(EID-014) “BUILDING MORE COMPANIES”

It is very unfortunate that the National Cottage Industry Development Authority (NACIDA) and the National Marketing Corporation (NAMARCO) no longer around, but what is even more unfortunate is that there seems to be no existing government that would have taken the place of these two defunct agencies.

Back in the mid-70’s I was Group Product Manager of Bliss Marketing Corporation (BLISSMARK), a company that was funded by the government but was operated as a private corporation. To some extent, it performed the product development and marketing functions of NACIDA and NAMARCO, but it also became a victim to the changes of priorities in the government.

As it is now in these present times, bits and pieces of the product development and marketing functions are performed by a number of government agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs), but with apparently little or no coordination among them, to the disadvantage of small business owners who badly need these services.

Whether a business is big or small, they all need to put in place the basic finance, production, marketing and management functions. In this regard, there are also a number of NGOs that are helping in one function or the other, but there appears to be no “one-stop-shop” where small businesses could get all of these services all in one place.

In pursuit of the objective to build more companies in this country, it should be our collective national goal to help all small and medium enterprises (SMEs) so that they could all graduate into mature corporations, regardless of whether they are privately held or publicly listed. The way to do that is to assist them in strengthening their four business functions.

As a practical step, it would be good for all local government units (LGUs) to allocate some of their Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs) for SME development. It would even be better if all of our congressmen could contribute some of their Countryside Development Funds (CDFs).

In line with this national goal, the United National Integrated Development Alliance (UNIDA) welcomes all NGOs and LGUs in its efforts to organize and bring together all SME development supports into one coordinated and integrated supply chain. Let us make it an unbroken supply chain, lest we again end up with broken dreams.