According to the statistics by the Department of Trade Industry (DTI), micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are the main drivers of economy as they consist 99.6 percent of the business industry and the remaining 0.4 percent are large enterprises.
While many of these large enterprises have migrated their system to digital such as cloud storage and computing, a significant number of MSMEs have yet to take advantage of technology and how using it could translate to customers and purchases.
Digital literacy is just one of the aspects of “Make it Big” campaign by PLDT-Smart SME Nation. Its main goal, however, is to empower entrepreneurs to consider expanding their businesses or more philosophically, “dream bigger.”
“Make it Big’ campaign is going to focus on three main areas,” explained Mitch Locsin, vice president and head of PLDT-Smart SME Nation. “These are to answer the entrepreneur’s dream to yield the best; answer the dream to inspire their people as they continue to grow; and the dream to reach a bigger community. It covers self and family, their people and nation-building.”
The campaign started with “Big Talks” where five Filipino entrepreneurs shared their experiences and their journey before becoming successful in their business ventures.
“We’re going to make this our new mission and be more of an evangelization,” Locsin said. “Besides, our new disruptive digital solutions enable every stage of a business. It’s more about fueling the passion of entrepreneurs for them to make it big.”
One of the ways to “make it big” is having an online presence because people are always on their mobile devices whatever time of the day. Many of them have done their banking transactions using an app, or doing their shopping online. E-commerce in the country has caught up at a fast rate and mobile, as well as e-payments, have also been getting enough traction.
Aside from helping MSMEs build and maintain websites and offer cloud and data analytics solutions, PLDT-Smart SME Nation also incorporates its digital marketing solutions with partner companies and brands.
According to Locsin, they want to engage their partners so enterprises of whatever size can approach the new market with a well-crafted marketing strategy that could easily translate to sales and eventually allow them to “make it big.”
“More than just selling solutions, we are in the business of building communities,” Locsin said. “We partnered with every single organization in the Philippines so we could reach communities in far-flung areas.”
“The ‘Big Talks’ series is just the beginning of our multi-pronged efforts to empower entrepreneurs,” he added. RC