Where can we find financial health benchmarks/thresholds for Philippine MSMEs?
We need this po for our IT capstone project but I can’t find any. We developed a system that computes six financial metrics for business (MSMEs):
- Gross Profit Margin (GPM)
- Operating Profit Margin (OPM)
- Current Ratio
- Quick Ratio
- Cash Buffer (in days)
- Inventory Turnover (per month)
Each metric is classified as Healthy, Optimize (needs attention), or At Risk based on threshold values. For example: GPM ≥ 20% = Healthy, 10-19.9% = Optimize, < 10% = At Risk. Then, the business health status will be evaluated based on these.
The problem is, we cannot find Philippine-specific, peer-reviewed, or at least reliable published benchmarks for these metrics.
We've already searched:
- DTI reports and publications
- BSP financial inclusion studies
- Philippine academic journals (DLSU, ADMU, UP)
- PIDS (Philippine Institute for Development Studies)
- Google Scholar (Filipino MSME financial performance studies)
- PhilStar, BusinessWorld MSME coverage
None of them explicitly state what threshold values constitute "healthy" or "at risk" performance for specific metrics. Right now, we're using thresholds from generic business blogs and are worried our defense panel will question our accuracy. Another problem is that the business types varies (e.g., sari-sari stores, ukay-ukay, printing shops).
Does anyone know where to find peer-reviewed or official baseline metrics for these specific types of businesses? Any leads would be a lifesaver.
Again, this is a capstone project, not a full academic research study. We have limited time and resources. If there are any professionals or business experts here, we would highly appreciate your suggestions on how we can derive the thresholds.
Thank you!
