Have Internet presence or miss out on widening customer base

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must establish Internet presence and maximize it to be able to compete and expand their customer base, a top executive of Google and the chief digital officer of a giant television network said.

Kenneth Lingan, Philippines country manager of Google, said small businesses should look at the Internet as a great business enabler.

He said companies that don’t have strong presence in the Internet, where more consumers are spending their time, are missing out on expanding their consumer base.

Donald Patrick Lim, chief digital officer of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp., said businesses that refuse to maximize on their Internet footprint will be taken over by those who take advantage of the online consumer base.

“Technology is an enabler. You will be susceptible to disruption if you aren’t using technology in your business,” Lim said.

Out of some one-million SMEs in the Philippines, only 10,000 are online and come up on searches through Google, Lingan said.

Google has projected that eight out of 10 Filipinos will be online by 2018. Moreover, majority of Filipinos will be using their smartphones to access the Internet and influence the start of a “mobile-first world.”

“The massive shift in consumer behavior will have an impact on the way your business would market or dish out to customers,” he told participants of the Mandaue Business Summit last week.

“Before it used to be only big businesses that could compete, but the Internet can be a game-changer in the way that small businesses can compete with big businesses,” he added.

Businesses should also look into maximizing relevant “micro-moments,” or moments where consumers turn to the web to ask for advice, research, or get a service, Lingan said.

Four micro-moments are particularly important for brands and businesses, namely, those where consumers search for information, look for locations like restaurants and hotels, research how to do things, and look for things they want to buy.

“It is also important to invest in search engine marketing, which allows companies to own certain keywords, so that when consumers search for that specific keyword, the business page pops up,” Lingan added.

Lim, for his part, said businesses need not necessarily digitize their sales, but other areas of the business, such as advertising, marketing and logistics, should have digital presence.

“In so many cases, the hardest part of digitizing a business is because it is so successful in the traditional business that it’s so hard to change the mind-set,” he said.

“But if your business does not touch the Internet today, you won’t have that sustainability,” he added.