Cebuanas on the Web summit to empower women in business

CEBU, Philippines - Providing Cebuanas with formal networks for their firms and giving them access to business-related technologies will be the focus of a meet that hopes to gather a host of 150 women at the Oakridge Pavilion in Banilad, Mandaue City on August 22.

Cebuanas on the Web (COTW) will be the first women and tech summit in Cebu spearheaded by independent community called Cebu Google Business Group (GBG) to further advance the cause of women empowerment particularly in the field of business.

Filipino women are said to be under-represented in various established corporations, owing to timeconstraints, family responsibilities and insufficient social services for them.

Backing these claims, organizers cited a report released back in February that had Philippines rank 74th in terms of women’s economic opportunity index.

The report said the problems women face in the Philippine business setting include under-representation in reputable businesses, lack of formal networks and less accessible access of women to business-related technologies.

Titled “Access to Trade and Growth of Women’s Small and Medium Enterprises in APEC Developing Economies,” the research involved countries in the Southeast Asian region like Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines, among others.

Fleire Castro of GBG Cebu said with the staging of COTW, they hope Cebuanas can finally be given the right network that can help them further their businesses and make them aware of the importance of business technologies for SME innovation and firm performance.

COTW will feature talks from women who trail-blazed in their respective companies, using the Internet as one of their advertising platforms. It is open to neophyte businesses and even those that have started but wish to know and learn more about how technology can upgrade their presence.

Rica Serenio of Offshore Consultancy, however, pointed out that online advertising or marketing is not necessarily confined to Facebook or Twitter. She said there are a lot of other online channels and tools that women can take advantage of that can potentially benefit their businesses.

Serenio said, for instance, that they can make use of Blogger, Google Analytics, the popular video-sharing website YouTube, as well as the multilingual social networking and identity service owned by Google, the Google+.

Unlike conventional platforms like TV, radio and print, the Internet is deemed the least costly means of publicity. In fact, Serenio said most of the online tools are actually free of charge.

Although organizers said using these tools will be an added boost, they also warned that this will not be a one-way ticket to success, adding that other traditional means of marketing the business should not be left out.

Still, women have to finally brace for these changes in order to cope with the competition, said MJ Yuvallos of Istorya.net. She said women have to be introduced to the new techniques of selling their businesses, and that is using the Internet as a new medium.

Yuvallos also said Cebuanas must outgrow the notion that technology is only for the men. She said technopreneurs who are not yet keen on “going social” should outgrow their negative perceptions and instead have an open mind.

“If you raise a social media campaign, it will give you statistics that will be helpful in making economic decisions. With Istorya.net, for example, we are able to segment profiles of our website visitors and users so that advertising is better and more properly coursed through its intended audience,” Yuvallos said.

For Hannah Amora of HoneyComb Finance Consultancy, it’s essential to tell women that it (the process) is not actually difficult.

 â€œWe hope women can finally see the impact of embracing and incorporating technology into their business schemes,” said Amora who is a self-confessed fan of social marketing after having experienced its advantage first-hand.

From personal experience, Amora and her family in three months time were able to generate a fund needed for the medication of her son who had a heart ailment, using social networking sites as the only medium.

“You have to attract your intended audience. You have to tell them why they should care. The same with your business, you have to make people make that product switch. Sometimes, all it takes is a good online campaign,” Amora said.

Acting as mere volunteers, organizers said no registration fee will be collected from COTW participants. Interested parties are called to book their participation via GBG Cebu's website where limited slots are up for grabs. — (FREEMAN)