The Filipino Entrepreneur

Did you know that Google is interested on buying crazy ideas?

Google Inc. looks for ideas that are “really crazy” when sizing up potential purchases, the Internet company’s top dealmaker said.

I dunno if this crazy idea I have is unique but if u wanna look at it you can see it here: Junk Food. Maybe it’s not a crazy idea, it’s a RIDICULUS ONE!

[tag]crazy ideas,snacks,junk food[/tag]

If you own a blog and want to increase your chances to be favorited in technorati, there is a site that make exchanging favorite possible. It’s in Dosh Dosh’s. Although I’ve built static or html websites in the past and the old exhange links technique I think this kind of link exchange strategy will do very well in blogging. So if want to increase your links in technorati too, just click on this icon: and add me to your favorites. My username is mmontala. Then post a comment here and let me know if you have done it and write your technorati username so I will favorite you too. Also, for me to easily favorite your site, paste your button link code along with your comment. Easy as pie!

If you also want to exchange links, just give me a link in your post and I’ll reciprocate. Thanks!

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Issues regarding the survival of business successions were mostly unresolved and this is why only 40 percent of family business survives to the second generation, 15 percent to the third and merely one percent to the fourth generation according to statistics. In my own experience, we have a family business before and really business succession is a great issue especially if the family members are not really attached to each other. If there are no moral values instilled to the members of the family, it will be a lot more complicated. Since money is the value system on most of the business owners and their immediate families, the true meaning of harmonious relationship is set aside. And with that scenario, our business didn’t even survive to the second generation.

Fortunately, there is a workshop that address on this issue from the Gokongwei School of Management in Ateneo de Manila. The aim was to counsel the family members on succession issues. The workshop is a by-product of the quarterly business breakfast round table discussion, where a resource person would talk about family business issues such as sibling rivalry or conflict resolution, patriarch founders who refuse to relinquish management to the next generation and to those younger generations who were unprepared to handle the responsibility.

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Winning by innovating, this is, I think is one of the most important prerequisite of success in business. There is a company I know that “broadcast” the word ” innovative “ but do not actually do it. For instance, the former company I’m working with have a quality policy phrase of “to be innovative” posted everywhere even in the back of the employees ID card, but up to now they are doing the same thing over and over again. I’m also asking myself - why is this happening? Being a European based company with all the resources and technology but very slow in progress. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result” was defined by Albert Einstein as “Insanity”. Funny, because it was now being beaten by a Filipino competitor who was a former employee of that company who now supplies the same semiconductor bonding tools to semicon companies like Amkor and TI. So it’s obvious that the management has a big responsibility of a business success. Instead of thinking how to innovate and improve their product and sales, they always resort to retrenching and denying quality training to their employees. And when I ask the plant manager why? The reason is the employees will leave anyway so it’s better to train the managers instead of the employees. I can say these things because I also came from that company. So where is leadership? Where is innovation? ( Helloooooo!!!)

So much for that, now back to main issue. Many Filipinos are fond of eating hopia. It’s a Chinese delicacy introduced by the Chinese. And the prominent one is Eng Bee Tin which is now owned and managed by Gerry Chua. Little did we know how it became successful despite the many trials and hardships that Eng Bee Tin went through. It was started 80 years ago by Chua Chiu Hong on Ongpin Street in Chinatown. It became popular for it’s hopia although most of its competitor are slowing down. But despite of that, the business went down in the long run being quality as the main problem. Gerry was a third generation Filipino Chinese which took over the business in 1980 after his father Benito. Along with the problems and debt which he inherited he strived to make their business to survive. Up to the point that he was unable to loan a longer credit terms from banks and friends and cannot pay for additional workers.

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After fast food overkill, it’s time to go back to the place of good-old native cuisine that that we know as Kamayan. Kamayan didn’t pioneer the fiesta buffet concept, but it can well be said to have perfected it. Kamayan Restaurant today is a buffet chain, cranking thousands of satisfied diners through its methodical mass-production line up like no other restaurant. Unlike a fast food, Kamayan’s buffets maintain the standards of the authentic town fiesta, offering breathtaking variety and precise execution rather than limited menus and lowest-common- denominator taste. Yet it demonstrates the same reliable consistency and lowest in category prices as a fast food does. It’s an economy of scale.

Vic Vic Villavicencio was the founder that step it up to some kind of luck. In a business where location can be more critical than quality, Pasay Road under the ramp has to be near the bottom of the list of preferred areas. Location is of utmost importance especially in a food business. Yet, it thrives due to his resilience; Vic Vic has declared that Kamayan Pasay Road will always stay true to the original vision, in other words, no other honest buffet Filipino fiesta food in a fine dining setting. It does fill a certain niche in the market. It is the restaurant you take people to when you want them to have the best and ‘most typical” Filipino food. Walk in on any given night, and you’ll see almost every table has at least one balikbayan or foreign visitor. The food isn’t dedicated to any single region, nor does it try to equally represent all of them. It similarly doesn’t embellish with modern culinary flourishes strictly traditional.

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