Micro enterprises
>> Friday, May 19, 2017
BANTAY
GOBYERNO
Ike Señeres
It is very inspiring that President Rodrigo Roa Duterte
strongly advocated support for micro-enterprises during the recent summit of
the Association of South East Nations (ASEAN) with the Philippines as the host
country. We do not know what the other member countries will do in order to
respond to his call, but it is a good call as any for the Philippines as a
whole.
As a matter of fact,
it is a clarion call or a call to arms so to speak, not only for the government
to already take action, but for the entire private sector to take action as
well, hopefully for them to make it their top priority. As we know it, the top
business leaders of our country would always accompany the President in all
ASEAN summits. This last summit however is very much different, because our
country hosted it, and so we are doubly obligated to make the summit agreements
happen.
Reading between
the lines, we could say that the promotion of micro-enterprises is really part
of President Duterte’s business development agenda, but on closer look, it is
very clear that it is actually part of his anti-poverty agenda. As it was
originally referred to in the business sector, “Small and Medium Enterprises”
(SMEs) was the original popular term but somewhere along the way, “Micro, Small
and Medium Enterprises” (MSME) came up as an alternative term, wherein it was
clearly understood that “Micro” is the category that is smaller than “Small”.
Interpreting these
terms in some other way, it could be said that “Micro” is really the low end
segment of what is “Small”, but that is really just a matter of perspective. As
far as I am concerned however, I would prefer the term SME, and I think that
that is alright, for as long as I will not neglect what is “Micro”.
Under normal
circumstances or shall we say as it is supposed to be, the promotion of, and
the assistance to SMEs is the responsibility of the Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI). Although that is the common wisdom, I would disagree with that
perspective, because the business of SMEs involves a complete supply chain
wherein “selling” and “manufacturing” (being the domains of DTI) are just parts
of it.
Among others, the
complete supply chain would involve training, financing, product positioning,
labelling, packaging, advertising, promotions, distribution and logistics.
These are really just the basic components of the complete supply chain,
because there should also be advanced components such as computerization and
automation, wherein the latter two would also include the use of electronic
commerce and cloud computing.
As I see it,
aside from the DTI, the promotion of, and the assistance to SMEs should also
involve the participation of many other government agencies such as the
Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Department of Information and
Communications Technology (DICT), the Department of Transportation (DOTR), the
Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Department of Foreign
Affairs (DFA), the Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD), the
Cooperatives Development Authority (CDA), the National Anti-Poverty Commission
(NAPC), the Design Center of the Philippines (DCP), the National Commission for
Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), the
Philippine Postal Savings Bank (PPSB) and the Land Bank of the Philippines
(LBP), among others.
Going back to the
basics, the businesses of enterprises big and small are classified into
“products” and “services”. This is the reason why I am advocating that the
government should now form two working groups or task forces that would focus
on these two classifications, given the fact that these two are really very
much different from each other. Whatever the government has to do, it should
have measurable goals, such as the target number of SMEs that could be created
and supported, regardless of what classification they would fall under.
As expected, the
government should take the lead in creating and sustaining the complete supply
chain, but of course the private sector or more specifically “big business”
should also take an active part, more so that Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) programs are now compulsory on their part.
With the support of
some private companies, it is now possible to assist some micro-entrepreneurs
who would like to go into the business of food retail and street level distribution,
with the help of some non-government organizations (NGOs) such as the Community
Chest Foundation Incorporated (CCFI), People Management Association of the
Philippines (PMAP) and Caritas Manila Incorporated (CMI).
The idea is to provide
community based livelihood programs through CCFI, at the same time providing
workplace based livelihood programs through PMAP and parish based livelihood
programs through CMI. The idea is for these NGOs to identify the project
beneficiaries. These are just small steps that will be taken, but hopefully,
this will lead to bigger actions for the future. Hopefully, these programs
could develop business models that could later on be replicated nationwide.
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