A growing digital, social and mobile population, and an impending ASEAN economic integration pose challenges to the 800,000 small and medium enterprises in the Philippines.
While the ASEAN economic integration initiative is expected to level the playing field among industries in the region, it is also expected to result in intense competition among businesses in the region. An intense competition will therefore raise the bar for innovation, quality and productivity, which will enable businesses to compete head on with other players.
In the digital world, the challenge is how SMEs can efficiently tap and engage an online community that has over 34 million Facebook users, over 10 million Twitter followers and with over 44 million Filipino Internet users and counting.
To help the SMEs overcome these two challenges, PLDT SME Nation partners with Samsung and Microsoft Philippines to offer business packages that will enable entrepreneurs to run their business better, grow faster, be more globally competitive and engage with the country’s digital, social and mobile population.
“Transformation is necessary for SMEs to capitalize on the advantages presented by the ASEAN integration and an online population,” said PLDT Executive Vice President and ePLDT President and CEO Eric Alberto.
In the Philippines, SMEs account for 99.6 percent of total business establishments and 60 percent of total employment in the country.
PLDT SME Nation AVP and Marketing Head Amil Azurin says the partnership with Samsung and Microsoft offers fixed and wireless broadband packages that come with “supercharged flexible freebies” ranging from relevant and business enabling cloud solutions such as Microsoft Office 365 and PLDT Cloud apps for video monitoring, asset tracking, POS, infrastructure and more.
SMEs will also be able to get for free and choose the latest array of smart devices from Samsung Philippines and High Definition (HD) TV content from Cignal.
Christian Lim, PLDT SME Nation Category Head for Data Solutions, says PLDT’s broadband offerings provide unlimited access which give entrepreneurs the ability to continuously conduct online activities without the fear of bandwidth throttling. The services also feature committed information rates or CIR, which guarantee minimum bandwidth speeds for businesses and a static IP used to power up their websites and enable faster inter-office data transfers.
For SMEs that are in remote areas, PLDT SME Nation offers satellite connection through its VSAT network.
From CAPEX to OPEX
In an interview with UpgradeMag.com, Alberto said that while the Philippine economy is resilient and expanding faster than most countries in the ASEAN region, the SME sector still needs to adopt best practices and increase their productivity for it to be able to compete regionally.
Access to finance is considered a major hurdle for SMEs in the country. With limited budget, most SMEs don’t have the liberty to invest on state-of-the-art IT infrastructure that could improve their efficiency and productivity.
Alberto told UpgradeMag.com that the solutions provided by the partnership between PLDT SME Nation, Microsoft and Samsung provide an OPEX-based computing solution that is easier, flexible, scalable, and more cost-e ffective than the traditional CAPEX-based infrastructure.
Capital expenditures tend to be major investments in hardware and software, which show up on the balance sheet and are depreciated over the life of the asset, typically 3 years, whereas operating expenditure shows up on the profit and loss account and relates to expenses incurred on an ongoing basis.
