AFTER Cebu fell a spot in the Tholon’s Top 100 Super Cities, top officials from the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) 7 vowed to strengthen their programs on digital transformation and innovation.
DTI 7 Assistant Director Elena Arbon said gaps within the business ecosystem should be addressed, particularly in the adoption of technology in daily business processes.
“There are huge gaps in the ecosystem and we’re working with stakeholders like the academe, industry and the community. If you read the Tholons’ report, it’s not really just about the startups, the information technology-business process management (IT-BPM), but it’s really the entire ecosystem,” said Arbon at the sidelines of the Cebu Business Month (CBM) launching on Friday, April 26, at the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu.
Huge gaps
From its 11th ranking in 2018, Cebu City fell to the 12th spot in the Tholons Services Globalization Index (TSGI) 2019.
Cebu IT-BPM Organization managing director Wilfredo Sa-a Jr. said Cebu fell short in the digital innovation and adoption indicator.
Arbon agreed with Sa-a’s assessment and said Cebu badly needed a strong push towards digital innovation should it want to elevate in the global ranking.
The 2019 index included new indicators, such as the number of mobile phone/internet users, regulatory/compliance, digital investment and usage of artificial intelligence/cloud.
“We really still have a long way to go. There are huge gaps in our innovation ecosystem. This is recognized by the government, community, businesses and the academe. There are players in the ecosystem trying to do their share in plugging these gaps. However, we do need to work more closely together,” she said.
Currently, Arbon said the DTI 7 has partnered with various players in the ecosystem to improve the local uptake on digital transformation and innovation.
For instance, Arbon said DTI 7 is partnering with the digital community to come up with programs that they can push to the brick and mortar micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to enable better understanding and acceptance of digital applications and processes in business operations.
“There is still a lot of resistance from our brick and mortars to embrace digital. There have been tentative forays, but we need to deepen that,” she said.
Arbon noted that the upcoming summits in entrepreneurship and the innovation expos during the CBM scheduled in June aims to tackle issues in this field.
Disruption
“Let’s experience and get into action as we provide every participant opportunities to adopt innovative ways of doing business,” said CCCI president Virgilio Espeleta, in a statement.
Arbon underscored that going digital is not limited to IT-BPM companies but the entire community has to embrace this “new way of doing things.”
“The more people will embrace digital, the more demand there is for digital services that will help our startups grow,” she said.
Arbon said businesses should not wait for competitors to disrupt them and should instead disrupt themselves ahead by adopting technology in their system.
“When you’re disrupted, you’re disrupted forever. Even if you complain to the government about regulations, the fact is, there’s a new business model in town. And that business model is efficient which the market wants,” she said.
Creating connection
Espeleta encouraged the members of the chamber to embrace digitalization.
“In order for us to thrive, you have to really adapt to the new ways of doing business. That’s why our push in the chamber is for the member companies to really digitize by launching an application where they can sell to each other, supply each other in a market place,” Espeleta said in an interview.
He said companies should really be linked to one another digitally to create connection.
“It’s a two-pronged approach. Digitalization at the firm-level and we’re asking providers to be accredited with the chamber so they will be the ones to mobilize. We will authorize when it comes to framework and architecture of digitalizing,” he said.
Espeleta believes that each business firm has to be agile and innovative in addressing or adopting to disruptions.
He said the only way to do this is to leverage on technology and other game-changing innovations, especially in building internal capabilities, keeping pace with changing market behaviors, using faster and cost-effective marketing and financial instruments.
Bridging the gap between traditional business owners and the millennials is also another issue, which they hope to address during the upcoming summit. (JOB WITH KOC)