To be digitally equipped is the name of the game right now, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Regional Director Ma. Belenda Ambi tells the micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
In an interview during a recent event for MSME development held in the City of Tagum, Ambi pointed out the crucial importance of digitalization of MSMEs “for them to expand their market.”
She said DTI XI had conducted seminars and trainings to “provide MSMEs with tools and knowledge for them to be digitally transformed.”
“Right now they already have two options: the physical selling or marketing, and the digital marketing. Aside from that their processes should be digitalized para maging (so that it will become) more efficient. They can pay online, and get orders online and others,” she said.
She explained that the digital challenge for MSMEs is not only in online marketing, but in their business processes as well, necessary for them to become competitive in engaging “with other MSMEs in the region, and the rest of the country, even outside of the country.”
In her formal message to MSMEs, she revealed that the challenge for MSMEs to digitally innovate became very pressing at the height of the pandemic borders lockdown due to the implementation of enhanced community quarantine.
Basing on reports of the Economic Cluster of the Regional Task Force on COVID-19, Ambi said “there were about 48,000 plus MSMEs whose operation during the first year of the COVID, were either closed or partially operational.”
Of this total, 47,000 were micro and small; 771 were medium; and 143 were large enterprises, she said.
“During this period, they faced a lot of challenges in liquidity. There was decrease in demand, supply chain and transportation disruption, raw material shortage, and domestic and export orders cancellations, among others,” she said.
The situation called for them to innovate and be resilient, “because otherwise they could not overcome the ill effects of COVID-19,” she said. (PIA XI/Jean Duron-Abangan)
