At
a certain age, learning something new seems to be more of a burden
rather than a discovery. They say “you can’t teach old dog new tricks”
but if it’s a question of survival, in this case as an entrepreneur and
your business hangs in the balance then perhaps survival instinct lords
over any inhibitions or reluctance to learn new things.
The
growth of the Internet and its mobile counterpart has broken many
preconceived barriers in business. Suddenly, almost anyone can buy and
sell, transact and pay online, through the use of their mobile devices.
The rate of adoption is nearly doubling every year and the Philippine
market is experiencing near that, but unfortunately, not quite fast
enough compared to our neighboring countries.
 |
| BigBenta CEO, Mr. Charlie Fong |
As a founder of an online marketplace (www.bigbenta.com)
and a strong advocate of digital entrepreneurship, I’m pondering on
whether it would make more sense for me to push the idea of Filipino
digital entrepreneurship to the current business owners (who are mostly
Gen Xers’ that are resistant to change and learning new things like
e-commerce) or just advising the Millennials and let their sheer number
and eventual mass adoption take the market further.
While
it may appear that the Millennials are easier to take on due to their
inherent openness to the use of new technology and ease of advising,
rather than educating/teaching, it is the Gen Xers’ that represent the
larger size of the business pie but such requires a stronger effort in
educating and teaching them to adopt digital entrepreneurship. From my
actual experience with several Gen Xers’ with their brick and mortar
business mindset, they cannot easily move to digital unlike their
millennial counterparts that are almost ready to adopt. The Millennials
with their sheer number will someday dominate the entrepreneur market in
the coming years, but not yet for now.
So the
question perhaps given the limited resources is what group should we
focus on pushing for digital adoption? The current, bigger player but
harder to adopt or the smaller, easier to adopt, but represents the
future of the entrepreneur market. Choices like these are never easy and
no one says that business decisions are that easy to make. Though I
could play it safe by taking on the Gen Xers’ and Millennial at the same
time, since I will be serving the existing and leveraging for the
future, business conditions don’t allow me to play with that wide
capability.
We
therefore chose to tackle the challenges of “Now” and take on the Gen
Xers’ for several compelling reasons. The Gen Xers’ present the bigger
challenge but provides the biggest reward in terms of market share,
market size and loyalty if we convince them to take this path. The
existing business and reach of the Gen Xers’ entrepreneur are well
established and running. Securing their business for the future is an
easier argument to convince them to move to digital. The Millennials
with their young, adventurous lifestyle will always find digital in all
its form as part of their own way of life. They will consciously seek
digital adoption whether it is for or work, like its second nature to
them. We might not even be required to advice them on how to become a
digital entrepreneur. They are in their own ways, hooked on digital
already, through their community and social network. The future is
always with them.
BigBenta Marketplace
is the only e-commerce platform in the Philippines that features free
classified ads (buy and sell), online stores, and service bookings.
Through these platforms, it aims to help the Filipino entrepreneur and
MSMEs use the internet to grow their business
Picture credits: adweek.com, infinityconcepts.net, fool.com/investing/, rismedia.com
