online trading offers businesses a big potential to also grow as markets continue to get deeply and inevitably connected to the Internet, observed Benitua.
“The world’s top companies have already shifted to e-commerce, one is Amazon,” Benitua said. “You can see the change in the behavior of consumers; they are looking for and buying their needs now online.”
But buying products online has disadvantages, she noted. The advantages for both the consumer and the seller, however, outnumber the disadvantages.
Going to a physical store remains the best way of purchasing a product, she added.
“But e-commerce offers consumers a convenient way for buying their needs,” Benitua said. “In just a click, you can choose and buy a product from a wide range of choices.”
The consumer can check on the quality of the product sold online by using the Internet, she explained. Since the consumer cannot physically check the product, one can Google the product reviews and the integrity of the manufacturer and seller.
“The seller’s reputation matters in e-commerce,” Benitua said.
Challenges and vision
TRANSFORMING the idea into action has been the biggest challenge she encountered so far as a newbie in business, the lady entrepreneur admitted.
“It takes courage to break loose from one’s comfort zone to make something different and bigger than the usual things you do,” she said.
Today, after nearly a year since the company started to do business, the biggest challenge for her is how to motivate herself to work harder and sustain the business, according to Benitua.
“I think you have to think ahead of time if you wish to sustain the business for a long term,” she said. “You need to be a visionary; otherwise you will stagnate where you are if you have no idea what is going to happen.”
One has to draw out a plan for the potential challenges the business would go through in the future, Benitua noted.
“Aside from envisioning solutions to issues that may arise in time, a visionary sees a dream for the company and its people and works hard for it,” she said. “That vision is the main driver of an entrepreneur.”
Machines not simple as cups of coffee
THE company was a brainchild of Benitua during her days in college. She officially founded it in February last year. After investors poured in capitals, the company started to do business.
Quite a number of people had asked her why she chose to venture into outsourcing production machines, which is highly technical and masculine in nature for a female entrepreneur and a newbie in the world of business.
“Machines are not as simple as cups of coffee,” she explained. “Machines are technically complicated. Machines are complicated in such a way that if you are not into the nature of this business, you’ll get bored of it.”
Benitua, a Marketing graduate, has studied and continues to learn the basic understanding, as well as the advanced know-how, surrounding machines.
“Automation improves the manufacturers’ efficiency and production capabilities,” she explained.
By automating the operations, manufacturers cut their costs but does not eliminate all the manpower, Benitua noted. Business always require a human touch.
Advocacies
BENITUA joined the Emergency Response Group at the PUP-Taguig, which elected her as its president when she was a second-year student. The group conducts basic first aid and emergency rescue trainings. She described the members of the group as sort of nurse assistants, who dash across the campus ground to respond when something happens to a student or a faculty member.
The group also looks after PUP-Taguig students and faculty members at events outside the school, she said.
She also joined Hands of God Charity Works, a non-government group that advocates for the welfare of children, when she was still the president of the school emergency response group.
“The group helps children with cancer by tapping concerned people and organizations,” Benitua said. “[It] looks like a religious group, but it’s not.”
She has been a volunteer in different social advocacies for five years now since her college freshman years.
“I want to help people who need help,” she said. “I want to be part of the start-up manufacturers’ success. I want to see them grow.”
An introvert by nature, Benitua beamed at how relatives teased her by calling her simang when she was young for being a loner. But her advocacies and the role she eventually played as a group leader have helped her break through introversion and hone her leadership and communication skills.
World-class quality
BENITUA, who is currently a managing partner of GTIC, had seen the potential of local manufacturers for optimum productivity and growth when she worked as a sales freelancer at her brother’s company, which engages with e-juice (vape juice) manufacturers as market.
The products that local manufacturers produce can parallel and even outdo the products manufactured by offshore companies in terms of quality, she noted. This gave her the idea and inspiration to set up a company that provides local SMEs with access to equipment that automates production.
“Our backyard [enterprises] and SMEs possess a big potential for growth in their respective industries with the application of necessary technology and technical support,” Benitua said.
Image credits: Oliver Samson