I’ve spent much of my life in business and pushing for the idea that MSMEs are not “small” in impact. In the Philippines and across ASEAN, I’ve seen the same truth: the economy is built by people who wake up early to serve their communities, then go home hoping they can pay the bills again tomorrow.
Being an MSME is not easy. One of the hardest lessons for any entrepreneur is to be wrong in a way that costs money, and it’s even harder for MSMEs because they’re operating with a limited cushion – limited cash, limited workers, limited room for error. They sometimes misjudge demand, overbuy inventory or price too low to survive the month. I’m sure many successful businessmen can relate to that.
But what I want you, dear reader, to remember is this: when MSMEs stumble, it isn’t always because they lack discipline.
So how should the community respond? With patience, not judgment. That is why I take exception to harsh judgments made on social media over the mistakes of small businesses, and to customers who try and squeeze every ounce of value from MSMEs. If you’re a customer, give feedback with respect. If you’re a competitor, don’t humiliate. If you’re a customer, don’t haggle as if you were dealing with a company with large margins. What you are giving them is not charity but a chance to live another day.
For the MSMEs, my advice is to keep a simple “mistake log.” What went wrong? What did you learn? What will you change next week? You don’t need a perfect system, just a habit of learning fast.
People sometimes assume companies are faceless. But when you buy from an MSME, you’re often dealing with the person who stitched the uniform, mixed the beverage, designed the packaging or prepared the service themselves.
Customer stories – what people say after they buy – become a kind of compass. I’ve watched MSMEs transform rough feedback into improvements that later become reputation. A complaint about taste becomes a new recipe. A request about delivery time becomes a better system. A question about durability becomes a stronger material. What customers can do is share constructive feedback and help teach a small business how to serve you better.
Think of it as your contribution to MSME development, along with the money you paid for the product or service. When you buy locally, you help the business stay alive long enough to hire, train, innovate – and keep making your community stronger. Think of it as tuition for the MSME, paid for through every transaction.
Some of the most meaningful community care in our towns and cities comes quietly from MSMEs. People who’ve traveled through small provinces will no doubt have stories of knocking on the doors of the small local clinic or the local vulcanizing shop during an emergency. Big corporations can do impressive things from far away, but small firms are present on your street, and often are the first on the scene, so to speak.
They’re also the first to trust people with jobs. For many young people, the first job isn’t an ideal start, but it tells them, “I can do this,” especially when hiring companies make experience a requirement.
MSMEs employ marginalized sectors. Women, in particular, face disadvantages because so much of the labor society relies on is unpaid, like caring for the family or running the household; this kind of work is often excluded from formal employment systems. When MSMEs open opportunities, they become support systems, especially those in the care economy and those who struggle to enter formal work structures.
Even if the business is small, whether they realize it or not, MSMEs provide structured onboarding. At our Trabaho at Negosyo events, for example, it’s not unheard of for MSME workers and hiring companies to become exposed to opportunities at the job fair and entrepreneurship event.
The impact of small businesses is often unnoticed precisely because it’s everywhere and because it touches daily life. Big corporations may reshape industries, but MSMEs shape communities. They shape local identity because they respond to local needs in real time, and they are the first to adapt to change on a local level.
That is why even in my own businesses, I do not underestimate the importance of the local: if you do not have presence in the sari-sari store, you haven’t made it as a national brand. It also benefits the big corporations to make sure the small businesses survive, whether it’s by doing the heavy lifting through mentoring or by making them part of their value chain, or even simply by treating them fairly.
This brings me to a painful reality for MSMEs: cash flow anxiety. When cash flow becomes uncertain, the effects are felt deeply and widely. Sure, they can shorten their cash conversion cycle through things like diligent collection and diversified payment timelines and customer base, but the bigger businesses can also do their part by being empathetic to how vulnerable MSMEs can be to cash flow disruption. That check that hasn’t been signed for one reason or another? That may be a minor inconvenience for a signing executive or a well-worn maneuver to extend a credit line, but it has deeper implications for an MSME.
When MSMEs are paid late, they can’t plan for the future. They cannot be certain to make payroll or even place orders for supplies. Delays ripple outward to customers, too, as they lose the assurance of reliability in their local business. But when MSMEs are paid on time and treated respectfully, the whole chain gains stability, even for the big companies.
When MSMEs grow, communities grow. And when communities grow, we strengthen not only their own futures, but ours as well.