I’ve got an article from INQUIRER.net “Filipino micro-business owners face a myriad of problems, foremost of these is the inability to take their businesses beyond the day-to-day peso-and-centavo earning grind.”
“A typical micro-businessman in the Philippine setting is the owner of a sari-sari store in an urban poor community. He (or she) is mostly contented to wait for the patronage of his neighbors and accidental passers-by.”
The good news for the microbusinesses in Philippines is that they can get help from Ka-Entrep, an initiative which is partly funded and supported by a group of micro-entrepreneurs from Belgium. “Filipino micro-business owners need to look beyond the day-to-day operations of their operations to become true entrepreneurs, says Palou Abustan, a resource person in the character formation workshops of Ka-Entrep, an organization committed to empowering micro-business entrepreneurs.”
If you kept track of my articles, I’ve already wrote about SME Insight Magazine from Philippine and later about 7 steps to start a business – advices from the Philippines
. If you are wondering about how is doing a business in Phippines, the Doing Business 2008 in Phippines is gathering the most important statistics. You could however have a better glance from the US Department of Commerce resources about Philippines . Here are the main ideas from the report:
- The Philippine business environment is highly personalized. A proper introduction by a trusted intermediary is the best way to enter this market.
- Filipino contacts prefer an atmosphere of calm and restraint, avoid direct confrontation, and would typically offer a polite reply coupled with a smile rather than an outright negative feedback to the other party’s ideas.
- Philippine business has its own etiquette. For example, as a show of respect, Filipinos usually address people by their titles (e.g., Architect Cruz, Attorney Jose, Dr. Romero)
- English is the official business language
Here is the complete report on doing business in the Philippines.
Great that there are a lot of online resources available for pinoys who want to start an online biz. Well, I just started mine
Hi i am planning to put up my own business and what i have in mind right now is start with beer business. how much capital do i need to start up with? i dont have the place yet however for a starter like me, im planning to stock the beer in my place for time being. can you suggest something for my plans?
Appreciated your reply on this.
Cheers!
Hi Leng,
I don’t think that the biggest problems come from where to stock beer. First thing would be to think if you will be able to sell it (a lot of money are put in marketing beer – at least in Europe) and also technology costs. Even if you don’t want to start a huge business beer, I assume you need to have all the needed facilities, some money to invest in the ingredients and so on.
If you ask me, beer is not a small business.
hello! i am planning to put up a business in manila what do you think the best micro business nowadays ? thanks
kris
Well, for a micro-business you could go the software path. Especially in the software business there are thousands of microISV (Independent Software Vendors) that build software products and sell them Worldwide.
I’ve started a remittance company in HK to facilate OFW in sending money back to the Philippines. I’m trying to look for ways in appealing to the OFW population and build my customer base, any suggestions?