By Elmar Gomez
July 1, 2009

Internet and mobile phone are two technologies that have had great impact on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) during the last 10 years. This column will illustrate how MSMEs can use these two technologies to remain competitive. You will notice that I use the words “remain competitive” and not “gain business advantage.” To survive, MSME have to use these technologies in their business operations. MSME have to do better that just use e-mail, surf the Internet, and do texting on the mobile phone. They have to know how to use Search (e.g. Google Search), Friendster, Multiply, You Tube, Flickr, blogs, eBay, Facebook, Twitter. I hope this column will be able to help MSMEs.

Our company is an MSME. We hope that it will be grow big someday. We use the Internet and mobile phones for our business operations. We also use the Internet and mobile phones as platforms for the service which our company provides. Previously, I worked in local and multinational information and communications technology (ICT) companies. I consulted with businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGO) and politicians on how to use ICT in their work.

Let me present some sample illustrations that demonstrate how to use ICT in MSMEs. To understand the context, I should let you know that I was born and raised in Aklan, and regularly return for visits.

GOOGLE SEARCH
Consider an entrepreneur we’ll call Naomi. Naomi has a spa business in a provincial capital. At certain times of the month, business is brisk especially on pay days. However, there are days when business is slow. She is willing to offer promo prices during lean days. She spends on posters, radio plugs on the local radio station, and flyers. But these cost money every time she uses them.

Since Naomi has broadband Internet access, I told her to do a Google Search on “0917 Aklan.” The results were mobile phone numbers that start with 0917, sometimes with corresponding names, that are most probably from the province of Aklan. She did it again for another mobile phone number prefix and ultimately did searches for all mobile phone operators’ prefixes. In this way, she acquired a harvest of mobile phone numbers that she can send SMS messages to promote her spa. Using a Globe number to send to Globe, Smart for Smart and Sun for Sun, she was able to send SMS at no cost by using the unlimited text service of the mobile phone operators.

The above example is not meant to suggest that MSMEs discontinue their existing ways of promoting their businesses. It shows that there is another cost-effective way to reach a certain market niche.

FRIENDSTER
There is another way for MSMEs to communicate their message to their target market. This is to use Friendster. This column assumes you know how to use Friendster. What I am going to illustrate is an example of using Friendster to send messages to your identified market niche.

Last April 27, I did a location search on Friendster for users who are from the different towns of Aklan. I added the number of registered voters as of April 30, 2007.
Tables 1 and 2 show the result. Table 3 has the election 2007 results in the province.

If I plan to run as a board member of the Eastern District of Aklan, this information provides the following insights:
1. Friendster users from the Eastern District make up about 70% of the total votes of an elected board member with the lowest number of votes.
2. Kalibo has the highest Friendster penetration, which is expected for a capital town.

I can bet my depreciated peso that for the same amount of money my opponents invest to communicate once with voters offline, I can communicate my campaign message better, with more relevance, and many more times and probably to more voters using Friendster. This means that I do not have to spend as much money as my opponents to communicate more effectively. That extra money I save I can allocate to more strategic needs like ensuring the integrity of the voting process.

This same search result on Friendster can be used by MSMEs to shout out their marketing message to their local target niches.

These two examples are some of the uses of the Internet and mobile phone in the business of MSMEs. In my next column, I will show examples on how to use other tools and networks like Multiply, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Elmar M. Gomez is the chief operating officer of Mobile Arts Inc. (www.mobile-arts.com). Mobile Arts is a value-added service provider of mobile phone operators. He can be contacted at emgomez@mobile-arts.com.

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