The SERDEF began this month a research project on entrepreneurial product strategies entitled “An Assessment of Product Strategies of Selected Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the Philippines.”
In an orientation meeting held at the SERDEF office last September 23, project manager Maria Lourdes Tirona Lopez, who teaches at the UP College of Business, briefed the project team on the concept, rationale, methodology and other important aspects of the study.
The study will identify and assess what selected small enterprises are doing in terms of developing and marketing their products and services, including their variety, quality, design, features, brand name, packaging, services, pricing, promoting, distributing, and other aspects that compose the so called “product mix.”
The research findings will eventually be distilled into a book that is expected to help ease the dearth of local literature on the subject.
The book targets the following readers: teachers and trainors of entrepreneurship, policy makers and development officers, business service providers, and, most importantly, the small entrepreneurs themselves who may find the book “a valuable product strategy companion in their journey and progress towards business success.”
The project will cull data from existing entrepreneurial case studies from case books published by the SERDEF and UP ISSI, especially their four-part “Dreamers, Doers, Risk-takers” series of entrepreneurial stories. Other case books will also be used, including the Department of Trade and Industry’s Sulong Pinoy series and Go Negosyo’s Inspiring Entrepreneurs series.
Data analysis will involve conducting a within-case analysis and a cross-case analysis with the view to identifying major practices, themes, and patterns about product strategy and determining inter-relationships among these practices, themes, and patterns.
At the project briefing, L to R: Malou Lopez, Peter So, Evelyn Ulpindo, Myrna Co, Janette Villanueva, Serenidad Lavador
Members of the project team are Joyce Alegre, Myrna Co, Peter Alan So, Janette Villanueva and Evelyn Ulpindo, .
Dr. Felicitas Evangelista of the University of Western Sydney will serve as project consultant
Top photos: “gifts and novelties” from the Salay Handmade Paper Products, Inc. website
Team photo: by Mario