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!

crazy ideas,snacks,junk food

Technorati Tags: crazy ideas, snacks, junk food

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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This innovative product was just a business concept proposed to an elective course at SOMBA ( School of Management business Accelarator Program) by a group of students but this has already have a growing demand. The brand name was Soybetes. The main ingredients are soymilk and virgin coconut oil along with the flavorings. A healthful ice cream with out the animal fat. Since this venture is still in it’s incubation period they are still concentrating on the production but sooner or later we will hopefully see it in the market.

ice cream,soybetes,virgin coconut oil

Technorati Tags: ice cream, soybetes, virgin coconut oil

Managing things and leading people are two different things. They should never be treated on the same level and a good leader must know this basic distinction. Whether you, are a doctor, a hospital administrator, a manager, a boss, or somebody on that level, you should know how to manage things and lead the people under you. Manageable things are financial resources, production, inventory, conflict, time, and the like. People don’t belong to this bracket because if you try to manage people, you will “FAIL” as a leader.

How to be a good leader

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Tilapia is our staple fish and abundant in our country. It’s true because I live near the Laguna lake and there are fish ponds that have tilapia and bangus as a means of livelihood. But because of it there are many sellers that cannot command a better price. Nonetheless the company Fisher Farms located in bulacan came up with an idea to add value to the fish. They now produce many processed tilapia and bangus variants like tilapia breaded fillet, tilapia longganiza and tilapia skin chicharon.

One of a proudly Filipino product is the first mango wine in the world, Don Roberto’s Mango Wine. Fairly new in the market and available initially in selected wine stores, Don Roberto’s Mango Wine comes in two variants - sweet mango wine and green mango wine. Both variants are made from carefully selected, processed and fermented mangoes; both products of countless experimentation efforts by Roberto ‘Oby’ Castaňeda, founder of Don Roberto’s Winery. He never thought he would discover the first mango wine in the world. His brush with fate came when he did charity work for a religious order of Belgian nuns in Baguio City in 1999. He wrote, composed and directed a musical stage play for the Belgian nun that was shown as a vocation campaign in the whole of the Cordillera. It was in one of the convents that he got hold of guava, cherry and strawberry wines, which he found interesting. “So I asked the Belgian founders if they could teach me how to make fruit wines, and the Mother Superior told me that, yes, they were sharing their secret recipe with me if I promise that I would not share it with anybody else’s,” Castaňeda recalls. Thus, the secret fruit wine recipe was handed down to him.

After the play ended and he went back home in Imus, Castaňeda began seriously considering going into wine-making for business. Determined on keeping his promise to the Belgian nuns, he chose to make mango wine. After all, mangoes are plentiful in the country and the Philippines are known for its delicious mangoes. He tried using mangoes in the original fruit wine recipe that he got from the Belgian nuns, but it did not work. He made several adjustments, experimenting with a number of combinations, until he got the right formula - detailed down to the tiny mango bits that have been purposely included to keep the raw and authentic mango wine favor. But before making business out of his mango wine, he went back to Baguio to ask the permission of the Belgian nuns.

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The Philippine are already known throughout the world in the area of outsourcing. It is because fluency in language, highly skilled and low labor costs is the primary reasons. For a long time India has conquered the BPO industry. A new player is rising in the arena of Business Process Outsourcing.

Similar to many other Asian countries, the Philippines present competitive costs for their highly skilled talents. This is the main objective of outsourcing. That is why India became the primary outsourcing destination for a long time. And now China is also coming into the scene of outsourcing. However the Philippines’ cutting edge to the other outsourcing Asian countries are being fluent of the English language and intimacy with America. This is why call centers for US based companies are sprouting in the country. Just look at the classified section of Bulletin Today and see the numerous job openings of call centers.

After the Hispanic colonization in the Philippines, Americans came into the scene. The Spaniards has colonized our country for more than 300 years and even Catholism has become our primary religion but American culture was absorbed instantly for a short period of time. And the WW2, Americans was our ally. Also, the Thomasites were the pioneer educators of the English language in the Philippines this is why the educational system was pattered after the Americans. So don’t be amazed when you see Filipinos are more Americanized. This is the disadvantage of other Asian countries in the BPO industry even if they have the most talented people like India or China.

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