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Sachet success 04 March 2008 |
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LAST week, I was
invited to the First Bulacan Business Conference at the Hiyas Convention
Center in Malolos, Bulacan. Excerpts from the message delivered on that occasion follow: I would like to commend your national President, Teofilo Rivera, and the rest of your officers for organizing this conference, and for your choice in the theme: "Paunlarin: Negosyo Natin, enhancing business through public-private partnership." Your theme runs parallel with the government’s vision to grow Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, or MSMEs, by enhancing people’s access to capital, technology, the know-how, product development, and markets that would help them better adapt to the changing times. Of course, we want that our micro retailers and entrepreneurs graduate to small business; from small to medium; and from medium, on to become large-scale businesses. This is no longer impossible. In a world shrunk and flattened by technology and the web, to paraphrase Thomas Friedman, we have now opened and released imprisoned possibilities. Possibilities are now endless. Needless to say, your profits can be limitless, as well. At the local level, we can see clearly now that the purchasing power and the choice of what consumers buy have substantially changed. Tayong mga Pilipino, mahilig magtingi. Pati nga sa text, may tingi na din! Mayroong 25, 30, 60 pesos. Yan ang Pinoy. Mabilis tayong mag-adapt sa mga pamamaraang di lang dito kumikita. You might have already heard of Prahalad’s best-selling book entitled "Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid." In that book, Prahalad advocates a paradigm shift in our mindset towards the poorest of the poor and the low-income groups in general. Business and government generally view them as a sector to be subsidized; not as a huge market to be tapped. Prahalad demonstrates specific cases of creating fortune out of tapping the market potential at the bottom of the pyramid. He argues that businesses just have to learn how to customize their products and services such that these provide the maximum value at a cost that is within reach of the low income market. Tingi-tingi is one such method; Sachetiffy is another. Retailing has indeed helped make ours a robust economy, where small individual businesses are contributing to the overall growth. In my little-over-a-year of being Cabinet Overseer for MSME development, I have come across some literature, testimonies and success stories about business and entrepreneurship, including SME retailing. In all of these, a challenge comes to mind: How can we flourish and maximize growth in a bullish market. Or survive the bear. They say that there is a simple formula for business success: Identify a need, and fill it in the most efficient manner. Today, I bring with me good news and developments that can inspire all of us, especially the retailers and would-be retailers here present. Our MSME program is now inching closer to its target of 3 million new jobs for 2004-2010. More than 2.1 million new jobs, or almost 70 percent of the target, have already been generated through the program, with still two years to go. For the microfinance program, some P86.69 billion was released to 3.59 million microfinance clients from 2004-2007, generating 1.56 million new jobs. For Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), a total of P116.72 billion was released to 57,505 SME accounts supporting some 1.8 million jobs, 30 percent or about 540,000 of which are assumed as new jobs. President Arroyo is aware of all these developments, and she is very much pleased with what we have accomplished so far. However, the hard worker that she is, the President is urging us to accomplish more for the MSME sector. With the empowerment of our SMEs and our people, each contributes more to our national wealth. With greater coordination of our activities in the various communities and in the countryside, the country will rise as one. |
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