e-SME: A business and information portal for small and medium enterprises of the furniture and furnishings industry

• Main Author: Alcera, Greg Paolo N.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2007
• Subjects: Business > Computer network resources; Furniture industry and trade; Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/18024
• Institution: De La Salle University

Over the years, the internet and its users have been continuously growing by large numbers, and have successfully attracted various sectors of societies around the world. A highly promising sector that has joined this information technology revolution are the small entrepreneurs, more specifically, the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). In the Philippines, the SME sector makes up 99.6% of all business establishments while hauling 32% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For several years, the Philippine government has struggled to capitalize on this potent sector, but it is only recently that much attention has been really given to these little giants of the economy. Moreover, the furniture-furnishing industry has been identified as one of the ten revenue streams for the economy due to their great contribution from export sales. The success of this particular sector is attributed to the excellent quality of indigenous ra materials and globally competitive products that have earned the approval of the international market. However, there still remain a lot of challenges for SMEs in this industry despite the government's efforts to develop this untapped sector. Issues such as difficulties in accessing much needed information, as well as the inability to penetrate bigger markets because of inadequate connections among the key players of the industry are still prevalent in most locals SMEs. This paper shall focus on the e-SME an information and business portal for Small and Medium Enterprises of the furniture-furnishing industry, as a viable avenue for the strategic utilization of ICT in these businesses. The implementation of powerful IT concepts namely e-commerce and e-governance to address the needs of these SMEs shall also be discussed in this paper.