Philippines SMEs' current IT usage pose oppurtunities for IT vendors, says IDC

February 23, 2004

Manila, February 23, 2004 – The latest end-user research conducted by IDC in the Philippines points out that there are a lot of opportunities in the Philippine small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market, particularly with regard to hardware deployment. The Philippines SME Survey: IT Buying Behavior study, which probes on the IT products buying behavior of SMEs in the Philippines, reports that SMEs' IT usage is limited to meet only their basic requirements. In 2003, most SMEs were still investing heavily on hardware, particularly PCs.

SMEs make up the economic fiber of the country, making up 99% of the total number of establishments in 2002. According to the National Statistics Office (NSO), there are about 806,613 SMEs in the country, compared to only 2,644 large enterprises.

Results of the survey show that the biggest challenge that SMEs faced had to do with keeping up with technological changes, primarily due to lack of budget allocated for IT. This case is especially true for SMEs from the public sector. On the other hand, the manufacturing and resources segment generally have difficulty finding competitively priced and competent service providers to help them.

However, in spite of the IT challenges faced by SMEs, it is still found that IT is absolutely mission critical for these companies. IDC believes that if more SMEs adopt essential software and computerize their workplaces, there will be a vast improvement in the efficiency and productivity of the company.

Moreover, it was found that IT adoption in the country's SME market is diverse depending on verticals. And that, vendors, therefore, need to plan by vertical when offering products to SMEs as the demand for IT differs from one vertical to another.

"Vendors need to strategize with regard to selling to SMEs by understanding how these are ran and according to which vertical these belong to. As IT demand is diverse in the Philippine SME market, one package for all companies will simply not work well in this market," said Maggie Tan, Research Manager, IDC Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Contact

Chong Chee Kian
Events & Marketing Executive
Tel: +603-2169-7521
Fax : +603-2163-5098
Email:ckchong@idc.com