NOTRE DAME OF DADIANGAS UNIVERSITY AUDITORIUM 1, General Santos City – July 18, 2017,

Tuesday

According to a recent data from the Department of Trade and Industry, SMEs account for 99.6 percent of total
registered enterprises. Out of the 820,255 businesses which operated in the country, 816,759 were SMEs while
only 3,496 were large enterprises. Of these, 91 percent (743,250) were microenterprises, 8.6 percent (70,222)
comprised of small firms, and less than one percent (3,287) made up medium-sized companies.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are also said to “stimulate domestic demand through job creation,
innovation, and competition,” making them “a driving force behind a resilient national economy,” according to
a report from the Asian Development Bank. However, the DTI also listed business environment, access to
finance, access to markets, and productivity, and efficiency as four areas where SMEs face challenges.
Tremendous efforts to inform and to give value adding learnings have been made by DTI to help MSMEs to
outsmart these challenges that they will face.
In line with this concern and in celebration of the accountancy week, the Philippine Institute of Certified Public
Accountants (PIPCA) organized an event, in partnership with Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and
Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants (JPIA) from NDDU, held at NDDU Audio Visual Room 1 last July
18, 2016. The seminar was dubbed as “Seminar on Inventory Management for MSMEs”.
In order for an organization and any business entities to survive and be effective in meeting their market demand,
the entity must be cognizant of its supply chain management for better performance and sustained survival. The
reason of carrying inventory management practices is to ensure regular supply of materials as and when required.
A robust inventory management is required to be in place to ensure timely delivery and quality standards are
observed. For an entity to survive they need to embrace the changing competitive trends in the market.
To give this seminar a taste of being relatable, two speakers from the local sector were invited to facilitate this
seminar. The first speaker, Ms. Annabela Noel, the current manager of Joan’s bakeshop, gave lectures from her
vast experiences on how to have a grip, control, and strategies on handling inventory management especially for
manufacturing companies in the food industry. She tackled the importance of inventory management by
incorporating it with different methodologies and strategies such as First In, First Out (FIFO), setting par levels,
managing relationships with suppliers, contingency planning, regular auditing, and accurate forecasting. At the
end of her discussion, an open forum was held to give time for participants to solicit information and ask for
advice on their struggles in handling their inventory smartly. Queries were entertained and an exchange
substantial ideas happened during the open forum. At the end, Ms. Noel’s last advice to the MSMEs was to
record all the time the costs of one’s expenses in a detailed manner because it will serve as their guide on the
many years to come.

Mr. Vann Dexter Rebusa, the present Budget Analyst and Special Projects Manager of KCC Property Holdings,
Inc., also parted his expertise about inventory management especially on merchandising companies. He
discussed the diverse functions inventories and the types of merchandise that a merchandising business could
have. From staple goods, convenience goods, fashion goods, and seasonal goods, extensive explanations on
how to manage and administer it were obtained by the participants from the speaker. He also reiterated the
importance of inventory management on a merchandising company perspective when it comes to pricing of the
goods of the company. It is also advised by the speaker that MSMEs must invest in inventory management
systems because it will greatly help the participants in analyzing their costing and pricing method. On his parting
slide, he ended his lecture with the 5 R’s of inventory management: The product should be available at the right
time, and at the right place. Customers should be able to acquire the right quantities, at the right price, and the
right quantity.