UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR BUSINESS IN THE DIGITAL ERA

 Philippines - Today every country all over the world, especially our country the Philippines should adopt and prioritize the importance and the trend of the digital world. As a professional digitalization is now a big big trend, help, and today months or years there is always new in the digital world, it is evolving because of our eagerness to make our lives more easier and better. The digitalization is really a big thing to us especially the fast transform how we do things, communicate, and create value in our daily life.

Recently, It was a privilege and I am so grateful to attend the Digital Growth Day Seminar that happened at The Grand Hotel Manila. This event is a half-day-long seminar with multiple speakers from various backgrounds in the digital marketing industry and businesses. The main focus of this event is to give us new learnings about the digital space or the world and help different professionals and businesses to learn more about how digitalization affects their businesses and how we can protect our data from lots of hackers, scammers, and more. Like me I am also scammed by different people, using my identity and more. So here my question is how are we secured and safe in today's digital life?

At the event, there are 4 speakers each of them really stood out in their expertise and professional experience.

The first speaker is Mr. Felix John Amin from I-Metrics Asia-Pacific Corporation his discussion is very informative as he talks about our country's business outlook in the coming months and years regarding Manufacturing, Retail/Wholesale, Services Sectors and etc. He mentioned also the biggest changes in our country in terms of business partnerships or investment from other countries and the good status of our economy right now. He is also glad to see little by little that soon our country will be on the top. In this topic, I learned and understand well Mr. Felix, and to be honest I wanted to learn more about his expertise on this topic.

The second speaker is Mr. Mike Jurado from Prime Software Comp. His topic is Simplified Digitalization via ERP. I am so inspired by the story of Mr. Mike and his biggest contribution to the IT industry. Prime Software caters to database software on how it will make the business easier and less complicated, preservation of data, central module software, backup files system, business programs, and more.

For me, these programs or systems really matter right now and every business should invest in this kind of system so that we can make things easy, data preservation, and more. Also, Mr. Mike will not tolerate or create an AI-powered software because if his company adopts the AI tool maraming mawawalan ng trabaho and I really agreed with him, AI may be a useful tool to make our tasks faster but sometimes meron padin itong negative benefits to us. For this nothing is wrong if we used AI but always remember to be responsible and check your work always.

 

The third topic is the Cybersecurity Tactics for Every Business presented by Mr. Wilson Chua from FutureGen International. Today Cybersecurity is a must practice for protecting computer systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, theft, hackers, scammers, or damage. As I understand and believe cybersecurity is a very essential for every business right now, regardless of its size or industry, to implement effective cybersecurity tactics to safeguard its assets and the reputation of a company. So here are some of the cybersecurity tactics shared by Mr. Wilson that every business should adopt these things;

- Using strong passwords and encryption for all devices and accounts
- Installing antivirus software and firewalls on all computers and servers
- Updating your company software and systems regularly to fix security vulnerabilities
- Educating employees on how to avoid phishing emails and other cyberattacks and also not using company email for any personal uses
- Backing up always your data regularly and storing it in a secure location
- Developing a cybersecurity policy and incident response plan
- Don't use pirated software or operating system, bawal ang magtipid!

On the other hand, Mr. Wilson also mentioned how we can also protect our personal social media platforms and gadgets, to prevent different hackers and etc we should do these things;

- Enable the two-way authentication of your gadget or platforms
- If you received any link from an unauthorized message or email, don't click it, you must check it first by copying the link and pasting it to your web browser in that case you can see if the link is unauthorized or prevented by the browser
-Do not use public wifis because this will be one of the reasons that hackers can hack your socmed and more.

For me by following these tips or tactics, every business can reduce the risk of cyberattacks and minimize the possible damage of this to your business and more.

 

And Lastly, the last topic and speaker is Digital Strategies for E-Commerce, Marketing, & Working with Remote Teams by Ms. Janette Toral of DigitalFilipino.com. Ms. Jannette talked about the power and importance of digital strategies for e-commerce, marketing industries, and more in our modern world. As we see digital strategies are a demand or essential for all businesses that wanted to succeed in the online world. Digital strategies are the plans and actions that help a business achieve its goals and objectives using digital tools and socmed platforms. According to Ms. Janette, every business is now digital because it's easy to top customers or target customers, less expensive, and some of the brands are doing what is in or trending such as live selling with promos to increase company revenue and lessen some expenses.

For me as a marketing professional, it is important to learn new things, enhance skill sets, and learn more about what is new in the digital marketing world, especially every year digitalization is expanding and improving.

So here are the benefits of digital strategies that are really helping us like;
- It helps a business reach and engage its target audience through various channels, such as social media, email, webinars, podcasts, blogs, and more
- They help a business measure and analyze its performance and results using data and analytics in just a few hours because of the socmed features you can easily see the results of your post or ad boosting instantly
- It really helps a business adapt and innovate in response to changing customer needs, preferences, and behaviors easily
- They help a business collaborate and communicate effectively with remote teams and partners across different locations and time zones and more benefits.

Digital strategies are not one-size-fits-all and it really needs time and understanding what the data is given to you. They need to be tailored to each business's specific needs, goals, and challenges. A good digital strategy should be based on research, analysis, creativity, and testing, it's ok lang din naman to try again in case your strategies are not working, always remember it will take time and deep understanding to reach your goal. It should also be flexible and agile enough to adjust to changing circumstances and opportunities. A good digital strategy should also align with the overall vision, mission, and values of the business or company.

And last I am inspired and tama po si Ms. Janette about how we could act in handling remote teams, as a leader, you should know how properly, effectively, and knowledgeably know to handle his/her remote team, dapat a leader must be honest, no favoritism, very understanding, have no attitude issues, be open-minded in terms of suggestions or comments, and lastly if he/she wanted changes he/she should accept changes also for the good of his job and team.

Overall, the Digital Growth Day seminar was an enriching and very informative experience. I learned a lot from the four speakers’ real world experiences and their insights on how to achieve sustainable growth in the digital space. I look forward that soon there will be more topics about this so that I can use them to implement the strategies and tips I learned in my own digital marketing efforts and also how I can help businesses or companies.

Thank you for this amazing new learning and congratulations to Ms. Janette for the success of her event.