For the Sy family, which holds various businesses ranging from banking to real estate, building resilient small and medium enterprises is key to a sustainable value chain and attaining business continuity.
Bilyonaryo Hans Sy, chairman of SM Prime Holdings Inc.’s executive committee, said SMEs remain a vibrant and essential ingredient for economic growth and employment generation.
“Empowering supply chains is particularly close to our hearts because SM’s roots were borne from our father’s entrepreneurial spirit.It is because of this that we understand the journey and challenges faced by small and medium enterprises. We want to help them not only by providing a strong market but by building their resilience to overcome their risks and maximize their opportunities,” Sy said.
Sy is a strong advocate of disaster resilience and is the first Filipino representative to the Private Sector Advisory Group of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
SM Prime Holdings, the property arm of the Sy family, is doing its share in helping SMEs bounce back immediately after a disaster. It built an SM Reliance Center (Center) in SM Clark, Pampanga to serve as the data storage and capacity building facilities for SME partners.
The SM Group works with nearly 25,000 small business groups, representing 27% of the total SMEs in the Philippines today. These are SM’s mall tenants, traders and suppliers mainly in retail.
For many years, the Sy family has been leading disaster risk reduction efforts for the private sector in partnership with various organizations and government agencies.
Some of SM’s notable disaster risk reduction initiatives include the additional elevation of the SM Mall of Asia complex as protection against storm surges and flooding; SM City Marikina built on stilts after considering the 100 year old flood cycle of the locale to allow the natural flow of the Marikina River and 20 SM Malls built with rainwater catchments to help minimize flood water.
