Excellence awards set for top SME users of IT

The Philippine Internet Commerce Society (PICS) is set to confer awards on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that have adopted the best practices in e-commerce and information technology to expand markets, improve customer relationships, and make their business operations cost-efficient and profitable.

The prestigious PICS-SME IT Excellence Awards will be held at the Philippine Trade Training Center at 6 p.m. of Dec. 2.

"The Awards is supportive of the National SME Development Agenda and consistent with the Asia Pacific Economic Conference’s strategy for digitizing SMEs as a way of uplifting the economies of member-countries," said PICS president May Anne Tolentino.

SMEs are companies with assets ranging from P3 million to P15 million (for small enterprises) and P15 million to P100 million (for medium).

In terms of personnel, small enterprises are those with 10 to 99 employees, and medium enterprises, 100 to 1,000.

Nominations are still being accepted and must be e-mailed to Ernie Imperial through [email protected]. Imperial is the head of the PICS-SME IT Excellence Awards Committee.

"The nominees will be gauged in terms of profitability, financial savings, efficiency in internal processes, customer relationships, and other relevant metrics," Tolentino said.

The PICS-SME Excellence Awards forms part of the 2nd National E-Commerce Congress and Exhibit, which runs at the PTTC on Dec. 2-4.

The three-day event highlights the national economic significance of SMEs, which comprise a large percentage of the country’s business community.

"So we have chosen to focus the congress and exhibit on the theme, ‘Strengthening SME Competitiveness through IT and e-Commerce,’ which is aimed at bringing together the SMEs nationwide, help them understand the benefits of working in a digital environment, and supply them with the much-needed information to get them started properly in e-business," Tolen-tino said.

More details on the event can be obtained from Fiera de Manila (899-6893, 896-0639, 896-0637; e-mail [email protected]; and websites www.fmi.com.ph and www.pics.org.ph).

The congress is sponsored by Globe Telecom Inc., Innove, Globe Quest, PLDT, BancNet, Equitable PCIBank, Computer Associates, Microsoft, Pacific Internet, Manila Times, Business World, Business World Online Inc., Computer Times, Computer World, IT Update, iTpros.ph, Softrigger Interactive and Web Philippines Inc.