Majority of small businesses in the Philippines remain confident that they will continue to grow amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, a survey says.
Around 88% of small and medium-sized enterprises are still confident of their growth in the next three years, according to a survey conducted by SAP-SE or SAP and Oxford Economics titled “Digital Resilient, and Experience-driven: How Small and Midsize Organizations Can Prepare for the New Economy.”
Moreover, 89% of the SMEs also adjusted their employees to work remotely or work at home due to the tough lockdowns implemented in the past months to supposedly help curb the number of COVID-19 infections.
For the rest of the Asia Pacific region, SAP continued to recognize the Philippines as one of the fastest-growing markets in the world amid the global health crisis.
Sixty-nine percent of these enterprises across the region have invested in IT and digital solutions to cope with the new working conditions.
Of these, 79% of local SMEs have also implemented the same changes for their workers.
SAP offered two solutions for local SMEs to help improve their businesses—the SAP Business One and the SAP Business ByDesign.
“We want SMEs to stay resilient during these uncertain times and be prepared to take in the demands when we recover post COVID19. These intelligent solutions would help SMEs gain become more strategic, while remaining agile and flexible, as well as position them for growth,” said Edler Panlilio, SAP Philippines Managing Director.
SAP is a global cloud software and Oxford Economics is a global economic forecasting and analytic firm.
Both private institutions surveyed 2,000 executives in 19 countries, and analyzed the response of the top-performing firms among the participants.
The Philippines entered into recession last August wherein the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate declined by 16.5% in the second quarter of 2020, which was the lowest recorded quarterly growth since 1981, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
READ: What you need to know about the Philippines’ economic growth as it sinks into recession
This means the country incurred a hefty P680 billion economic loss during the second quarter of 2020.
Last May, the Department of Labor and Employment also estimated that an alarming 10 million workers lost their jobs this year due to the economic crisis.
In the same month, around 2.5 million workers have already lost their jobs due to the lockdown or the enhanced community quarantine implemented last March.
Prior to that, the statistics agency said the unemployment rate surged to a record 17.7% in April.
READ: Philippine jobless rate hits record 17.7% in April due to COVID-19 pandemic
The national unemployment rate of the country eased in July when strict community quarantine measures were lifted.
