DAGUPAN CITY -- The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has incorporated in its training and seminars for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) online marketing and e-commerce as part of the preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), or the digitalization.
“We are preparing the MSMEs for the 4IR with the help or initiative of the government from national down to the local level,” DTI-Pangasinan Director Natalia Dalaten said in an interview Monday.
She said DTI is focused on information dissemination and preparation of concepts or conceptualization on how 4IR will affect the MSMEs.
“We encourage them to adapt to the changes. There is the need to upgrade skills and upgrade knowledge as part of adoption to it,” she added.
Dalaten said most of the MSMEs now have their cellphones as means of transactions and communications with their clients, and they are also urged to use their social media accounts in marketing their products.
“For micro businesses, they are still very small so having their website is not yet advisable but instead, their social media accounts could be their marketing tool,” she said.
Dalaten further said telecommunication and internet services in the country, especially in rural areas where there are also MSMEs, remain a challenge to digitalization.
“Along with the promotion of 4IR should be provisions and logistics for MSMEs like the internet connectivity, stability of electric power because if the power is unstable, it will also affect their production. They need the support of the government, businesses and the people as well. The government is doing its best to adapt,” she said.
In the recent 2019 Export Congress, Francis del Val, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cobena Business Analytics and Strategy Inc., said the MSMEs in the country needs a lot of help in terms of digitalization.
MSMEs, he said, comprise the 65 percent of employment in the country.
Del Val gave a talk on how to get through digital transformation. (PNA)
