i'll be posting once in awhile mga articles nga sa tan-aw nako makatabang sa atong mga bisdak....
akong reference is Entrepreneur magazine....
akong gi-post diri para basa na lang mo diretso....
happy reading!!!!
sugod na ta!!!!
i'll be posting once in awhile mga articles nga sa tan-aw nako makatabang sa atong mga bisdak....
akong reference is Entrepreneur magazine....
akong gi-post diri para basa na lang mo diretso....
happy reading!!!!
sugod na ta!!!!
APRIL 2009
***Retrenched and Thriving*** By Rafael Santos (Laid off employees are using their severance to start businesses)
It is late in the afternoon when we arrive in Tierra Verde Royale, a sleepy executive village on the outskirts of General Trias, Cavite. The streets are mostly empty except for some children randomly walking past us to buy treats from the neighborhood store. We have come to interview some of their parents but we are told that they are still at work. They wouldn’t be home until after six o’clock, so we decide to watch a game at the village basketball court while waiting for them to arrive.
Tierra Verde Royale is a working-class community typical of a newly risen manufacturing town. It is a blue-collar neighborhood with small but sturdy-looking houses interspersed along narrow streets. The homeowners, mostly factory personnel and workers, are employed in the town’s dozen or so manufacturing facilities just a stone’s throw away from the village.
The village is part of a larger brace of communities that had sprouted in and around the General Trias area in recent years. The once sleepy town had morphed into the region’s industrial hub as it became host to the bulk of the country’s electronics manufacturing sector, which accounts for a large percentage of total Philippine exports. But with the global economic crisis hitting manufacturers hard in 2008, the town’s factories have seen big cutbacks and even outright closures in recent months. The village went into suspended disbelief, then in a state of flux as the number of laid off people grew.
So it wasn’t surprising that alarm bells sounded on a national scale when giant chipset maker Intel Corp. announced that it would be closing down its suburban manufacturing facility and retrenching most of its1,800 workers. This is because the output of Intel’s Philippine operations has accounted for over 30 percent of the country’s total electronics exports in recent years, and the prospect of a large chunk of its skilled workers getting thrown out of work posed a big quandary for both the local and the national governments.
Indeed, a significant portion of Tierra Verde’s residents are Intel employees. Most of them had become homeowners thanks to the company’s housing loan program, while the rest live in rented rooms or houses within the village. In any case, they had become well-settled in their lives and in their careers or line of work. So when the Entrepreneur team came to Tierra Verde to observe and report on the aftermath of Intel’s announcement, we half-expected to see a pall of gloom over the place and its neighboring communities. We had prepared ourselves to listen to stories of uncertainty, despair, even anger.
We couldn’t have been more wrong.
Last edited by smurky; 03-31-2009 at 11:07 PM.
***Retrenched and Thriving*** By Rafael Santos (part II)
HALF-EXPECTED
One of the first things you notice in the Tierra Verde neighborhood is not gloom at all but an evident sense of optimism. Indeed, the buzz among the village folk these days is about hefty separation packages, livelihood training programs, and new employment opportunities abroad. And this isn’t a case of people in a state of denial either; although most of the Intel employees wax sentimental over their factory’s imminent closure, they seem to look at their fate with a healthy dose of relief, even of quiet glee. It’s true that a couple of houses have been boarded up and for-rent signs have been put up among some of the vacant houses, but an undertone of excitement clearly can be sensed underneath Tierra Verde’s recent goings on.
It is early evening when we start talking to Ellen Ramos, 37 and mother of three, who was until recently a manufacturing supervisor at the Intel plant. An Intel veteran of 14 years, she had worked her way up from an entry-level job to middle manager in a traditionally male-dominated manufacturing job. Ramos had started working for Intel in 1994 when it was still based in Bangkal, Makati City, subsequently relocating to Cavite with her family when the company transferred to General Trias in 1996. Of course, since working in the factory had been part of her everyday routine for the last 12 years, she is deeply saddened by the company’s decision to close.
“I’ve been with Intel for the better part of my adult life, and I am sad to see it all go,” she says. “It’s been a part of me for so long that almost everything about me and my family has revolved around my association with Intel. It took me a while to get used to the idea of me not having a job anymore, but I have now learned to accept it.”
The Intel factory’s closure still surprised her somewhat although she had been hearing rumors of its imminent shutdown for the better part of 2007. She says her suspicions got heightened when Intel started distributing questionnaires in early 2008, which asked—among other things—questions about the future plans of each of the respondents.
She recalls: “There was this question that asked: If and when the company decides to give out early retirement packages, would we take it? That’s when I thought the layoffs were coming. Having said that, though, nobody could have guessed that the entire plant would be shut down, so I was really shocked when the announcement was made to that effect.”
One day late last year, she says, her shift—the Intel factory worked in three shifts of eight hours each—was called into the factory’s general assembly area. They were then divided into two groups: those who were to be retained were ushered into the recreation area, while those to be laid off were called to private rooms where managers were waiting for them. Ellen was part of the latter group. She was to be part of “P1,” the first batch to be laid off, consisting of more than a thousand other employees.
The shuttering of Intel’s local facility was generally viewed as a surprise move even if the company had actually been scaling down its Philippine operations for the past three years. In 2005, Intel made layoffs as it shifted some of its production lines to other company locations abroad. In 2007, after selling off its flash memory manufacturing division, the company shed 600 more jobs. The current layoffs will be done in four phases that will see a gradual shutdown of the facility until its final days by end-2009.
This closure will mark the end of Intel’s 35-year manufacturing engagement in the Philippines. The company will still retain its 30-person sales and marketing arm, but it will cease producing electronic components in the country and will instead import them from other sites elsewhere in the world. Not even a direct appeal from the Philippine government could sway the company’s management to reconsider this decision.
***Retrenched and Thriving*** By Rafael Santos (part III)
PAID LIVELIHOOD TRAINING
Jose Rico Hurano, 40, tells of a story similar to that of Ellen Ramos. Himself a 14-year Intel veteran, the one-time manufacturing supervisor was told in 2007 that 600 people were to be retrenched following the sale of Intel’s flash memory business to another company. As part of the manufacturing team for the product, Hurano was also let go.
He recalls: “At first you’re in a state of denial and shock. I and my wife, who also worked for Intel, were laid off at the same time. The first thought that went through my mind was about our family, because we have five children. To me it felt like I lost my alma mater.”
But as both Ramos and Hurano were to find out, Intel’s generous compensation package and free livelihood training for laid-off employees would bring a modicum of peace to their minds.
Alrita Narag, Intel’s corporate affairs manager, tells Entrepreneur that the company’s livelihood training program is a comprehensive measure aimed at giving employees options outside of the company. It is part of a system that the company calls Transition Change Management (TCM), which also involves counseling on how to deal with the impending layoffs.
She explains: “It’s a three-month training program that incorporates different modules. The options include cooking classes, entrepreneurship, financial planning—even call center training for those who want to go to the BPO sector after, and so much more. We also have a placement service in tandem with the government and other companies, and to help them in their job search, we will also give employees recommendation papers.”
The system goes like this: an employee who is laid off will be automatically enrolled in a livelihood training module of his or her choice. For the entire three-month training period, he or she will remain a paid employee of Intel, with the same benefits and privileges he or she used to enjoy. When they lost their jobs, in fact, Ramos and Hurano went through training programs similar to this.
After the training period, the employees will receive their remuneration packages from the company. Depending on the salary scale and length of service, a laid-off employee can get anywhere from a low of a six-figure amount to as high as a seven-figure amount.
For instance, Hurano, who used to earn an average of P30,000 a month as a manufacturing supervisor, took home a little over P1 million for 14 years of service to the company. His wife, an entry-level employee, took home more than P300,000. Although she declined to cite figures, Ellen Ramos says that she and Hurano were on the same pay scale, and given their equal years of service with Intel, she is likely to have received about the same amount.
***Retrenched and Thriving*** By Rafael Santos (part IV)
LIFE AFTER "INTEL"
When he was laid off, Hurano used some of his severance money for house repairs and for paying off some debts. He then set out to find new employment through online job postings. It was to no avail, though; in fact, he realized after a few months that it was hard for a person of his age to find a job, especially one in the electronics industry. “It was then that I decided to use what was left of the money to put up a business,” he says.
He bought a secondhand vehicle and converted it into a school bus, servicing a neighboring school attended by some of his children. In early 2008, he also ventured into a steel-fabrication business; this business is now gradually gaining some traction. On the side, he earns extra income by helping manage a restaurant business owned by his brother-in-law.
Hurano says that although his current monthly take is less than half of what he used to earn at Intel, he is slowly getting the hang of being an entrepreneur. He credits the training program Intel had given him as one of the reasons for his newfound entrepreneurial spirit. And although he continues to look for either a local or foreign job, he says he is going full blast with his businesses in the meantime.
“My businesses are a fallback option for me, and when I failed to land a job, they became the only option,” he explains. “Right now, the businesses are new and not earning a lot, but I have learned to be patient and to see opportunities along the way. My training and experience with Intel are also of help to me in being objective and in seeing things in a measured way, which I think a lot of people are not capable of doing.”
In contrast to Hurano, Ellen Ramos had long planned a life outside being an employee. In fact, along with five of her friends, she had previously invested some money to put up a local franchise of the Royale Business Club, a multilevel networking company. Thus, for the last couple of years, she had been earning extra money on top of being an Intel employee.
She recalls: “I started with RBC a couple of years ago and after a while, I started earning good money from the business. That was when I realized that I could possibly become an entrepreneur while staying employed. I had initially put up P250,000 with five other people to acquire an RBS franchise, and it has been doing well ever since.”
To find time to pursue her sideline, Ramos had started taking advantage of Intel’s compressed workweek program. Instead of working seven days a week, she would take prolonged three-day shifts so she could take the rest of the week off to take care of her business. She eventually became such a seasoned RBC saleswoman that she started garnering awards from the franchiser. She thus had more than prepared herself for a life outside of Intel when the layoffs came.
“When I got the news that I was losing my job, I saw it as an opportunity to go into business full time,” she says. “I was actually preparing for an eventual business career after Intel, but although it came sooner than I expected, I welcomed it as a challenge. Now, I could also have more time for my children and be a home-based entrepreneur besides.”
Ramos, who had earned her MBA as an Intel scholar, allotted P250,000 for each of her three children, then used the balance of her severance pay to increase her share in the RBC franchise and to buy a service vehicle. She intends to rent out the service vehicle for ferrying employees of a nearby semiconductor facility to and from their houses in Tierra Verde.
A LUCKY BUNCH
Ellen Ramos and Jose Rico Hurano are among just a small segment of former Intel employees who have become owners of small businesses. Rather than become entrepreneurs, most of the laid-off employees had opted to take on other local jobs or migrate abroad. And they took widely different routes in using their severance pay from Intel.
Some of the ex-Intel employees interviewed by Entrepreneur are having their houses fixed, others are buying new or better cars, and the rest have put their cash in the bank until they could figure out what to do with it. But all of them are one in saying that the money might well be the last substantial amount they will get their hands on, and most are keen on making it last for as long as they can.
“I was really careful where I put the money because it might be a while before I see this much money again,” Hurano says. “I studied my investment decisions carefully and made sure not to put all my eggs in one basket. But then there’s always some risk in business, so I take everything as it comes.”
These Intel employees are well-advised in this cautious and prudent approach to the use of their severance packages. In 2005, a group of former Intel employees were bilked by unscrupulous people who had sold them counterfeit cellular phone cards. The scam lopped off a significant chunk of their severance packages, and most of those victimized were unable to recover from the blow.
Hurano says this is why Intel employees are now very vigilant against scams and have become more protective of their money. “It’s our hard-earned money, so my wife and I will try to stretch it as far as we can and see where we can best use it for earning our livelihood,” he says.
Ramos says that for her part, she plans to roll over the money into her franchise business and use it to eventually branch out into other ventures. She was originally set to immigrate to Canada with her family, but she is now having second thoughts about it now that her business is proving to be a viable income source.
“For me, the adjustment has been mostly on this aspect: receiving a fixed income as an employee before, and getting used to delayed gratification now that I am in business,” she says. “This experience has taught me how to budget better and to plan our family spending better. Right now, I have a good enough income to help the family sustain our lifestyle, and I believe that if I persevere with my business, my hard work will eventually pay off.”
Despite losing their jobs, most of the Intel employees interviewed by Entrepreneur feel lucky that their company has accorded them a “generous treatment” in the form of handsome severance packages. They point out that some of those laid off by neighboring factories were only given one month’s salary and no additional benefits at all.
Intel’s Arlita Narag explains the rationale for the generous severance packages: “We have always been committed to giving our employees the best treatment possible. As employees ourselves, we couldn’t be more satisfied with what the company has done for us. The training programs and scholarships they offered helped a lot of us over the years, and we appreciate the service our fellow employees have given to the company. So the company feels that it’s just right for employees to receive the treatment they deserve.”
The Entrepreneur team concludes the Tierra Verde coverage with a visit to Jose Rico Hurano’s metal shop, which happens to be closed for the day. Hurano says the keys are with the shop foreman, who is away installing a brand-new gate for a client. He is visibly flustered for having missed the chance to be photographed by Entrepreneur in his new shop—“for marketing purposes,” he says. He invites us to come back some other time, and we promise to do so after a few months to check on the progress of his post-Intel business.
APRIL 2009
***Trade it away*** By Rafael Santos
(Instead of languishing in a warehouse, try bartering your excess goods)
Startup entrepreneur Joyce Urieta, 24, put up a pioneering business in 2008 the hard way, with no benchmarks whatsoever for marketing, financial feasibility, and even management style. Her company, the Philippine Barter Trading Systems Inc. (Philbarter), began to offer cashless product exchange services to local companies through a fully automated online transaction service. The idea was for the companies to exchange goods and services with one another on a product-to-product basis without shelling out any cash. As she was soon to discover, however, her youth and inexperience would be stumbling blocks to getting the business off the ground.
Recalls Urieta: “The multilateral barter industry being entirely new in the Philippines, setting the own ground rules for it definitely became a big challenge to us. We had to do everything on a trial-and-error basis.”
Philbarter’s problems were compounded by the strong reluctance of local companies to try out its concept of moving goods and services. Unlike in more developed countries like Singapore where trade bartering had been in vogue for quite sometime now, there was hardly any awareness and interest in barter service in the local market.
“Despite our continuing efforts to educate people, convincing companies to become members of Philbarter has been a slow process,” Urieta admits. “We currently have only 35 members in Philbarter, and we are working hard to increase this to at least 100 members from all industry sectors by the end of 2009.”
In more concrete terms, what PhilBarter is trying to achieve is to convince businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises, to use its business-to-business (B2B) barter trading system to gain incremental revenue from their empty restaurant tables, vacant airline seats, blank media spaces, or unused hotel and function rooms as well as to better leverage their doubtful assets, unwanted stocks, and inventory. For this service, Philbarter charges a transaction fee of 6 percent both buyer and seller inclusive of VAT, along with a one-time P10,000 membership fee that already covers the fee for the first transaction.
Recently, Urieta’s business idea caught the attention of businessman Timmy Tan, the youngest son of tycoon Lucio Tan. Seeing the strong potential of Philbarter’s business concept in the midst of the global financial crisis, the younger Tan bought a majority stake in the company and is now helping Urieta run its day-to-day operations.
“There will be less consumer spending at this time and companies will be hard pressed to move their goods,” Timmy Tan says. “So, instead of them having excess inventory that’s wasting away in stockrooms, we are offering them the opportunity to make use of those inventory in exchange for products and services that other companies can provide. It’s a win-win solution for both buyer and seller.”
Urieta sees Tan’s entry as a truly welcome development, one that will help Philbarter gain even more credibility. She also expects Tan’s wide business connections and experience to contribute greatly to Philbarter’s growth.
“Even a good business concept will remain just a concept unless it’s executed well,” Urieta says. “This is why I look forward to working and learning from Timmy Tan, who I’m sure will be such a great asset to the company. We both strongly believe in Philbarter and we plan to keep going and learning together along the way.”
CONTACT DETAILS:
PHILIPPINE BARTER TRADING SYSTEMS INC.
Unit 1204, Antel 2000 Corporate Center
121 Valero St., Salcedo Village, Makati City
Telephone: (02) 885-0506
E-mail: info@philippinebarter.com
Website: Welcome to Philippine Barter
Sept 2008
***Campus entrepreneurs*** By Lalah M. Varias
(Set up originally in a university campus, Blue Chip Designs now operates independently and outside the school premises providing IT services)
With mostly talent and just a little money, professors can become entrepreneurs, too.
Four Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) professors—Dr. Rosula Reyes, Noel Patron, Carlos Oppus, and Jose Claro Monje who all teach at the university’s electronics and computer engineering department—have put up a company that provides integrated hardware and software solutions to both in-campus and outside clients. The company, Blue Chip Designs Inc., started as a research and development venture of the department in the design of computer hardware, software, and firmware.
“We only had our talent, and we were lucky that we were able to start the company with only a little money,“ says Dr. Reyes, the company’s chief operating officer.
The group’s first major project in 2002 involved the development of a controller for a thermal printer so it can produce erasable printouts as well as firmware for its microprocessor and Windows printer driver. Since then, a company has been asking them to develop controllers for different specifications and applications.
This was followed in 2004 by their creation of software for a portable ECG (electrocardiogram) machine. Reyes explains the innovation: “An American company developed the hardware, but their machine couldn’t transfer data into a PC. The hardware only recorded the ECG signal, but it did not give any reading. Our software enabled it to do that.”
In 2003, seeing the growing demand for its R&D services, the group incorporated Blue Chip Designs, but all four ran the company at the Ateneo department. This was because by being housed at the department, the company’s overhead expenses were very minimal, and they were also receiving compensation from the university as research consultants. “Of the amount remitted to us as consultants, 30 percent was going to ADMU,” Reyes explains. “That percentage was actually equivalent to renting the space in the department.”
The incorporation of Blue Chip Designs required them to open a bank account with P6,250, which was 1/16 of the company’s total authorized capitalization of P100,000.
Two years later, in 2005, the company moved out of the Ateneo campus and established an office along Loyola Heights in Quezon City independent from the university. This allowed the four, who still teach at the Ateneo, to properly entertain their increasing number of clients who were not from the university. “You just cannot allow people to come in and out of the department if they are not connected with the university,” says Reyes.
This time, the group increased the authorized capitalization of Blue Chip Designs to P1 million, thus enabling the company to buy computers and pay for its office rentals one year in advance.
Currently, the company continues to serve clients they had acquired back when they were still with the university. Reyes says that the secret to maintaining clients is keeping your promises. “If you can deliver, clients would stick with you,” she adds.
A major client of Blue Chip gives them several projects at a time; in fact, it has appointed the company as its research and development arm, handling all software and firmware needs for color printers, point card printers, and finger and print scanners.
Blue Chip currently has 11 personnel, including the four owners. Most of its projects are for foreign companies but it has put up another company, Bughaw Electronic Solution & Technologies Inc., to cater to the needs of local companies.
CONTACT DETAILS
BLUE CHIP DESIGNS INC.
Unit 302 Xanland Place Condominium
323 Katipunan Avenue,
Loyola Heights, Quezon City
Telephone: (02) 425-1133
E-mail: feedback@ bcdph.com
Website: www.bcdph.com
April 2009
***Mystery shopper*** By Rafael Santos
(Shopaholics can yet earn from their pastime)
It’s no secret that Filipinos love to shop, as evidenced by the tens of thousands of people who troop to the country’s malls and other shopping centers every day. But while practically all of them have to shell out some hard-earned cash to do their shopping, there’s one type of shopper who not only gets paid but gets freebies as well when engaging in it—the mystery shopper.
Mystery shopping is a tool used by market research companies to measure the quality of service of a retail establishment and that of its competition as well as to gather specific information about products and services being sold in the market. Mystery shoppers posing as regular customers perform such tasks as purchasing a product, asking questions, registering complaints, or behaving as a shopper in a certain way—then provide detailed reports or feedback about their experience.
One local company engaged in the mystery-shopping service is the business consulting firm John Clements Consultants. According to Carolyn Uy, sales director of Shop’n Check Philippines, a division of the consultancy firm, the opportunities for mystery-shopping jobs are on the upswing as more companies focus on improving the quality of their products and services. (Shop’n Check is a licensee of the US-based Shop’n Check group, which has been in the mystery shopping business since 1996.)
Uy explains the service: “The Shop’n Check mystery shopping program is a specific and focused market research tool that is custom-made for our clients based on their needs and objectives. We usually design 30-item questionnaires for a particular client. Our mystery shopper fills them out after shopping in a target establishment.”
She says that mystery shoppers go through a rigorous screening process, with background checks on their work history, education, and personal references. Currently, 63 percent of the mystery shoppers of Shop’n Check Philippines are female.
“At the moment, we have around 2,000 mystery shoppers spread across the Philippines, and they typically earn from P300 to as high as P2,000 per shop,” she says. “It’s strictly a part-time job, and we prefer people who can work under flexible time schedules because ‘shop’ schedules differ from one establishment to another.”
Shop’n Check Philippines accepts e-mailed applications from prospective mystery shoppers through the company’s website or through referrals by its current mystery shoppers. Pre-screened applicants are subjected to a competency test, and if selected, need to undergo a one-day training program on effective shopping.
Uy explains: “Applicants are screened and rated in several critical areas: attention to detail, ability to follow instructions, demographic detail to determine accounts they can handle, and job history. We take this last into account to eliminate biased or over-critical opinions that we sometimes encounter if the shopper is from the same industry as the establishment being tested.”
CONTACT DETAILS:
SHOP’N CHECK PHILIPPINES
2/F RCI Bldg. 105 Rada St. Makati City
Telephone: (02) 810-9201
Website: www.shopncheck.com or John Clements Consultants, Inc.
March 2009
***10 tips to beat the crisis*** by: Lissa G. Romero
(Find opportunity where others only see difficulty)
With the world going through another financial crisis, the cartoon of a chicken screaming “The sky is falling!” is in vogue again. But businessmen don’t have to act like a panicked fowl in times like this.
Four entrepreneurs interviewed for this report— Brian Quebengco of the industrial design firm Inovent Inc., Dondon Atayde of the events company Wishcraft, Richard Cruz of the real-estate consulting company INSPIRE, and Jonathan Dee of Alliance Tuna International Inc.—all agree that instead of yielding to the stress caused by economic instability, SME owners and operators should see the situation as a challenge for their businesses to do even better under great pressure.
(10 tips to beat the crisis)
1. Know your strengths
Quebengco: “A strength is an activity or talent that makes you feel good while you are doing it, and leaves you energized after,” he explains. “A weakness, on the other hand, leaves you stressed out and tired. Instead of trying to DIY [do it yourself], you need to get partners who are strong where you are weak. You need to build a strong team.”
Cruz: “Instead of spreading the resources of the company thinly, go back to your strengths as a company and focus your resources there,” he explains
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