Today was one hell of a day here. We were scheduled to go to Dagupan City to have talks with potential business partners and at the same time take some time off work. Unfortunately, the weather was not as cooperative, relegating me to staying at home and worrying about our safety as well, as the winds of Super Typhoon “Milenyo� (International Name: Xangsane) hit the country hard. I called of work for my staff as early as 5:00 a.m., worried more about their safety than business operations.  

There was no electricity, no telephone lines and no water the whole day. Trees were falling everywhere, floods in most areas, flying debris, and falling billboards here and there, rendering the whole country of the Philippines totally helpless to the wrath of this typhoon which I would call as one of the worst typhoons that the country has experienced. Restaurants and malls, such as the Shangri-la mall in EDSA were closed, even experiencing damage as walls ripped open and had all store owners and on-hand customers looking for ways to get to safety.  

Businesses suffer hard blows during such calamities, not only hampering daily operations and distribution means but also the purchasing power of its target markets. The basic necessities will always have the initial priority, survival of which is the most important. Inconvenient as it is, this is an event which most business has to consider in a year. Providing allowance for such occurrences, this may lead to losses in most cases. These are scenarios where most companies have to realistically face them everyday. However, much as they hit periodic times of the year, these should not become reasons or alibis for losses. They are natural events that cannot be controlled and other reasons for losses of most organizations are not fairly attributed to such.

 

Links:

• Typhoon Kills 21, Cuts Power
• Typhoon Batters Metro Manila, Bicol
• Czech, Philippine Churches devastated by Storm, Floods

It is just normal to think and conceptualize about certain businesses or money making schemes in our minds today. Not all employees will remain in their positions forever and in the course of their business knowledge, it cannot be discounted that the entrepreneurial skills will always play games in our minds. Ideally, such businesses are related with the everyday operations or exposure people see and experience. This is where most business concepts originate, with perhaps a little bit of enhancing at times.

This is only normal. At times we find ourselves studying certain techniques and devise our own manner of business concepts that stem from base business operations. This is the same for other practices that include marketing and business and research as well.  Providing the necessary adjustments to the framework and putting in some added benefits and all are more of the challenges that people have to undertake and expect especially from up and coming new entrants to the market and existing competitors. Besides, who would want to be the last in line of the list of market players and competing companies in any category?

Useful Links:

• Adaptation of the Business Concept over Time
• Hard Work: A Ditry Concept for Most?
• What is the Limited Liability Concept to Corporations?

One of the hardest things to do is to put everything in perspective. Starting from a small venture, the obvious battle cry is to make it a foundation towards a big empire to which investors can sit back and show a wide grin on their faces. Who wouldn’t be? Well considering the fact that they carefully select a bunch of people who do the work, strategically making executive decisions and aim high to prove their worth, they have one heck of a management team working under them. It is not really plainly making the company grow, but more on growing through the company. Using the experience as a training ground and as an added color to their individual resumes, they are after making an impression to get into the big leagues and hold key positions in companies that have established their name and reputation and of course get the due recognition and compensation that most employees long for.

For the wiser businesses, they put such talented people on contracts. This is to ensure that they will continue to render the same kind of service for years to come. It is not totally about being used, but a strategy on keeping key personnel responsible for corporate success. Also, they are given fat paychecks during their tenure, something that will pose as a hindrance for other companies planning to pirate them. Piracy of employees is a common practice, but what you cannot price you cannot pirate.

Links and References:

• Business Ethics
• The Business of Giving
• Write a Business Plan that Works

One of the most underrated things that a person can do is boost their morale and set higher goals and standards that will be to their benefit. Some employees are content with just achieving set primary goals to prove their worth; while other fails to see the beauty of aiming higher than what is expected from them. Such accomplishments will indeed be to their advantage in the sense that it becomes informal training and acquiring an advanced sense of knowledge, since work experience is something that is not material for people to rely on today. Most companies would put weight on work experience since such would need minimal training programs and better yet, introduce innovative techniques. Such industries that are known to prefer work experience and advanced training include Information Technology, Sales and Marketing, and Business Research and Development . These areas usually have unique strategies, and such ways will help differentiate companies from one another, the effectiveness which shall be for the benefit of the company they are working for above anything else.

Information Technology Professionals cater to a wide variety of computer related knowledge that include Programming languages in the area of Java, Perl or Powerbuilder. These programs set their bars high and would be among the crop of manpower resources that are hard to find thus allowing them to command their prices and compensation benefits to the best bidder. Networking solutions as Intranets and Networking Security are another hot commodity in the market and enhancing and mastering such an art is truly something people should not pass up.

For Sales and Marketing, the various techniques that include Direct Marketing, Network Marketing, Brand Marketing, Global Marketing and Category Marketing are among the top needs in the search for the most efficient way of to find the right mix of people and strategies for a company to prosper. Such companies that have indulged in these marketing strategies include better known companies such as Forever Living, Lifestyles, Portal Innovations, Universal Robina Corporation, Coca Cola, Chin Chin Black Gulaman and of course San Miguel Corporation. The list goes on, but these are among the leaders in their respective lines of business.

Business Research and Development needs are becoming rampant, since traditional ways of management need new blood injected in them to keep pace with the forerunners who have employed various strategies to pick up their revenue generating schemes. The need for the use of various internal tools (BCG Matrix, TOWS Analysis, Grand Strategy, Space Matrix) and external strategies that make use of the various forces as known through Porter’s 5 Forces is something that each company will need to take into consideration as well. Mixing up everything into one thorough evaluation matrix will help identify the shortcomings and needs of any company, something that most organizations are unaware of resorting to as of to date.

Links and References:

• Why CEO’s Are Not Plug-and-Play
• Balancing the Future Against Today’s Needs
• How To Put Meaning Back into Leading
• Got A New Strategy? Now Make It Happen
• What Customers Want From Your Product

The rampant conflicts and country wide issues anywhere in the world provide more harm than good and are among the factors that make suffering economies all the more worst.  It is not surprising why most countries undergo such problems, considering the fact that with the various political aspirations, various groups will always have their own views and principles that are far different from the governing parties in a country. Such a scenario can be typified towards companies as well, often called and referred to as office politics.

Such practices are pitiful in a sense that instead of a free-flowing operation or direction, these become humps or obstacles that will definitely hamper any company operation. Selfishness is one thing that best describes the craving for power by most people, something that they would not admit to.

On the other hand, abusive powers may get their day in court as well if not overthrown. For a good leader, the overall consent and cooperation of his subordinates may be needed at times for advice. Leadership is about decision making but it is also about getting the consensus to gather feedback if such a thing is the proper practice or decision to do. Decision making in a country or organizations should not be a one-way street. People would often ask the superiors to make the final say, but presumably, these are the decisions assumed to be the ones that they know which is right, a conflict of which may arise if such will not be done immediately and accordingly.

A good case would be the various coups that are well known today. The first one is of course that of the overthrowing of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos last July 6, 1986, a dictator as they would so call him due to the various issues that still remain unsolved today. And of course today, we are familiar with the on-going coup at Thailand that of which was under governing powers of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Conflicts of interest in leadership and management style are sure to arise at any point. But the sad thing about it is, once a company allows such things from happening, it is sure to occur again. This time, abuse is the obvious matter, and growing in numbers, order will never be restored for people who claim to want what is best for the country but realistically only best for themselves. Such a shame.

Links and References

• Philippine Coup Attempts
• Thai Coup Recall Marcos Era
• United States Condemns Thai Coup

It is only normal to find food and beverage industries trying to outdo one another, resorting to price drops, promotional gimmicks that include giveaways and providing marketing support towards supermarkets and retailer outlets to help in allowing them to provide the necessary exposure as far as availability in the market is concerned. For one, consumers can only identify products such as the bottled beverages of Chin Chin Powerbits Sports Drinks and Black Gulaman, if they are easily seen and available for purchase in the stores where they are frequently found wandering off to.

However, supermarkets are not the only point of sale places where people can get products. Restaurants, recreational areas, canteens and cafeterias can also help in slowly saturating the market, providing incoming customers with a wider variety of choices in drinks to complement their usual food consumptions. Seeing a bottle or posters, flyers and leaflets alone is already a big factor in being able to find out that such products exist and can be bought.

This is one reason why the marketing efforts of such up and coming products like Chin Chin Powerbits and Black Gulaman has been struggling for the past two years. The proper business research and development practices were not given much factor. There is more to business than simply choosing a product and selling them through prices without a reason and an itemized detail of how costing was made. The little things’ importance will never be realized until the point comes where there are figures that are missing in the financial statement, inexplicably absent and uncategorized in the expense portion of the Income Statement. Identifying where the expenses are, and in which way they are connected with the products being sold is already a loophole in itself.

A business is not something that will grow by alone. The proper handling of such operations and production issues is still a need, and while this may not be given much emphasis in the initial stages, it will always reach a point where people will have to backtrack and identify the proper declaration of expenses and revenue. Otherwise, they may as well consider an uphill mountain to climb. But starting off in the wrong foot will never advance to the level to which a company was envisioned to be. Leaving out the trash, and letting it rot in the foundation of a potentially successful business will surely stink and pile up. This may very well be something that prevents a business from achieving its targeted goals.

Links and References:

• Why Your Business Has To Grow All The Time
• Achieve Maximum Results with Minimum Effort
• Globalization-Economic Dimension
• Is Business Planning Necessary for a Home Based Business?
• Don’t Reinvent the Wheel, Just Get Yours Rolling Again

Black Gulaman, the chief product that Merlion International Sales, Inc. and Kinglucky Food Corporation has been pushing in the Philippines and selected states of Canada and the United States, has been aggressively exhausting all means to make the product visible and get ahead of the competition. Boasting of a respectable 9 month product life period, would be competitors are still baffled at the concept of the product, trying to figure out how such a product can last for such a long period and retain its quality in the market today.

Black Gulaman, or Grass Jelly as it is more familiarly called, is a famous Asian drink and Desert molded into one bottle that is very much distinctive from the standard bottled packaging of most beverage and ready to drink packs today. Its unique concept of inverting the cap to be able to open the bottle contents is something that makes it all the more classy in a way, since the foil retains the freshness of the content, a good drink to consider for people on the run and athletes who want something light and refreshing. The jelly bits act as temporary space relievers for digestive systems to avoid health issues such as ulcer. It right amount of sweetness and iodine content helps hit the spot for thirsty individuals today.

A common question that has been spreading out is where to find the said product. The Black Gulaman Drink is actually available in leading 24/7 convenience stores in the Philippines, such as 7-11 and some small convenience stores strategically located in the greater Manila Area. It is also available in leading supermarkets such as Unimart, Parco, Hi-Top and Shopper’s Mart, Binondo. At the moment, it shall soon be seen in the dominant markets held by Shoemart (SM) and Robinsons Department store nationwide. Aiming to hit their mark in the last quarter of the year, the issue on where such items can be located will surely be a big relief to the demanding market for the sole drink and desert that has conceptualized another category that will surely draw competition.

For its part, Chin Chin Black Gulaman has a minor competitor in Joy Black Gulaman. However, this so-called competitor can only last for 7 days, and comparing their quality of packaging with that of the Chin Chin Black Gulaman, there is no question which caters more to the eye of the consumers. Price may offer a howl but taking into consideration that they are larger and packed with better presentation, people would be surprised at how Joy Black Gulaman is being sold, sometimes in the vicinity of $6.00 for a low class plastic packaging. For the same price, a person can already buy a Chin Chin Black Gulaman and comparing them side by side, there is no question which is more appealing if they are placed side by side. People need not look farther since in the first place, has it ever occurred to most consumers why Joy Black Gulaman is not available in the supermarkets whereas Chin Chin Black Gulaman is simply along the imported bottled aisle sections? One way to find out and this is to check both products and let the demanding consumers be the ones to pass final judgment on which is obviously the superior brand that emphasizes on quality packaging and content.

Links and References:

• Wally “Famous” Amos Shares His Life As a Brand in the Gourmet Cookie Industry 

• The Globalization of Food Marketing
• Flavor as a Business
• Foods in the News – Food Marketing
• A Comparative Study of Public Food Marketing