Cebuano SMEs trapped in ‘traditional mindset’

CEBU, Philippines — If Cebuano small and medium enterprises (SMEs) want to expand their market reach, they must go outside the traditional way of doing business and embrace digital technology.

Dick Chiang, chief operating officer of local financial technology firm Dragonpay, said it's the "traditional mindset" that keeps Filipino entrepreneurs from fully adopting e-commerce as a new way of doing business.

Businesses must look to pivoting into the online space by offering their customers options to pay online, buy their products online and make digital transactions reliable.  He said, in a recent interview in Cebu City, that the government must also work to make it easier to do business particularly in terms of securing permits and registration.

He cited the passage of the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Law and the revised Corporation Code as among the good developments that must further boost entrepreneurship.

The revised Republic Act 11232, signed recently by President Duterte, allows a single person to form a corporation, removes the requirement for minimum capitalization, permits the electronic filing of reportorial requirements, allows attendance in meetings via remote communication or in absentia, and provides protection to minority stockholders.

In the same interview, Samuel Jeanblanc, market lead at Google Philippines, said he believed Philippine e-commerce activity has been progressing quite well as more Filipinos spend time online.

"Filipinos are great internet users,” he noted.

For his part, Ash Mandhyan, client solutions head at Facebook, said social media has helped businesses expand their market reach.

Ron Baetiong, chief executive of Chatbot Philippines, also advised entrepreneurs to use artificial intelligence to make its operations more efficient.

Chatbot, for instance, is a computer program or an AI that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods.