PLDT SME Nation preps up the retail sector

PLDT SME Nation, PLDT’s newest brainchild specially designed to skew PLDT’s services towards small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), is prepping up the local retail industry for the global arena.

The retail mid-market sector is on the threshold of redesigning business practices to address the continuously evolving market demand while at the same time, controlling costs to stay competitive.

The local retail SMEs is also swiftly realizing that IT infrastructure being offered by PLDT SME Nation can help them address some of their IT issues and concerns. They are aggressively investing in basic computing infrastructure such as networked Point-of-Sale systems and IP-based data exchange between the head office and the branches.

A number of retail chains have taken advantage of the platforms offered by PLDT SME Nation. Consequently, all have enjoyed faster transactions, more transparent operations and larger points.

Take the case of Plains and Prints. Erickson Farillas and his wife turned the company from an 11-square meter stall in Shoppesville Greenhills into a real player in local fashion retail.

“Before we had to wait several days before getting accurate sales and inventory data from our stores. Now we can get reports from all our 51 stores the following day,” says Farillas.

He adds: “Sales ad inventory data from our stores are transmitted daily to our head office. The data is consolidated and updated reports are produced daily. We are able to plan better to maximize our revenues.”

Hardwork and dedication also guaranteed the success and growth of Folded and Hung, another popular local apparel brand. Owner Ronald Pineda also started out in Greenhills tiangge row and now oversees a chain of 35 company-owned.

He shares that Folded and Hung have Shops.Work and Microsoft RMS Software in place.

“With the Shops.Work service and Microsoft RMS software, we have greatly reduced the man-hours of posting and generating sales and inventory reports. Unlike before that we had to utilize a number of personnel just to do the tasks,” says Pineda.

He states that as of the moment, Folded and Hung is concentrating more on the full roll-out of Shops.Work and that they have considered getting PLDT’s BOSS Central to minimize the cost of toll calls.

“We chose PLDT’s service primarily because of its wide service and area coverage, which fortunately covers where most of our stores are and where other service providers are not present,” he says.

Another Apparel company, Arrow, first used remote access software that allowed it to interconnect different branches using the landline. “However this method is tedious since it entails connecting to each branch one at a time to send and retrieve data. It was also inconsistent as it was completely dependent on one landline,” says an IT representative.

Arrow is now looking to invest in PLDT Shops.Work IPVPN to achieve much-valued real-time sharing of data as faster, more efficient remote access to their different branches.