Tammy : What a great day everyone! I hope all of you are doing well today, here’s another episode of our weekly podcast. As you know we are doing a weekly podcast to share with you some insightful things or ideas that might help you with anything, like business plans or the like. You can visit our website at www.uniprohk.com and get to the news and events to get updated. Anyway, Ray and I will be discussing with you today about Small and medium sized enterprises  E-business , So let’s all welcome Ray, the founder of Unipro Consulting Limited. Hi Ray!

Ray : Thanks Tammy, Hi everyone. Great to be here with you again today. And about the topic, I am excited to share with you and to our listeners great things about E-Business. So Let’s get started, should we?

Tammy : Yes, of course! Let me explain first what Small and Medium-sized Enterprises are. Well, Small and Medium-sized enterprises or SMEs for short are businesses that maintain revenues, assets or a number of employees below a certain threshold. Each country has its own definition of what constitutes a SMEs. Maybe a certain size criteria must be met and occasionally the industry in which the company operates is taken into account as well.

 Ray: Great, thanks for sharing that, I would like to add that though small in size, small and mid-size enterprises play an important role in the economy. They outnumber large firms considerably and employ vast numbers of people and are generally entrepreneurial in nature, helping to shape innovation.

Tammy : Actually I agree that SMEs have already outnumbered large firms and employ large numbers of people. That is why in each country, SMEs are very important, especially these days.

Ray : Right, but we also need to understand SMEs, well in the United States, there is no distinct way to identify SMEs. They are characterizing SMEs as a company with fewer than 50 employees and medium-sized enterprises as one with less than 250 employees. 

Tammy : Okay, what about the micro-companies with around 10 employees? Are they also part of the SMEs?

Ray : Yes, micro-companies are part of SMEs as well. And get wrong about SMEs because there are a lot of names and abbreviations that depend on which nations.

Tammy : Yes, like in other places, it’s called SMB or Small to mid-size Business, in Kenya they use MSME which stands for micro, small and medium sized enterprises, while in India, its called MSMED that stands for Micro, Small and medium enterprises development.

Ray : Correct, and despite the differences, countries share the commonality of separating businesses according to size or structure

 Tammy : In some considerations, SMEs are often responsible for providing many jobs in different nations. 

Ray : Yes, you are correct. But did you know that life as a small mid-sized enterprise isn’t always easy though. These businesses generally struggle to attract capital.

Tammy : That’s why I do believe that the government recognizes the importance of small and mid-sized enterprises in the economy and regularly offers favorable tax treatment. to help keep them in business.

Ray : I think incentives or advantages will depend on which nation. Like in your country? How’s SMEs there?

Tammy : Well, there are a lot of SMEs here in the Philippines, and our government is actually promoting SME competitiveness, to compete, connect and change to build resilience to crisis.

Ray : Okay, that might be the same with the other nations, the more skilled and innovated you are, the less you’ll get affected by the pandemic crisis, it can happen of course, but most likely will not.

Tammy : That would be a great help for all SMEs owners!

Ray : Yes it is! Considering the situation right now, not only does the pandemic have a big impact to Business owners, but also the trade wars and other nation’s misunderstandings.

Tammy : True. Why don’t we have all peace in our heart and be content with what we have? 

Ray : Agree, let’s go on SMEs adopting E-business, in which I can tell it’s more on the developing countries, because it is widely recognized that e-commerce technology offers many potential benefits for businesses.

Tammy : Yes, The advantage of which are reduced cost, increased sales, increased productivity, reduce time processing, extend market reach and increased customer loyalty

Ray : Precisely, that is the factor why E-business is so popular for business and this can be seen from the significant growth of e-commerce users each year.

Tammy : I know! I cannot imagine how many internet users these days!

Ray : Well, it’s actually around 1.56 Billion already!

Tammy : Gosh! And this is why we are persuading business owners to transform digitally, it really has a big growth potential on this. 

Ray : And of course, there are also inhibiting factors of E-business adoption by small businesses, such as : Lack of human resource; internal resistance; unready customers and lack of support.

Tammy : Yes, there will always be an advantage and disadvantage, I would also like to add impediments to factors like security issues and a lack of IT resources. 

Ray : You said it right, since SMEs will be going Electronic, of course IT & AI is included. And you have to invest in that. 

Tammy : Which I think will cost a lot of money since it will be the heart of the business. 

Ray : But there are still who are reluctant to adopt e-commerce technology, because we have to understand that not everyone has success stories.

Tammy : Or not having knowledge in e-commerce and lack of information about the potential impact of e-commerce implementation on business performance.

Ray : Yes, because some still think that e commerce does not offer any advantages to their organizations. And that is why they are fearful to invest their resources in this technology.

Tammy : Maybe in some undeveloped countries they will feel the same.

Ray : But As a country that has been recognized as an important player in the economic world, it is particularly interesting to study e-commerce adoption.

Tammy : Yes, and it cannot be denied that e-commerce technology was originally developed to meet the needs of large enterprises in developing countries.

Ray : Because the application of e-commerce is still suitable for SMEs, like e-maill, websites, internet and barcode, these are some of basic e-commerce applications that are most likely relevant for the SME

Tammy : And that is very important, because you’ll be going to use that contact and connect with your customers or even suppliers, but for me, it will still depend on the SME owner if how long they are willing to adopt e-business?

Ray : That’s actually a great question, after listening to this podcast, are you SME owners going to consider adopting e-commerce? Are you going to forward to the next stage or not?

Tammy : wow, that’s a big question for the SMEs owners, I like it! Anyway, so again! Thank you for listening to our podcast!

Ray : Thank you everyone! See you again next week!f8