Congratulations! It's a Boy...or a Girl!

This Blog post is dedicated to Jonas. He made a request asking me to be more active in writing in this blog because apparently he reads this in the office. If your boss knew you were reading this blog I think you will get promoted! hahaha like that would ever happen.

Anyways this is for you Jonas!
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Most of us have probably heard a parent say that being a parent is the best thing that ever happened to them or spending time with the kids is one of best part of being a parent. Well I'm not here to question that, I am just here to let you guys know a particular perk of being a parent.
Having kids is a legitimate excuse to be absent from work! True or False? I think everyone would probably say YES and I would definitely agree too... Employees who have kids can use their child's parent-teacher meetings as an excuse to miss work or some activity (like doctor's appointment) that they need to bring their kids to to miss that important presentation. This leaves the employees who have no kids to pull that jaw-dropping presentation out of their ass on their own and I think that's not fair at all.

With more companies looking at trying to balance their employee's work life and family life, there will be more childless employees who will be carrying the load. To all of you childless employees, it is time to even the playing field with "The Office Kid Kit".

If you check the cubicles of your co-workers with kids, you will probably find the pictures of their kids and some crappy kid artwork on their desk... now you can also have those without the actual kid! With the Office Kid Kit, you can choose to have a Boy or a Girl, choose ethnicity, and even choose what hobbies your "kid" have (like playing soccer). Now you can display those pictures and those kid artworks in your cubicle and once in a while have a "family emergency" and absent yourself from work! Time for someone else to pick up the slack!

The Rise of the Franchise Part 2

Goal # 15: To Launch a Franchise

It's been a while since my last post. I have been very busy trying to really be employed hahah just kidding. Since my last post I have been working on one of my 100 Goals (which I haven't completed listing yet. In my 100 Goals list, one of my goals is to be able to launch our very own Franchise.

I'm very happy to say that last Nov.29,2009 we opened our very first Franchise-worthy bibingka (It's Philippine version of rice cakes) stand in St. Francis Square Ortigas Center behind SM MegaMall. I have to admit that it takes a lot of patience and time to come up with our very first stall. Granted that the idea of a bibingka stall is not really a novel or an all too original idea but we're quite optimistic on the future of this business.

In my humble opinion I think there are two main leaders in rice-cakes(bibingka) market here in the Philippines and I think that would be Ferinos' Bibingkas and Bibingkinitan. Of course I could be wrong but as of now we will settle on this fact.

In the Philippines, Ferino's has a great brand and it has been in the market for a very long time. It's most recent and closest competitor would be the Bibingkinitan Franchise which has grown through actively and aggressively franchising it's mini bibingka food stall concept. This has prompt Ferino's to also set up bibingka food stalls in the past few years.

I consider both companies to be first-movers in certain aspects. Ferino's, I consider to be the first mover in developing a brand and a foot hold in a market that is sentimental to tradition. And Bibingkinitan, for being the first-mover in pushing for the bibingka food stall concept which I think they did a very good job with.

Now here comes the second wave of bibingka brands like BibingkaKo, Bibingkabon, and our own bibingkitas. Now how does a new player try to compete with the more established brands in the market? That's the question that we will try to uncover in the coming months..

Passing Out in Style

Goal # 3: To Graduate from the Asian Institute of Management

In the words of my Indian cohorts "We have finally Passed Out from AIM"; and even though we use different words to express the same meaning, I deeply share the same sentiments. The Asian Institute of Management 16-month MBA Program Batch 2 has finally crossed the metaphorical finish line on Sept 25, 2009. On this day we close a chapter that has brought most of us together and torn some of us apart.

On the day we celebrate the culmination of our efforts, I tried to recall the things that I could have done better during my stay in AIM but realized that it would be futile to keep looking back when these kinds of moments remind us to move forward.

It has been a little over a month now since the picture above was taken and from that time until now I have realized that things will never come easy. The day after our graduation, tropical storms ravaged the Philippines, leaving millions of people devastated. There has been a lot of finger pointing and political bickering surrounding the tragedy that has swept the nation and this action can never heal our nation, it will only wear us down. It's time to move forward.

September 25,2009....and moving forward.

All In At Genting

Genting Highlands was one of our highlight stops for the trip in Malaysia and it certainly was a memorable one. I won around 200 US dollars in one hand of an unfamiliar version of Texas Hold'em in the casino. You play only against the dealer and bluffing does not really matter because the dealer always has to play his cards. The game also has a peculiar betting rule but the interesting was the BONUS bet where you can win pay outs by just having a very good hand. For example pokets (pair on hand) would give 3:1 pay out, poket Aces gives 30:1 pay out and if you and the dealer both get pocket Aces the pay out is 1000:1. The group was supposed to meet up for lunch and I told Mark that I'll just play last two hands and jokingly told him that I had a feeling I would get a pair of Aces and on that hand I did. At that moment I thought what if the dealer had Aces as well that would mean we're going to extend our stay in Malaysia. hahaha

But playing in the casino during our visit to Genting Highlands was just an ice breaker to the thoughts that was running through my mind when I was there. Normally I would be easily impressed with the mention of the place having 6 hotels with 10,000 rooms, a theme park, shows, casinos, restaurants and retail shopping outlets all in one place but not today. I'm more impressed with the man behind it all, Mr.Lim Goh Tong.

If you find yourself in Genting Highlands, there is a place there like a mini museum about the transformation and history behind the place and the people who had a vision, the character and the perseverance to follow through. I bought the autobiography of Mr.Lim Goh Tong in the hopes to be inspired by his journey and as I coursed through the book I was not disappointed. His story starts off by leaving his homeland (China) and trying out his luck in a different place like many of the Chinese people who settled and made their fortunes here in the Philippines.

If we digest their stories we would probably see a lot of similarities and it is amazing how these men could make huge strides in their respected industries while coming from humble beginnings.

IKEA : Affordable Solutions for Better Living

me being such a tourist!

When our group went to Malaysia we visited IKEA on the last day of our Asian Immersion Program. It was not really an official visit; no one met us or talked to us in IKEA but the experience of seeing one of the most read business cases that we had in AIM before your eyes is something very special for me.

I know that our visit to IKEA would probably seem weird to a lot of people... Don't deny it! hahahaha I was talking to some of our fellow MBA students from Malaysia. We had a joint case-room discussion with them just a day after we arrived in Kuala Lumpur. They asked me the usual things like "how do like it here in Malaysia?" "Which places have you visited?" and I answered that we were going to visit IKEA and they stared at me curiously. If you could see their faces you would seriously die of laughter. "Of all the places to go to why the hell visit IKEA?" --> This is what was written on their face! hahaha Any normal person would probably ask the same thing, even some of my fellow AIM delegates felt the same way.

Prof. Ortigas (AIM faculty for AIP) asked me in passing in one of our lunches if we should still visit IKEA because we could totally skip it to spend more time at Genting Highlands (Malaysia's top Casino/Theme Park spots) because we really needed the RnR. I expressed that in my opinion it would really be nice to see an actual business that we have discussed in the case room. I would love to see how they do things in IKEA in person and not let this just be another case that I have read. In a twist of fate one of our scheduled activity for Malaysia so the group ended up doing Genting Highlands and IKEA on the last day of our Malaysia visit.

When we got there I was amazed at the size of IKEA Malaysia maybe just because we don't have it here in the Philippines. We have MC Home Depot, ACE Hardware and DIY Hardware but but aside from Home Depot those hardware stores are the closest thing I could compare IKEA to. IKEA is a very unique furniture concept store that offers great furniture at affordable prices.

For AIM students who have read the case we know how IKEA could offer this proposition but for those who do not have a clue here is how they do it:

1. Their furnitures come in flat boxes and you have to put them together yourself.
* Their savings on delivery and putting the furniture together is passed on to their customers
* They also save on storage and transport costs because of these "flat" furnitures.

2. Information on the tags
* All the info you need to know is on the tags of these furnitures to save on employees who otherwise would loiter around store aisles waiting for you.

3. They make so many of everything...
* Volume lowers costs. So creating a lot of one thing saves lowers the cost of the furniture per unit.

other Strange IKEA ways

IKEA Malaysia also has a day care center for kids so that the parents could really shop around the store, they also have their own restaurant and other services including home and office furnishing consultants, delivery and assembly services (if you really want to for a fee). Malaysia is predominantly a Muslim country and IKEA Malaysia offers their customers and employees prayer rooms too. This shows how IKEA adapts to the country they are doing business in.

Now for the question: Will IKEA work in the Philippines??

As a stand alone concept store I don't think it can survive the Philippine retail culture. Based on my observation we Filipinos like the one stop shop concept that's why malls here are equipped with everything from grocery to entertainment to clothes you name it our malls would have it. I do not believe that we will go out of our way to visit a furniture complex unless it has a lot of other things attached to it.

And I'm not 100% sure about this but my guess is that majority of us don't want to bother with the "build it yourself" concept since we usually like things to be instant, it's easy for us just to buy it and have it installed.

And the most crucial thing is commuting in the Philippines is Hell. For the people who have cars they won't mind to have the stuff delivered because they can afford the extra fee but to people who don't have cars they will definitely have a problem because our public transport system will pose to be a real hurdle for those IKEA flat boxes. In the end they will still have them delivered which eliminates the value of the savings that is supposedly passed on to the customer if they took the items home themselves.

If IKEA was an annex of a super mall like SM's MALL of ASIA then it might work. Everyone likes to go to the mall at the same time they could visit IKEA and vice versa. But this will definitely conflict with SM owned hardware and furniture concept stores unless IKEA and SM partners up to give the Filipino people the IKEA experience.

The foot traffic problem could be solved with either partnering up with a Chain of Malls in the Philippines like SM or convert a big lot area into a place people would like to go to. They could invite leasers for restaurants and other service stores which would create foot traffic as well. But the retail mentality and habit of the locals might need a little more time to get used to the IKEA way.



Asian Immersion Program (AIP) Sept '09

AIM Student Stars in Siam Niramit Show

AIM student Abhijeet Bahaadur of MBA Cohort 3 stars in this amazing, world-class performance of Thailand's cultural heritage. Well not exactly but he did get picked to go up on stage for a very musical and entertaining intermission number.

For a night we were happy to be a part of the 40 million dollar production. And even though I slept through the first act (I blame it on the buffet + being tired from all the traveling) I did wake up just in time to see an AIM student take center stage in front of a 2,000 capacity filled theater. For Abhijeet's performance I give him a 10 out of 10 and I think the crowd felt the same way too.

I've been part of some school plays and I know it is very difficult to manage a lot of different things at the same time. I could only imagine how the people behind this show could manage 150 actors and actresses (not including live elephants), over a 100 person stage crew, over 500 costumes and 102 sets every night. I've worked in a factory and I know my way around managing one but I have never tried managing a very creative and artistic project since I filmed a mock-documentary back in my university days. Of course you could not really compare my small time project to this 40million dollar production. But in all this great costumes, special effects, elephants walking around the theater I was thinking how much does the show earn and what is it's break even in ticket sales.

A ticket would cost 1,500 baht per person and at full capacity would generate 3 million baht in one night. In a week, this show could potentially get 21 million baht. Of course that's at 100% capacity. But I think with their marketing and the Siam Niramit cultural value they could go for a healthy 75-90% capacity every night. What I still can't imagine is how much does it cost to stage this show every night. And how long would they stick to the same show before they decide to stage a different show. In my opinion a tourist would probably only see this once and rarely come back. So when will they say... "this show has gone long enough let's change it up."

These were the things that were running through my head while I was trying to put together and understand the second act because I was knocked out during the first act. But after a very entertaining show I leave it up to you to ponder how did they manage to do that...

Abhijeet Bahaduur's smashing debut at Siam Niramit

Writing on Shit

Maesa Elephant Camp in ChiangMai Thailand

In our second day in ChiangMai we visited multiple tourist sites and our first stop was in Maesa Elephant Camp. The camp is home of one of the largest assembly of elephants in Thailand. Their goal is to create a healthy and natural environment for these elephants while trying to conserve and breed them.

Of course trying to preserve these magnificent animals requires a lot of money and it seems that the camp is self sustaining in generating healthy revenues for this purpose. They generate revenues first and foremost from the tourists that come and visit that camp. They also sell a lot of souvenirs including elephant paintings (Paintings done by the elephants themselves). The elephants in the camp actually holds a Guiness World record for the most expensive painting created by a group of elephants (the painting was sold for 1.5 million baht). But the most interesting part of the camp is when I heard they were also making money from elephant dung. I thought it was probably through making fertilizers but I was totally caught off guard when our guide said they were making paper from elephant poop.

Everyone knows that papers are made from trees and to finally find a way to create paper by using a tree-free raw material is actually revolutionary. Thailand and Africa are already manufacturing paper from elephant dung but how do they do it? Well, the secret is in what these elephants eat. These elephants eat a lot of bananas, sugarcane, and a lot of varieties of plants which is high in fiber. In the paper making process we need to break down the fiber which apparently our elephant friends have already done through their digestive system. I read somewhere that on an average an elephant produces 50kg of dung per day that could produce 200 sheets of paper.

You might be wondering why the hell am I talking about shit... well to be honest I find it very intriguing that we can truly have a "zero waste" facility in the form of the Maesa Elephant Camp. I hate the idea of wastage and being able to earn from elephant dung which is the primary waste this camp generates is amazing. I'm also pro self-sustaining environmental projects that does not solely depend on donations but could actually make money to further their cause. Maesa Elephant Camp is a great example of this and discovering a business opportunity from shit makes you want to just applaud those entrepreneurial minds who thought of it.

Franco Ongkingco helping make Paper!