Gearing up for success

PLDT SME Nation, PLDT’s newest brainchild specially designed to skew PLDT’s services towards small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), is prepping up the local retail industry for the global arena.

The retail mid-market sector is on the threshold of redesigning business practices to address the continuously evolving market demand while at the same time, controlling costs to stay competitive.

The local retail SMEs is also swiftly realizing that IT infrastructure being offered by PLDT SME Nation can help them address some of their IT issues and concerns. They are aggressively investing in basic computing infrastructure such as networked Point-of-Sale systems and IP-based data exchange between the head office and the branches.

Customized back-end for optimized operations

A number of retail chains have taken advantage of the platforms offered by PLDT SME Nation. Consequently, all have enjoyed faster transactions, more transparent operations and larger profits.

Take the case of Plains and Prints. Erickson Farillas and his wife turned the company from an 11-square meter stall in Shoppesville Greenhills into a real player in local fashion retail.

“Before we had to wait several days before getting accurate sales and inventory data from our stores. Now we can get reports from all our 51 stores the following day,” says Farillas.

He adds: “Sales ad inventory data from our stores are transmitted daily to our head office. The data is consolidated and updated reports are produced daily. We are able to plan better to maximize our revenues.”

Hard work and dedication also guaranteed the success and growth of Folded and Hung, another popular local apparel brand. Owner Ronald Pineda also started out in Greenhills tiangge row and now oversees a chain of 35 company-owned as well as eight franchised outlets.

“It was and is very costly but very profitable and gratifying if you do it right,” Pineda says. “We learned a lot from doing everything the first time since this is my first business with this kind of magnitude.”

He shares that Folded and Hung have Shops.Work and Microsoft RMS Software in place.

“With the Shops.Work service and Microsoft RMS Software, we have greatly reduced the man-hours of posting and generating sales and inventory reports. Unlike before that we had to utilize a number of personnel just to do the tasks,” says Pineda.

He states that as of the moment, Folded and Hung is concentrating more on the full roll-out of Shops.Work and that they have considered getting PLDT’s BOSS Central to minimize the cost of toll calls.

“We chose PLDT’s service primarily because of its wide service and area coverage, which fortunately covers where most of our stores are and where other service providers are not present,” he says.

Another apparel company, Arrow, first used remote access software that allowed it to interconnect different branches using the landline. “However this method is tedious since it entails connecting to each branch one at a time to send and retrieve data. It was also inconsistent (and therefore costly) as it was completely dependent on one landline,” says an IT representative.

Arrow is now looking to invest in PLDT Shops.Work IPVPN to achieve much-valued real-time sharing of data as well as faster, more efficient remote access to their different branches.

Edward Canlas, who owns and manages Onesimus, the country’s largest quality barong and suit maker realizes that his own company is at a crossroads. It is about to tackle wider market, establish and maintain a profitable web presence through PLDT MyDSL Biz and truly realize the full benefits of being a fully armed digital business.

Enabler of information and communication technology

PLDT SME Nation makes connecting remote branches and outlets to their main offices easy and manageable. SMEs can take advantage of PLDT’s converged technology and connect most, if not all, of the satellite stores to the main offices through high speed links or via virtual private networks.

With all stores “webbed” in a robust network, entrepreneurs can easily monitor sales transactions in real time, facilitate on-the-spot price adjustments, check on any of their store’s shopping traffic using IP cameras in real time, and conduct “distance learning” or “e-training” sessions via video conferencing to upgrade the skill sets of retail staff. Simply put, an empowered store with immediate access to business-critical information is definitely a shop that works.

PLDT SME Nation as the leading steward and enabler of information and communication technology invites retailers nationwide to join and become a partner; to embrace technology as it has become a crucial tool in everyone’s business.

For more inquiries, visit http://www.pldtsme-nation.com.ph or call PLDT CBG Helpdesk 177.