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ICT
The Worldfolio - ASEAN
PLDT SME NATION SUPPORTS DIGITALIZATION OF MSMEs Mitch Locsin, Vice President PLDT SME Nation, discusses the growing ICT landscape in the Philippines and how his company is helping Filipino MSMEs to get online and embrace e-commerce What are your expectations regarding the new administration goals, such as the 10-point socioeconomic agenda, particularly in the ICT and Telecom Sector?
broadband and mobility solutions to more sophisticated enterprise-level ICT and Cloud services etc. As such, where did the idea of establishing a specialized SME arm in PLDT’s operations originate?
In relation to the SME industry, these initiatives are a big help since they focus on inclusive growth. The administration’s programs are devoted to ensure that the rest of the country benefits, not just Metro Manila or Cebu City for example. I believe that these initiatives of the current government are poised to spur a lot of growth. Among its other benefits are increasing awareness on MSMEs and providing help in fueling this industry. In most of the programs, whether it be in agriculture or SMEs, one can observe that everybody is really working together.
One of the main goals of the government is actually to stimulate development through regional integration. What benefits does it bring to the SME and ICT sectors?
Mitch Locsin, Vice President of PLDT SME Nation
Investment in broadband and telecommunication infrastructure could benefit the Philippines greatly. How do you see the Philippines evolving in this context and how can the Philippines become a major business enabler through increased broadband penetration and digitalization?
ing more than 7,000 islands. Compared to our neighboring countries like Thailand, Vietnam, or Singapore, it is different. From an infrastructure perspective, it is difficult. As a result, telecommunications companies need to lay down fiber that cuts across the country with multiple rings of redundancy. For example, for PLDT alone, we have more than 3 million kilometers of fiber optic cable in our domestic network, with a capacity of 7.42 Tbps. Just recently we were dubbed as the “texting capital of the world”. But this has changed completely. From being a ‘calland-text’ country, we transformed into a data-driven country. Thus, telecommunication companies have had to completely change their network infrastructure from being previously designed for voice and text into a data-driven network. With the technologies changing rapidly, from 2G to 3G to 4G – and we are talking about 5G already – our investment in network expansion is massive and unprecedented.
In relation to the telecommunications and ICT industry in the country, the Philippines is one of those unique countries that has a big challenge given its geography of hav-
PLDT SME Nation has been providing entrepreneurs with technologies suited for their needs – from business-enabling voice,
The government’s current approach is very effective. Measuring the Philippines in a per-area basis, whether it is the market share or adaptability to the Internet, there has been a growth spike, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao regions, in the past year and a half. Businesses from those regions are not only competing with those from Luzon, they are surpassing them. This is a very good example of inclusive growth. It shows that these regions are getting more equipped to spur growth for the SME industries.
PLDT SME Nation began nine years ago. We were just referred to as the Corporate Business Group (CBG) of the company. This CBG has always been the dominant enterprise group carrying our PLDT Fixed, Smart Wireless, ePLDT ICT services and solutions to the enterprises in the country. Thus, there was a conscious effort that if we were to give more attention to the domestic market, we really need to focus on the MSMEs as well. Since then, PLDT SME Nation has been growing by double digits every year. Our growth may be attributed to the large customer base. Micro enterprises alone average 500,000, the small players around 90,000, and the medium players are close to 5,000. As a result, PLDT SME Nation is organized per geography. The corporate relationships management group is the one enabling the SMEs to adapt more to ICT and digital solutions. PLDT Alpha, handles the top 5,000 corporations and conglomerates in the country. SMEs adapting more to the cloud. This is more agile, flexible, and affordable, thus, making it possible to compete with bigger companies. The SMEs are more inclined to acquire machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions. These are the asset-management tracker solutions. These players adapt more quickly to these solutions. The second team is the acquisitions team. We continuously have to acquire new customers because year after year there are new companies popping up. There is a community engagement group. They are the ones who put the word out, promote ecommerce or cloud solutions, and organize around a hundred events a month. These are the mind-shaping and brand-improving events in where we include our big players to become our ambassadors and mentors.