Best of the Situation

I Touched Manila Bay

2011-03-09T05:59:00.000-08:00

I touched the untouchable -- Manila Bay. As a rower in the Dragon Boat Regatta 2011 held on Sunday, 6 March 2011. Organized by the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation, over 100 rowers and thousands of viewers were there.

This was a chance for many to see how beautiful Manila Bay is and how beautiful it can be if restored to its old glory. I row to touch it. To see it. And, in my own small way, send a message. That is, make it touchable again.

Rerum Novarum

2011-03-08T04:08:00.000-08:00

I was invited by the UST College of Commerce and Business Administration as guest lecturer for the 17th Pope Leo XIII lecture series on March 1, 2011. The topic was about "Illuminating the Business World Through the Social Teachings of the Church" with Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum.

It was a challenging lecture. I used Dr. Paul Dumol's thesis on Civil Society to contextualize Pope Leo XIII's encyclical on capital and labor. To present applications in the present environment, I used several contemporary business cases including those of Ortigas & Company and Cebu Pacific. I have to thank Paul for allowing me to use his framework on civil society as needed, my favorite Department Chair Paula Bautista-Tiongco for recommending me, and Dean Ma. Socorro P. Calara for selecting me as guest lecturer for the 17th Pope Leo XIII lecture series. Big thanks to Joanie Ipili who helped me conceptualize and write the lecture, and to Tyrone Cimfranca, an ex SVD, for giving me a hint on where to get materials on Pope Leo XIII's encyclicals.

Rather than publish what I lectured, allow me to present selected photos.

Baywalk Walk

2011-01-15T18:07:00.000-08:00

Took a quiet walk along the Baywalk in Manila early morning Sunday, 16 January. Some interesting finds.

The Green Biker. Best bike design. Best costume.

More green bikes.
Shades at P40 per piece, any brand. With a matching cleaner and plastic case. I bought one which I liked. The lady entrepreneur promised she will be around Valentine's day. No fail. I promised her I will promote her products.
Spa for the dog and the dog owner.

I think I will take that walk again. I missed buying bike shirts for P170 per shirt.

Elitist PBA: A Distribution Blunder

2011-01-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

I decided to watch PBA games again. Good timing. As of this writing, the elimination games have started to determine the two teams that will collide in the finals.

Frankly, I was disappointed.

Not with the teams that are playing in the elimination round. The four teams are B-Meg, Talk and Text, San Miguel and Ginebra San Miguel. These four teams have a good mix of players. All teams have excellent playing systems. The games I recently watched attest to that.

Not with the venue. Playing venue is the Araneta Coliseum, probably the best venue for basketball games and other big events. The last time I watched, the coliseum boasted of a four-sided LED posted at the center. With this LED, you will never miss what you see on TV even as you watch the games live.

Not with the food. Within and outside the coliseum are the best restaurants and outlets. Some of them are my favorites. Gateway is just a walk away. At the second floor, the Coliseum is connected by a bridge to the Farmers Market which has a good selection of food outlets.

Why then?

First, ticket sales or the way tickets are sold to the general public. The manner tickets are distributed or shared to the public. All upper box, patron and ringside tickets are distributed to team members. What are left to the general public are the lower box and general admission tickets with no designated seating.

The last three games I was at the coliseum, the upper box and general sections were crowded, filled to capacity. Many of the PBA fans had to suffer watching the games standing. In the last game, I had to leave the coliseum at half time during the exciting Ginebra-San Miguel game because I could not stand any longer. When I looked down at the lower box, patron and ringside sections, there were many empty seats. Perhaps, recipients of the tickets decided not to watch or were just not basketball enthusiasts.

To put it bluntly, this ticket distribution system is a blunder. It isolates PBA from the general viewing public. Worst, it makes PBA elitist. No way I will go back to the coliseum to watch the games standing.

Second, there was no attempt to manage seat capacity or to implement a revenue management system. Ordinarily, like in airlines and restaurants, some guests are upgraded to re-distribute capacity, sometimes for free and sometimes for a fee which generates additional revenues.

The absence of an initiative to re-distribute seat capacity suggests an elitist policy. As usual, the general public suffers or have to bear the consequences.

Excellence

2010-11-14T03:06:00.000-08:00

(Speech delivered as Chief Guest of the Sri Lanka Marketing Institute during the 2010 Effie Awards held in Colombo, Sri Lanka)

I bring you greetings from the Philippines and from my association the Philippine Marketing Association (PMA).

When I read the invitation of SLIM President Rohan Somawansa, I did not hesitate to accept. I cleared up my schedule and went on to book the flight. Earlier this year, I invited all national marketing association members of the Asia Marketing Federation to attend the PMA National Marketing Conference (NMC). Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM), through Rohan, was the first to accept. Rohan even volunteered to bring along a super speaker from Sri Lanka. And he did.

SLIM has always responded to our invitation to attend our national and world conferences. I would like to think that the PMA should do no less and respond to SLIM’s invitation. SLIM and the PMA have developed this unwritten partnership based on mutual interests and objective. SLIM and PMA members have also developed close ties and friendship. You can consider SLIM and PMA as one tiny block in the Asian Marketing Federation. I believe that our countries share similar problems and circumstances.

Moreover, SLIM and the PMA have similar mission and vision. Founded in 1970 and subsequently incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1980, SLIM has been promoting marketing and elevating the status of marketing in Sri Lanka. The PMA’s mission is to develop and promote Marketing as a science and profession guided by the universal principles of ethics, corporate citizenship and social responsibility and to serve as a policy making and recommendatory arm of the government on Marketing related issues

SLIM’s vision is to establish marketing as the driving force, which enhances business and national value. PMA’s vision is to create awareness on the power of marketing in business, industry and the academe, both here and abroad. The PMA's theme this year is “Marketing as Growth Accelerator.” Marketing as a growth accelerator advances the idea that the discipline of marketing is a superior approach towards sustainable corporate growth and profitability. The frameworks that are found in marketing are essentially the prescription for sustainable growth and profitability.

SLIM and the PMA are active members of the Asia Marketing Federation, and, by virtue of the affiliation, are both associated with the World Marketing Association, and UN Global Compact.

As active promoters of the art and science of marketing and as practitioners, SLIM and the PMA subscribe to the basic tenets of best practices in marketing and change management through customer and market understanding.

We just attended the Board of Management meeting of the AMF on November 4 and 5 in Tokyo. In that meeting, we reaffirmed the growing importance of the Asian region in the global economy. Two of the top three global economies come from our region. It is also expected that very soon, China will become the global leader and the biggest economy in the world. It will be this region and many countries in this region where economic growth will be sustained.

In Tokyo, SLIM and PMA attended a global conference organized by the AMF and Japan Marketing Association. Two distinguished scholars and writers presented their thesis about the role of marketing in development and the future of marketing as a driver for growth. Professor Hyun-Chul Kim of Seoul University outlined the accomplishments of Korea and what it did to rise above the difficulties brought about by the global crisis and become a world competitor. Hermawan Kartajaya, considered as one of the top 50 marketing gurus in the world, presented what marketing should and will be in the future and the importance of change in driving economic growth.

From these discussions, I realized that the changes driving economic growth in Asia are essentially market-driven and rooted on the successful applications of the latest principles of marketing. On the other hand, the principles that are dictating the type of marketing strategies are evolving. I consider Marketing's dynamism and its propensity to change and evolve as the elements that make marketing an important driver of corporate growth and profitability.

Such significance can only surface by recognizing the role of marketing in driving institutional growth and success. The Effie Awards, a global awards scheme which selects the most effective advertising campaigns that have excelled at the national and international levels, provide such recognition. Through these Awards, SLIM promotes best practices in the advertising industry. It is also through these awards that SLIM is able to provide industry and government with guidelines for driving growth. This is consistent with SLIM’s mission of being an active leader in the nation’s efforts towards economic prosperity and SLIM’s vision of establishing marketing as the driving force to create business and national value.

In that session, I also realized that the world does not stand still. In the 1960s and 1970s, South Korea was at the lower end of the list of countries in terms of economic development. Indonesia was very parochial and had very few executives that could be considered as global thought leaders. But lo and behold, Japanese top executives attended the session and listened to a Korean professor and an Indonesian marketing consultant.

I congratulate Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) for carrying the torch of excellence in marketing through the Effie Awards. These awards are very significant not only to the marketing profession in Sri Lanka but also to the members of the Asian Marketing Federation (AMF) of which SLIM and PMA are members.

Let me also congratulate the awardees, the epitome of excellence and considered the best of the best and the most effective MARCOM Campaigns in 2010.

disaggregated pricing (part 2)

2010-10-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

When my kumpadre Ed Tiambeng, a seasoned traveler, was penalized for re-booking his flight to Tacloban even if it was one week ahead of the original schedule, he got smoldering mad. From the smoke of madness, he came up with a not-so-bright idea of calling his congressman to propose a bill that will ban penalties for rebooking if the ticket was rebooked at least two days before the flight.

It is a not-so-bright idea because the same rule will apply to all airlines. The airline with the advantage will still keep that advantage no matter how small that is. It is also not certain if government will have the facilities and ability to regulate this option.

Michel Roberts, my favorite strategist, argues that a market leader would always have the advantage if what the competitors did was merely to try to out-compete the market leader. If they exploit the weakness, if there is any, the market leader would have the size and muscle to adjust and overcome the weakness. If they compete head-on focusing on the strength, there is just no way that the market leader would lose. Roberts consider the SWOT approach as irrelevant for this reason.

Herbert Hoover, the 31^st president of the United States servicing from 1929 to 1932, advocated and pushed for efficiency management. That framework suggests that government is inefficient and should be less visible in sectors where the private sector is capable of producing the desired capacity. He favored a strong government and private partnership. For all his failures at the onset of the great depression, Hoover presented a solid governance principle. We should not allow government to spread its tentacles.

Instead of seeking for a legislative initiative, competitors should consider this failing as an opportunity to create its own arena of competition. It is possible that Cebu Pacific’s system was designed to support the disaggregated pricing. No Board would ever support the mothballing of a huge investment based on a speculative notion. My best guess is that the Board will vote to sustain that strategy if it comes to that. On the other hand, other airlines can easily sway to a new system with less complication and with nothing to lose. If they do, they have my attention and my money.

One possibility is for other airlines to create a system that will credit delays in flights to penalties for rebooking. This approach has two benefits. First, it would endear the airline to passengers who have suffered so much from the disaggregated pricing scheme. Second, it puts some credibility in the airline’s mouthful of promises.

A more radical approach is the pizza approach. Pizza not delivered on time becomes free. Passengers pay only if the flight leaves and arrives on time. Passengers pay 50% once the plane departs on time. The balance is payable on arrival according to on-time performance. Hah, that would be one super strategy. Of course, the only way this may be implemented is if the system supports it. If an airline has a working system in place that supports a different approach, like Cebu Pacific, it would take more than a normal effort to calibrate if at all that is possible. If none or a different one exists, that airline is more flexible.

If you have other ideas, email to abfontanilla@yahoo.com.

disaggregated pricing

2010-10-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, air travel, both domestic and overseas, was associated with excellent in flight service. Airlines then served good food, provided newspapers, had user-friendly booking and re-booking services, and maintained a ticketing system that was quite elaborate and service oriented. I recall that in that setup, all costs were paid up front. It was designed to cater to the business travelers who were considered more discriminating and demanding. Calibrating the services to what business travelers expected set the standards for air travel. And that was one super standard.

To keep operations viable, airlines front loaded the airfare to include all these amenities and expected services even if on some occasions these services were actually not utilized. Front loading the airfare, or what I call aggregated pricing, is based on the assumption that air travel needed to be comfortable and compensate for the stress related to air travel. It was also based on the assumption that air travelers were faced with imperfect conditions such as scheduling and carry-on baggage. Because of the front loaded airfare, the cost of air travel appeared somewhat prohibitive to many travelers. Many took to other travel modes such as land and sea travel. Back then, air travel, sea travel and land travel co-existed and were not threats to each other.

Cebu Pacific reinvented air travel in the Philippines. It disaggregated airline services and prices by cutting the air fare to its basic minimum. Cebu Pacific even ventured to sell seats at very attractive promo rates to fill up the capacity during months when travel was expected to be at its lowest. Components of the air fare such as food, newspaper, re-booking, check-in baggage, insurance and other items were disaggregated and charged only on demand of the specific service. I call this disaggregated pricing, the opposite of aggregated pricing. Cebu Pacific compensated for the scaled down services with in flight entertainment courtesy of the flight crew at no additional cost to the airline.

Disaggregated pricing is a form of radical pricing but quite different from the radicalized pricing strategies adopted by successful ventures such as Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia which provide the basic service and earn revenues from volunteered payments and democratized options. The strategy must have been successful for Cebu Pacific. It now claims to be the number one airline in terms of passengers flown and has aggressively added capacity through the years.

The strategy employed by Cebu Pacific also restructured the travel industry. Sea and land travelers saw the economics of disaggregated pricing and started traveling by air. Employees and students who in the past could not afford to travel domestically and overseas found the upfront and downloaded cost low enough to travel. My employees have pre-booked their flights way ahead and have been traveling at least twice a year to local and overseas destinations. Domestic tourism improved. Even travel to overseas destinations covered by the pricing strategy increased.

Disaggregated pricing had many social and market benefits. It was a good strategy. I thought so too until the realities of imperfect information started setting in.

My meetings in Cebu and Catbalogan on October 21 and 22 were cancelled right after I booked my flights online. It was too late to cancel or re-book the flights so I decided to go ahead with the trip by setting other appointments. Since the original flight back to Manila was two days later, I was able rebook that flight from October 23 to October 29. Well, for that rebooking, I paid a penalty of P934. On the way to Tacloban airport on October 23, I realized that I rebooked the flight to October 29 and did not change the flight back to Manila to October 23. Good thing, seats were available. I had to pay an additional P1,500.

For that multiple destination from Manila to Cebu to Tacloban to Manila, I had to pay a total of P9,606.56 or around US$223.41. While the basic fare was only P5,494, I had to pay taxes and fees of P696.76, web administration fee of P106, travel insurance of P720, seat reservation of P224, SMS reminder of P5, security aviation fee of P15, and total penalty of P2,440.80. That was a lot of money for a local trip with only three stops. No newspaper. No food. Only cheap live entertainment from the flight crew.

So, is the disaggregated costing less costly? Not quite. Next time you book, check all the details.

The Pinoy Dream

2010-07-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

(Delivered during the Philippine Junior Marketing Association's 2010 Governor’s Pulong on 19 June 2010 at the Southville Foreign University Auditorium)

Let me echo the proposition of Dr. Paul Dumol -- that common dream is for the Philippines to become truly a nation. A nation, according to Dumol, is a community of responsible citizens who deeply love their country. Following this definition, he says that the Philippines is not yet a nation.

It is a nation in progress. This argument, which I consider a breakthrough in development administration, successfully paraphrases the struggles and pitfalls of Philippine development or underdevelopment. As a nation in progress, the Filipinos are in various stages of developmental maturity. Some have embraced the concept of nationhood. They manifest a commitment to the common good.

Gawad Kalinga founder and Ramon Magsaysay awardee Tony Meloto is an example of a Filipino committed to the common good. His dream is to build homes for the homeless and to provide a community for those seeking to find one. Efren Penaflorida, a hero in my book, is another Filipino committed to the common good. He took the responsibility of educating street children through his mobile classroom. He knew that education will liberate these children from the bondage of poverty.

However, there are many more amongst us who stay at the level of regions. They are committed to the goals of their respective regions. That attachment is so strong that it is often mistaken as a sentiment for the common good. In countries where there are many overseas Filipinos, we see multiple regional blocks.

In Chicago where my brother lives, he is a member the Quezonians. He is also a member of a group of Filipinos born and raised in Lucena which is a part of Quezon. There are associations of Kapampangans, Ilokanos, and many more ethnic groups. In the last election, among the party list winners are ethnic groups – Ako ay Boholano, Ako ay Ilokano – overshadowing marginalized groups. When the President of the country comes from one particular region, many of the political appointees will almost certainly come from the same region regardless of qualification.

Still many others are at the level of towns, cities or provinces. Their loyalty, behavior and engagements focus on hometown traditions and aspirations. Everything else remains abstract or insignificant. Thus, we find many overseas workers expediently associating with town mates but with little interest in networking with other Filipinos.

I often hear about this story that when Boholanos apply for a visa, chances are that they would get one. Because it is well known that Boholanos would always go back home to attend their town fiesta. I have not heard of that same passion and commitment to visit the Philippines on Freedom Day or on important national events. There are still those who are at the level of communities or barangays. They are very clannish. Very supportive of the family and the community where they live. Outside of this enclave, they break the rules. Family and business interests define social and political standards. Anything outside these interests is inconsequential.

When the common good is at stake, citizens tend to behave according to the patterns symmetrical to their level of developmental maturity. Dumol says that there is nothing wrong with this natural progression. From family, to a community, to a town, to a province, to a region and then to a nation. After all, one cannot love a country if he or she does not love the region. One cannot love a region if he or she does not love the province.

This natural progression is, in its rawness, time dependent. Like wine, it has to age according to a time-related pattern. We are A NATION YET IN PROGRESS. Not there yet. But on our way there. The questions that beg to be answered are: Where are we on the road to nationhood? How long will it take for us to become a nation? Dumol’s best estimate, if we don’t do anything, is that it will take at least four more generations for the Philippines to become truly a nation.

It does not mean, however, that the velocity of developmental maturity remains a function of fate. It is possible to intervene and hasten the process of maturity. This is what happened in Singapore, Malaysia and other relatively young countries that are now more developed.

Ordinarily, we see these expressions of developmental maturity when there is a crisis or call for action that demands concern for the common good. At the onset of the 1997 crisis, Koreans lined up to donate their jewelries to forestall a national crisis. Even if it was only a masterful attempt to camouflage mistakes of the past, it demonstrated concern for the common good.

I met an Indonesian, considered the second most powerful person in Indonesia, who left his high-paying job in a big corporation to spearhead the rebuilding of Aceh after it was devastated by a natural disaster. He considered it as a responsibility and a calling. Today, he heads the performance governance team that orchestrates the performance of the bureaucracy.

Sometimes, we also see these expressions in the form of a natural outburst of love for country. Artists Edd Aragon, who is based in Australia, directed me to PinoyCentric, a web site styled precisely to express that pinoyness – respect and love for whatever is Filipino. PinoyCentric is “a Chicago-based but Pinas-grounded arts, culture and appropriate sciences web publication providing features and information about Filipinos worldwide.

The staff of contributors is made up of Filipinos and friends with diverse backgrounds brought together by our roots in the old country, a spirit of creativity, adventure and a desire to share our stories.” It invites readers to look at this creative intersection as a celebration of the resiliency and success of Filipinos wherever destiny brings them to shake off the fault of our political system. PinoyCentric demonstrates that feeling which is distinctly native, naturally pinoy – an outburst of love for country. The tagline “Pinoy Centric: All things brown” says it all.

Perhaps, we can learn from Pinoy artists who have a way of digging deep into their ethnic roots to create new patterns, new ideas. If we can find enough of these expressions, we may discover that nationhood is probably just around the bend, not three or four generations away as suggested by Dumol. I see that same expression in your theme “A Filipino Legacy” and in the way that you creatively articulated your theme. For this, I congratulate you. But it must not end with a theme and a poster. That expression must be translated into action.

This is the challenge that I would like to present to this forum – to find an expression or expressions that will help in our journey towards nationhood. Every bit of expression helps. We are at the edge of the current generation of baby boomers. This is a generation that had been at the forefront of a tremendous economic growth and technological changes.

About to replace that generation is the generation Y or Z – that is you. Bruce Tulgan (2009) describes the GenY as being “more difficult to recruit, retain, motivate and manage than any other generation to enter the workforce.”

But this will also be the most high-performing workforce in history for those who know how to manage them. I cannot tell you why. You have to tell me why. I think you know. Being at the edge of a major shift in generational leadership, you inherited the responsibility of transforming this nation from a tailender in growth and social development to a leader.

You have the confidence. Connectedness. The advantage of technology. Global awareness and exposure. And the tools for creating an impact. I challenge this forum to find an expression that will fuel the Filipinos’ love for their country. What would such an expression be, you may ask? May I propose some possible avenues for such an expression.

First, Promote the Rule of Law Be involved in promoting values that emphasize the importance of the rule of law. About a year ago, I was part of a group that went to participate in a session that defined the vision of a Southern City. One of the participants was the author of a book “12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do To Help Our Country.”

After hearing him speak and elaborate on what he wrote in the book, I was just so amazed to realize that, indeed, little things mean a lot. To those who grew up in this environment, you will find some of these little things quite amusing or even comical. For example, his first recommendation is for us to follow traffic rules. One of the required readings in Apologetics in the Seminary is the book “To Each His Own.” That is precisely what traffic is like in the Philippines.

Yesterday afternoon, I was driving along Quirino Avenue coming from Philippine Christian University on my way to the office in Makati. All of a sudden, a young boy, probably in first grade, zoomed to the front of the car barely missing the bumper of my car. I cannot blame this little boy. This is what sees every day.

Now that school days are back, so is double or triple parking and needless violation of traffic rules. These things happen, and I am sorry to say, in schools. Drivers double park on the street waiting for the senoritos to step out of the gate and straight to the car. No waiting time. It takes commitment, dedication, a deep sense of patriotism and a life of Christian values to be able to follow traffic laws.

Benjamin Franklin said that “the best way to build a dream is by attending to the little things that comprise it. Its foundation is in the little details; its beauty in the fine points.”

Second, help build a better image for the Filipinos: I have always wondered how the Filipino is looked upon in the global world. I have heard of many stories. But it takes one’s own experience to formulate a picture of the Filipino in this globalized world. Let me mention five based on my own personal experiences.

First, the Filipino as a traveler and security risk. You find a Filipino wherever you go. This is a 20^th century spectacle. Travel trends indicate that this will continue to be so in the 21^st century. Filipino travelers are generally labeled as a security risk. There are many anecdotes on this tag. I have personally experienced this special treatment everywhere: in America, in Asia and in Australia. Unfortunately, that tag seems to be at work in the Philippines as well. Putting on a blazer and a fancy hat does not change this tagging a bit.

Second, the Filipino as a good singer and nothing else. I am proud of one part of this label. It is distinctive. We share this distinction with very few ethnics in the world. Sadly, it is the only thing that stands out in the minds of business colleagues and friends from other countries. After business meetings, when we break for dinner or cocktails, the microphone is passed on to me, with everybody, from the Koreans to the Europeans, expecting me to deliver a grand performance.

Third, the Filipino as a good worker but low-wage earner. This is puzzling to me. The world demand for talent exists. There are few ethnics that can match the resiliency and patience of the Filipino worker. I could never imagine a two- or three-job rotation. But many Filipinos, in countries where the demand for workers is high, willingly take two to three jobs a day. They work hard throughout that rotation every day and every hour of the day. Despite all that, the Filipino is, generally and arguably, known to receive lower wages. While the average family income of Filipinos in the U.S. is above average, a job-for-job comparison suggests that the salary can improve.

Fourth, the Filipino as an entrepreneur but low-tech. I am sure this is image-driven. But image has a reality of its own. This is how we are normally positioned in the minds of business people from other countries. We populate the web with business inquiries. We compete with many countries in clogging the web space. In my industry, we are ahead of most countries in requests for evaluation copies and samples. But we stand dead last in implementation.

Fifth, the Filipinos as hospitable people but undeserving of a visit. I have represented an American company in the Philippines for the last 15 years. Each year, we have Asian and World meetings. Each year, a poll is conducted to determine site preferences. The Philippines is never ever mentioned. The Filipino as an international host no longer exists in the minds of business people: An airport that needs improvement. Convention centers that do not meet world standards. Traffic and pollution. Poor time management. These are some top-of-mind remarks.

The Filipino, in a global economy, has to be purposely repackaged. There must be a conscious effort to determine how we are viewed by stakeholders around the world and to re-engineer the Filipino image. The first step is to validate what it is that sticks in the mind of people around the world and put these into some kind of an actionable framework. Image is a powerful differentiator. The second step is for all of us to rise above these limitations and create a new Filipino image.

Third, participate in socially responsible enterprise development

According to Paul Zane Pilzer, a noted writer and economists, individuals will take the responsibility and receive the rewards for their own continuing professional education. There will be a return to the entrepreneurial spirit of the craft unions; individuals will once again be compensated for their performance and innovation, rather than for their duration. And there will be the emergence of a new benefit structure; individuals, not organizations or governments, will begin to take responsibility for their own retirement, health care, and the security of their families.

I can break up this message from Paul Pilzner in two parts.

First, be an entrepreneur.

Second, be a responsible entrepreneur.

Enterprise development is so close to the discipline of marketing. In marketing, we learn to create new ideas, new products that will satisfy specific needs of customers. As marketing students and future practitioners, you will be most prepared in tackling the challenges of enterprise development. Keep that kind of a mindset. Train yourselves to be employers, not just as employees.

This must be done with a social purpose. The Philippine Marketing Association’s theme for 2010 “Marketing as a Growth Accelerator” promotes marketing with a social purpose. Marketing with Meaning. “When your marketing is meaningful, the marketing itself adds value to people’s lives, whether or not they immediately buy what you’re selling.(Bob Gilbreath, 2010). Marketing as a growth accelerator can only have substance if it yields something that is meaningful – to people, to a community, to a country or to the world.

I congratulate the governors and officers of the Philippine Junior Marketing Association for organizing this event. You have been chosen to lead. You have opted to take that responsibility to lead.

Thriver's Club

2010-05-09T22:55:00.001-07:00

This is short commentary which I delivered during the book launch of "BEYOND SURVIVAL: How to Thrive Amidst Life's Inevitable Crisis" on 24 April 2010 at the Best Seller in Robinson's Galleria, Ortigas Center.Before this occasion, I met Roger only once. That was during the General Membership Meeting (GMM) of the Philippine Marketing Association where he keynoted the GMM and Agora Youth Awards.

He talked about life’s tragedies including his own. In about 30 minutes, he presented a well-argued thesis – that people can thrive in the face of even the harshest challenges.

Silently, as he discussed the foundation of his presentation, I thought that he should write a book on this topic and share his thoughts and experiences to others, not only to those who have the opportunity to attend his training sessions.

In fact he did. Not long after, a common friend, Gwenn Galvez, sent me a text and asked me to attend a book launch to give my comment on the book which Roger wrote precisely on the topic that he presented in the GMM. Gwenn sent me a copy of the book. I was glad I said yes, because I got a copy of the book and had the chance to review and learn from the book. These are my random thoughts.

There are books that dwell on opportunities. There are books that dwell on crises or problems. The book written by Roger attempts to paint a clear picture of life’s never-ending struggle with crisis and how people can turn every crisis situation into an opportunity.In this book, Roger tells us that facing life’s challenges is all about attitude. It is all about mindset. Roger substantiates his argument with very interesting anecdotes and well-researched essays. More than that, he concludes his discussions with a ‘how to’ or a user-friendly template for thriving in a crisis.

Growing up, I used an inspirational message to guide me through every crisis or difficulty. I forgot the author who wrote this message which became my anchor whenever I faced life’s challenges – “for every adversity, there is an equivalent seed of benefit”. That message is well-articulated in Chapter 4, “from helplessness to hopefulness. If this book was written earlier and I had the chance to read it, I would have gone through all these difficulties with more ease and probably with greater success.

There are four things I immensely enjoyed about this book.

First, Roger spins the challenge of managing crisis into a piercing simplicity. He successfully presents crisis management as a process. A process can be learned. It can become part of our routine. It can become part of our armamentarium for dealing with problems.

I believe in the saying that “problems are to the mind what exercise is to the muscles” (internet-circulated, author unknown). Roger puts this maxim into an understandable concept. He says in Chapter 6, “use it or lose.”
Second, the book Beyond Survival is prescriptive and may be used as a guide. It recognizes the need for a sustained and continuing application. Roger’s book started with the reality that we deal with crisis every time. Indeed, there are many occasions when we can apply Roger’s guide for thriving and flex our muscles to handle problems until the guide becomes part of routine.

Roger sums up his guide into something everyone can remember. C-R-I-S-I-S. C to create new possibilities. R to reaffirm your core beliefs. I to invent the best future. S to summon your inner resolve. I to inspire yourself and others. S to seize the moment.

Third, it is easy reading. In one part of the book, Roger encourages readers to do whatever they wish with the book. Underline key points. Fold an important page. Dog-ear something for easy read-back.

A reader does not have to do all of these things. Roger made it a point to highlight the key thoughts. By design, the important concepts have been highlighted for reference and for quick reading. One can do a second reading by just going over all highlighted concepts.

Fourth, I sincerely belief that Roger wrote this book from the heart. There is a saying that “the best way to succeed is to follow the advice you give to others.” From Roger’s presentation, he did and is doing what he advises his readers to do. Walk the talk. That is the unwritten rule for consultants. That should also be the rule for writers and speakers.

With his experience in the university of life and gift for simplifying complex thoughts, perhaps Roger can write about how people can manage unexpected success. With this wonderful book, I am sure that Roger is now experiencing unexpected popularity and success. By this time, he must have synthesized the process of managing unexpected success.

My advice to readers -- buy the book. Available in all National Bookstore, Powerbooks and Best Seller outlets.

Theology of Brokenness

2010-04-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

At an improvised foothill in San Pedro Cutud, a barangay of San Fernando City, ended what I thought was a parade of hope and a procession of devotees, perhaps, scarred from too many broken dreams.

As they moved towards the cross in this man made Calvary, with wounded flesh and spilled blood along the designated pathway to Cutud, devotees bowed to the cross and prayed to Christ Jesus – the Son of God who covenanted to embrace sinners in their brokenness and sinfulness if they believe.

Even as hundreds of devotees trooped to the foothill in a dramatic procession, self-flagellating and inducing blood by having their skin cut five to seven times in a four-hour ordeal to the foothill, ten penitents had themselves nailed to the cross, hands and feet, and screamed the pain of life – for real or for show.

What theology does that devotion manifest? Foreigners were awed at the bravery and daringness of the devotees and penitents. Some, whose cultures demanded economic significance of every deed, wondered what these sacrifices led up to. My seatmate in one of the tents could not find any meaningful value to the drama and hurriedly left.

A Baptist author explains that theology is defined as faith seeking understanding. If it is, then this annual rite may be labeled as the theology of broken spirits or broken dreams rightfully dramatized with real blood from flagellation and the cutting of the flesh with broken glasses and three-inch nail.

How else can one express the anguish of poverty borne out of a social system without being locked up? To these devotees and penitents, it is faith to God who promised to embrace and heal their brokenness. To them, this faith is best demonstrated through a ritual that punishes the flesh with prayer at the foothill as a form of closure – until next year.

Fernando Ferrer, 24 years old and in his second year as a criminology student, was a flagellant on Holy Thursday. Showing his day-old wounds that looked totally healed, he has vowed to join the annual rite as an expression of his faith in Christ Jesus amid his poverty and imperfection with a pervent hope that someday, he will be liberated from this grinding poverty and broken dreams.

Calling me Tatay in the beginning and later Kuya through the hours that he guided me, I saw in him a picture of his faith – honest, respectful and friendly. Perhaps, this is the best argument for his theology and the theology of all the other devotees in this annual rite.

A Filipino author wrote about the theology of the inarticulate suggesting that the poor Filipinos, the inarticulate, have evolved a theology, an expression of faith, which may not be appreciated by the articulate but which have kept them upright and Christ-like.

A van Aarde argues that 'public theology' is an alternative to mainstream theology saying that schooled priests and pastors do not have the exclusive rights of doing theology. “The practice of theology is to be found in both the professional academy and in the public square.” He says that in its core, “public theology” is seen as the inarticulate longing of believers who do not want to belong.

I salute the thousands who wounded their flesh as a way to express their faith. Also the 20 or so brave souls who had their flesh pierced as a way to articulate the pain of brokenness. Amen.

Looking Forward

2010-03-27T03:42:00.001-07:00

A. Partnership

This idea of partnership is very suggestive of this year’s Baccalaureate theme -- KEEP ON DOING WHAT MATTERS MOST. We see this picture clearly illustrated in Philippians 3:13: "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead."

In this verse, Paul illustrates that after having received God’s grace, our responsibility is to return full effort in striving perfection in moral, ethical, and spiritual areas. Paul is urging his erring brothers to follow his example in persistently concentrating on the common goals. What does Paul mean by “perfection.”

This consists of discarding wrong attitudes and habits accumulated in the past. We must let go of our excess baggage, the weight that pulls us down. We must diligently make unwavering progress in eliminating unwanted fat – so we can do what matters most -- growing in God's love, producing the fruit of God's Spirit, moving toward the Kingdom of God, and putting on Christ's perfection, His image in us.

The Legend of Nataer

Have you heard of the Legend of Nataer?[1] I wish to recall this legend using the story written by Rev. Dr. Mariano Apilado. This is a legend that may have been forgotten by people in northern Philippines.

It is the legend of Nataer, a young man so named because he was handsome, but who started with the name Butiog. Because he was so fat, he walked around like a duck. One day, a hairy giant, Aran, came out of the forest to visit and told Butiog, “I have come here to ask about your dream.”

“I have no dream,” Butiog replied.

“That’s impossible,” Aran insisted, “you must have a dream -- last night, the night before or nights before,” Aran continued approaching Butiog with a menacing look.

“All right, I have a dream,” Butiog answered, “In my dream, I saw a big alingo (“wild hog”), he began to fabricate, “and the biggest bukatot (“bamboo fish trap”) full of dalag (“mudfish”), purong (“carp”), padaw (“prawn”) and igat (“eel”).

“I knew you had a dream,” Aran said happily, “let’s go and find your dream alingo and bukatot.”

Butiog became even more frightened because he knew that what he told Aran was not even a dream but only a fabrication, and so he said, “I am tired, and I can hardly move my body.”

“You can walk,” Aran said in a low but firm voice, “let’s go.” And so they departed, and when they reached the riverbank, they proceeded downstream. As they walked farther, they saw the biggest bukatot near a bamboo grove beside the river.

“See,” Aran said excitedly, “there is the bukatot of your dreams.” They examined it and true enough, it was full of different fresh water fish.

Aran then instructed Butiog to carry the Bukatot. And because it was full of fish, Butiog could hardly lift it. Aran then helped so that it could be placed on Butiog’s shoulder. Butiog complained that he could not carry the load, but Aran told him to be quiet, and so the fat man had no choice but to carry the bukatot and, although he would fall down once in a while, they trudged on.

Soon, they also saw the big alingo caught in a trap, and Butiog had to carry it also on his shoulder.

And so, although he walked with extreme difficulty with heavy loads on each of his shoulders, Butiog trudged on with Aran muttering, “That was your dream, that was your dream,” until they reached the house of the former.

Several days later, Aran came back and asked Butiog, “Where are the reins of your horse? Get them, come with me and let’s join the hunt organized by Apo Baknang (“Lord Wealthy”).

Aran took the reins and put them on Butiog, after which he rode on Butiog’s back until they reach a wide plain of ledda (“cogon grass”) where many people had already gathered together.

They learned that the hunt had been organized for the purpose of catching Ugsa a Balitok (“Golden Calf”), so called because it had golden horns. “Whoever catches Ugsa a Balitok will receive for a prize Apo Baknang’s pretty daughter, Wayawaya, as wife.”

The Ugsa a Balitok had hidden in the ledda and so the hunters set the fire on the grass in order to force it to come out into the open. The frightened animal came out and one by one the hunters tried to catch it; one by one they failed.

Then Aran said, “Watch me, gentlemen, and I shall catch the Ugsa a Balitok and marry pretty Wayawaya.” Getting on Butiog’s back, he shouted, “Run fast, Butiog, we can do it.”

What a sight it was! Butiog, with Aran on his back, at first could hardly move, but he waddled on as fast as he could. Then as he ran, he felt lighter and lighter and he could run faster and faster. It was quite a spectacle seeing Ugsa a Balitok running as fast as it could and Butiog with Aran on his back running after the animal.

Then wonderful things began to happen. Butiog now ran as fast as lightning and soon caught Ugsa a Balitok. Then Aran, the hairy giant, disappeared.

Finally, Butiog was no longer what he was; instead, he had become what he truly was, a very handsome young man, with broad shoulders, upright body, radiant eyes and gorgeous looks!

Everyone saw that he had become Nataer. Carrying proudly, therefore Ugsa a Balitok on his shoulders, Nataer walked proudly towards Apo Baknang’s house, and there pretty Wayawaya met him on the doorstep and all she could whisper to herself was, “Nataer.”

The Butiogs in All of Us

In many ways, most of us may be similar to Butiog: with a huge stomach filled with junk experiences, junk food, junk thoughts, junk learnings, junk activites, junk songs, and many other junks.

Those junks may come in many forms -- materialism, spiritual sluggishness, priorities that are skewed in favor of oneself instead of others, activities that are limited to personal satisfaction, and other deviant behavior that take us away from the lap of Jesus Christ – such as dishonesty.

You have successfully completed an important journey in your life. Perhaps, you need to do a reality check – what baggage you have to get rid of and, in place, important spiritual options you need to acquire.

Dr. Apilado suggests that “Perhaps there is a need for addressing this indigestion, reducing worldly obesity and regaining the dash and dynamism of physically and spiritually fit, morally straight and mentally alert Christians will attempt to win the hand of Wayawaya.

As this year’s theme suggests, we must stay focus on the things that MATTER MOST. Discerning which ones matter most and which ones should become the significant stepping stone in the second stage of your journey. May I suggest that you focus on three values – integrity or honesty, confidence, and responsible citizenship/Christians.

Things that Matter Most

Let us start with integrity/honesty.

Part of my advocacy is governance. I advise local governments and national government agencies on how to institutionalize governance.

It is in this endeavor that I learned that the Philippines lost its eligibility in the millennium development program. With this is a US$500 million grant which is supposed to be a grant to help bring down poverty. We lost that status only for one reason –corruption. We scored quite low in the corruption index.

Survey after survey, we scored the highest in terms of corruption. Year after year, our ranking went up. I understand that as of latest ranking, the Philippines is the number 1 most corrupt country in Asia.

That is a paradox considering that the Philippines is the only Christian country in Asia. That is something that Christians should consider as a task, a responsibility. As graduates of a Christian college, you must bring this value wherever you go. In business. In your profession. As an overseas worker. As housewife, even.

Remember the parable of the Emperor’s Seed (internet-circulate story, author not identified).

o An aging emperor in the Far East called all the young people in the kingdom. He gave each ONE seed and asked them to plant that seed. Then he asked them to come back after one year with what they have grown. From among them, he would choose the next emperor of the kingdom.

o A boy named Ling received a seed, went home, planted the seed and watered it carefully. Every day, Ling kept going home to check his seed, but nothing ever grew.

o After one year, they all brought their plants to the emperor for inspection. Ling was hesitant to attend but his mother encouraged him to go, and to take his pot, and to be honest about what happened.

o When the emperor arrived, he spotted Ling at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered his guards to bring him to the front. He looked at Ling, and said, "Behold your new emperor!

o The emperor said, "I gave you all boiled seeds which would not grow. Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!"

There is a reward for being honest and for keeping your integrity intact. It may not show itself instantly, but it will come.

Second value is confidence. I choose this as a second value because this is a common weakness of many young Filipinos.

I have seen this in many of my new employees. They are very talented. However, they seem to have very little faith in their talent and what they can do. I have instituted a program for building their confidence. Somehow, the challenge to build their confidence remains.

I know of many talented individuals. But because of the lack of confidence and the lack of faith in one’s capability, they were never able to make use of their talents. Looking forward, I believe that it is something that all us, especially young graduates, should seriously look into.

There was this woman who lived in London over a century ago.[2] One evening, she took a leave to hear a great speaker of her day. His speech moved her deeply and she waited to visit with him afterward.

o   This woman confessed to the speaker that she never had the opportunity as he and many others had. She narrated that she had been peeling onions and potatoes in her sister's boarding house for fifteen miserable years.

o   In response to the questions of the speaker, she said that she had been doing this while sitting on the bottom of the step in the kitchen with her feet planted on the floor made of glazed brick.

o   Hearing that, the speaker said, "My dear lady, I will give you an assignment today. I want you to write me a letter about the brick." Against her protests about being a poor writer, he made her promise to complete the assignment.

o   The next day, as she sat down to peel onions, she gazed at the brick floor. That evening she pulled one loose, took it to a brick factory and asked the owner to explain to her how bricks were made.

o   Still not satisfied, she went to a library and found a book on bricks. She learned that 120 different kinds of brick and tile were being produced in England at the time. She discovered how clay beds, which existed for millions of years, were formed. Her research captivated her imagination and she spent every spare moment learning more. She returned to the library night after night and this woman, who never had a chance, gradually began to climb the steps of knowledge.

o   After months of study, she set out to write her letter as promised. She sent a 36-page document about the brick in her kitchen and, to her surprise, she received a letter back. Enclosed was payment for her research. He had published her letter! And along with the money came a new assignment - this time he asked her to write about what she found underneath the brick.

o   For the first time in her life she could hardly wait to get back to the kitchen! She pulled up the brick and there was an ant. She held it in her hand and examined it.

o   That evening, she hurried back to the library to study ants. She learned that there were hundreds of different kinds of ants. Some were so small they could stand on the head of a pin; while others were so large one could feel the weight of them in one's hand. She started her own ant colony and examined ants underneath a lens.

o    Several months later she wrote her findings in a 350-page "letter." It, too, was eventually published. She soon quit her kitchen job to take up writing.

o   Before she died, she had traveled to the lands of her dreams and had experienced more than she ever imagined possible! This is the woman who had never had a chance.

Sometimes we need a reminder to tell us that we have the talent to do other things.

Third value is responsible citizenship. How do we become responsible Christians. Lee Kuan Yu, former Prime Minister and now senior adviser in Singapore once said that he like Christianity but he did not like the Christians.

Last month, I was part of a group that went to participate in a session that defined the vision of a Southern City. One of the participants was the author of a book “12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do To Help Our Country.”

For example, his first recommendation is for us to follow traffic rules. If you have been to Manila, you will know that this wish is not a joke. One of the required readings in Apologetics in the Seminary is the book “To Each His Own.” That is precisely what traffic is like in Manila. In that part of the world, it takes commitment, dedication, a deep sense of patriotism and a life of Christian values to be able to follow traffic laws.

The recommendation makes sense. The author says that “Traffic rules are the simplest of our country’s laws. But when implemented, it paints a country of strong laws.” The people become better citizens, Christians. You see civic culture in action. This is one little step, but big in impact.

There are 11 other little things that he recommends to every citizen. Each little thing, when reviewed, is really a little thing but may yield proportionately gigantic results if done by everyone. The author quoted a finding in a study on behavior. It says, when a person does something 30 times continuously, it becomes a habit.

Benjamin Franklin said that “the best way to build a dream is by attending to the little things that comprise it. Its foundation is in the little details; its beauty in the fine points.”

Looking Forward

If we go by the average, most of you are graduating at age 20 or 21 years. That was the first stage of your first journey. Looking forward, you have 40 or so years to do something purposeful before you retire. That I believe is the second stage of your journey. The military retires its officers early at 56 years old. The civilian government and private sector retire employees much later, from 60 to 65. The judiciary retires justices at 70.

Forty years may be short. They may be long. How it will be for you – whether short or long -- will depend so much on how you take the journey from now until 2050. It will appear to be short if you live a meaningful, significant or successful life. It will appear to be long if that journey becomes perpetually a struggle or uneventful. You have a choice.

Allow me to do a little arithmetic. Those who will become doctors will need another 10 years to complete their medical education and residency program. Add to these another five years to specialize and to become a consultant. Perhaps, another five years to gain the reputation of a specialist. By the time they become bankable, they are 40 years old.

They have 20 more years to make something out of their lives -- if they haven’t already and before they are considered irrelevant and old by the time they reach the age of 60.

It could be the same arithmetic for those who will become lawyers, those who will work in government, and those who will go into business. There is no short cut to your destination.

Whatever life’s challenges or surprises will be, your task is to look ahead, take what you have learned in this great institution, and use them to full advantage. Put your sight in front of you.

I remember when I started riding a bike. The person guiding me was always reminding me to look forward. True enough, whenever I looked down or else, I lost my balance. What I started driving a car, my instructor told me to look forward. Indeed, we cannot drive a car by using the rear view mirror. We have to look forward.

As the saying goes, “Make the least of all that goes and the most of all that comes.”

[1] With permission to reprint from author Dr. Mariano Apilado, The Dream Need Not Die: Revolutionary Spirituality 2, 2000.

[2] This reading is found in Steve Goodier's popular book RICHES OF THE HEART  http:// lifesupportsystem.com/richesofheart2.html

Meaningful Marketing

2010-03-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

A. Introduction

I have been tasked to keynote this big event by providing a backgrounder on the Philippine Marketing Association’s theme for 2010 “Marketing as a Growth Accelerator”.

I am using the topic “Marketing with Meaning” instead because the concept, a framework originally presented by Bob Glbreath, is at the heart of the theme “Marketing as a Growth Accelerator.”

“When your marketing is meaningful, the marketing itself adds value to people’s lives, whether or not they immediately buy what you’re selling.(Bob Gilbreath, 2010)

Marketing as a growth accelerator can only have substance if it yields something that is meaningful – to people, to a community, to a country or to the world.

Similarly, a performance-driven sales result will have to be delivered by the sales team and the organization in a manner that substantiates, not downgrades, the social value of that result.

The co-relation between a performance-driven sales result and a meaningful marketing may not immediately present itself in the short term. The relationship becomes apparent only over a long period of time.

Colins and Poras and Kaplan and Nortonhave investigated companies practicing meaningful marketing. Their findings suggest that companies practicing meaningful marketing have endured the test of time, better than other companies.

I was inspired to prepare this keynote using this topic after my meeting with Kate Palana, Public Affairs and Communications Director of Ariva. From what I gathered, Ariva, a young company with young and enterprising owners, believes in a corporate philosophy that directly connects corporate initiatives to social benefits.

For every event Ariva organizes, a certain amount from the gross is earmarked to benefit poor students. As they organize more events, more poor but deserving students get to participate in the proceeds. What I find amazing about this corporate philosophy is that the amount set aside is taken not from the net but from the gross.

This is the first time I have heard of such a practice. Large companies allocate a certain amount taken from reserves and put that amount in a trust through a foundation. From the interest of that trust fund, social initiatives are undertaken. It is hardly a commitment.

Here is a company, right here in this convention hall that practices marketing with meaning. While we cannot at this time compare Ariva with great companies as described by Colins and Poras because it is a young company, it practices the important elements that these great companies have implemented.

I will be talking about three inter-related subjects: Marketing with Meaning, Marketing as a Growth Accelerator, and Performance-Driven Marketing.

B. Marketing with Meaning

B1. Sharing a Place (Starbucks)

Do you have third place? What is your third place? My third place is Starbucks. I spend my first hour of the day outside of my house in Starbucks.

I have come to develop that affinity with Starbucks for some good reasons. Whenever lights were down because of brownout, there was Starbucks. You can charge all your cell phones and gadgets, and that is ok.

Whenever I needed to work on a report and going back to the office was not option, there was Starbucks. You can work the whole day in Starbucks buying just one cup of coffee, and that is ok.

In my frequented outlets, I am called by my first name. It has been a partner to me through deadlines, marathon meetings, and many work challenges.

Billy Coburn, in his book “Cafés of community: the Starbucks principle” describes Starbucks as a legitimate third place.

Billy Coburn writes that “Home is a good thing. Home for the holidays. But home is not the only thing. In fact, sometimes family closeness gets just a little too close, especially during the holidays. After a few days of togetherness — right about now, three days after Christmas — many of us would probably welcome a little time away from home.”

What is second place? Coburn says “That second place, home being the first place, is usually work. At work we form friendships, socialize and spend a considerable chunk of the week. It’s a place where we practice our vocation and participate in a community of colleagues. But [Coburn argues] home and work are not enough. Sometimes we need to get away from work. We need a third place.

That third place to me is Starbucks. According to Coburn, No one understands this better than Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks. Schultz founded Starbucks on the premise that Americans are missing a third place in their lives — a place that his coffeehouses can fill. He understood that in America, as well as in Italy, it’s not about coffee, it’s about connection. That’s the Starbucks Principle. And for many, it seems to be working.”

Schultz found a business niche. It is a niche that is anchored on creating value for people, providing customers with the space that they need on a day to day basis. That is marketing with meaning.

To many Filipinos, third place may be the mall. I will not argue against that. The mall that the Henry Sy’s and the John Gokongwei’s established are virtual third places – where you can dine, buy RTWs, buy groceries, pass the time and hear mass. It presents a condition that positively alters lifestyle and behavior of people.

In the mall, people queue. People follow rules. People throw their trash in the trash can. People have fun. People share.

B2. Sharing Knowledge (Wikipedia).

Do you remember the “I love you virus”. That Filipino invention created so much disorder worldwide that the student who invented that debilitating virus is now a top notch programmer outside the Philippines.

From my recollection, the student wanted his revenge for his failure to get free access to the internet. In fact, it was quite expensive at that time. In response, he used his genius to express his anger. He developed the virus that cracked millions of computers around the world.

He knew how vulnerable people were with the words “I love you.” With what he learned from school, he unleashed the deadly virus. With these combination, he altered the life and resources of many people and institutions.

Here is a guy with the same purpose of getting things for free. However, he used a different approach, a kinder approach. [WIKIVIDEO CLIP].

Writer C Everett Koop, once wrote “Life affords no greater responsibility, no greater privilege than the raising of the next generation.” To Jimmy Wales, sharing knowledge to the internet generation is a mission, a privilege.

I can’t find any greater mission (save for what we read in Matthew 28) than to share knowledge to the next generation. That is the ultimate of marketing with meaning.

B3. Sharing Wealth (O&CLP).

We talked about sharing places (Starbucks), and sharing knowledge (Wikipedia). This time, we will talk about sharing wealth. The Greenhills Shopping Center, in particular.

What is unique about Greenhills Shopping Center? First, it is the most expensive retail space in the Philippines. No other shopping center can match the cost of retail space in Greenhills.

Second, it put the country in the international shopping map with its world-class pearls and reputation as a value-shopping mecca. One time, while walking along the side of Glorietta, three foreigners approached me and asked me what the general direction was towards Greenhills was.

I clarified if they were looking for Greenbelt, not Greenhills. One of the foreigners said, that place with the pearls. So I talked to the taxi driver and directed him towards Greenhills.

Third, you will find the wealthiest, hardworking Muslim traders in Greenhills, driving fancy cars like Mercedez Benzes and Expeditions and living and mansions in and around Greenhills.

The mother company, Ortigas & Company, created the environment for these traders to prosper. OCLP supported these traders’ aspirations by promoting oneness, respecting tradition and religion, and advancing equal opportunity to all business people. Sharing wealth. That is marketing with meaning.

B4. Sharing the Country.

Tony Fernandes, founder and president of Air Asia spoke about his struggle to reinvent travel within Asia particularly destinations to lesser known cities and places.

His company was just about to cross over the growing pains of starting business when the bombings in Bali happened some years back. Tourism was at a standstill which affected tourism traffic from Malaysia and other Asian countries to Bali.

In a bold move, he talked to the different hotels in Bali. Together they strategized. From that planning session, they agreed to offer 10,000 seats and rooms for free.

They wanted to test if the tourism drought was indeed due to tourists’ concern for safety. When the offer was announced, the 10,000 seats and rooms were taken in less than one week. Thus started the recovery of Bali as a tourist destination. That is truly marketing with meaning.

Cebu Pacific air redefined travel in and from the Philippines. A domestic seat for P99. A foreign destination seat for P999. How low and how courageous can one get to sell.

That marketing strategy expanded travel from and within the Philippines. The country is enjoying a boom in domestic tourism. Our young workers and executives are now able to see much of the country and some parts of the world.

My employees, including those who have been on the job for only a year, would take time off to go Mindoro, Cagayan de Oro, Palawan and Bohol. Now, they have started going to other Asean countries such as Vietnam. I believe that Cebu Pacific’s corporate and marketing philosophy made this possible. That is marketing with meaning.

C. Performance Driven Sales Result

That brings me to the topic on performance driven sales result. For sales to be performance driven, it must use effective sales techniques and strategies. For performance to be sustainable, sales activities must operate in a marketing system that is meaningful… and nurturing.

Have you ever heard of the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. Glengarry Glen Ross is a 1992 independent dramedy film. Stars included Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Bladwin and Jonathan Pryce. It is about selling.

The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate agents and how they become desperate when the corporate office sent a representative to "motivate" them by announcing that, in one week, all except the top two salesmen will be fired.

At the same time, the company announced that they developed the ideal prospect list, called Glengarry Glen Ross, that would definitely energize sales and give everyone the chance to sell more properties.

This ideal list was to be given only to the top two sellers. The rest of them would be fired. You can imagine the anxiety and apprehension after that announcement.

One agent tried to bribe the manager to give him some names from the Glengarry list. Another tried to threaten the manager for some names in the list. Another tried to appeal to the manager’s emotion. No way, says the manager.

Somebody proposed to steal the list, a move that seemed to have been the only option at that time for the agents. Some agreed to take it as an option. One did not.

As the salesmen reported to work the following day, they found that the office had been burglarized and the Glengarry leads had been stolen. What resulted presented the bad side of performance driven selling.

This is not the kind of performance driver that we envision. It departs from the corporate philosophy of meaningful marketing. It is old stuff. Part of legacy marketing. It creates unnecessary tension. It destroys lives.

Sessions today and tomorrow shall unveil best practices and effective techniques to drive sales performance.

• New sales concepts, latest ideas and techniques for selling in today's challenging markets

• Achieve Success Through Collaboration: Account vs. Product/Market Focus… How marketing mix elements tie in to the sales process

• Learn how to utilize your selling resources more strategically to drive sales

• Gain insight into new ways to link your strategy and sales compensation plans, improve marketing plan, and increase sales performance

Performance driven sales results, as they are practiced today in progressive sales organizations, are actually metric driven using a model that combines lagging and leading indicators. They combine technology and people skills, outcomes and output measures, and short and long term goals.

Credit card companies and consumer financing companies were among the early adopters of performance driven sales results using a combination of technology and people skills.

As a result, the number of credit card holders have expanded, sales of consumer durables have exploded, and the turnover of traditionally slow moving products such as cars and real estate have increased.

I remember some 15 years ago, I received a letter from Citibank saying that I have been pre-approved for a card with a credit limit of P50,000. At that time, Citibank was a new player competing against the more established credit card companies. In five years, Citibank became the dominant card company, a position that I believe it still holds today.

How does that work. Using past data, the bank created a model that defines the profile of good credit risk and bad credit risk. They ran that model on a database of depositors, executives, and entrepreneurs. That process created a short list of prospects around which an aggressive sales campaign was mounted.

The same technology is now used in many other industries and many other functions in the selling process – in campaign management, churn management, loyalty programs, agent selection process, agent promotion programs, and many more.

Companies and industries that have innovated and implemented performance driven marketing and sales have expanded and have been profitable even during the crisis.

Using marketing as a model for corporate growth and profitability is gaining popularity. As marketing and sales professionals, it becomes part of our responsibility to discern the importance of this approach and to promote to management the value of creating an enterprise discipline that is anchored on marketing principles.

D. Marketing as Growth Accelerator

Yoram Wind, professor at the Wharton School of Business, reported that at the 2003 Chief Marketing Officer Summit (CMO) Summit in the U.S., marketing leaders from diverse firms came up with a manifesto stressing that marketing should be an engine of growth and profitability for the organization.

The manifesto begins with the premise that marketing has the discipline to link insights from the market with the strategies of the firm and to drive the creation of value by developing relationships with customers.

The manifesto states that marketing should create and build leadership brands that consumers love and that marketing should lead the continued transformation of the company.

A McKinsey study presented at the Summit noted three primary opportunities for driving growth:

1. Integrating customer insights more broadly into business functions,
2. Integrating business strategies with brand strategies, and
3. Integrating marketing and go-to-market execution.

The same study showed the specific ways by which marketing perspectives can serve as an engine for growth, these are:

1. Creating market-driven vision and value proposition,
2. Using market insights to drive innovation,
3. Leveraging technology and marketing to create convergence, and
4. Rethinking customer experience and relationships.

As reported, Marketing, which is at the interface between the organization and the environment, can provide new opportunities for value creation and growth and that it should be a concern to the entire organization.

Marketing provides the pathway by identifying opportunities to serve unmet needs of current customers or new customers for the company’s current and new products and services. A focus on growth requires an integrated approach, cutting across the organizational functions and activities.

Marketing as a growth accelerator is Philippine Marketing Association’s theme for 2010. All activities will be designed around this theme. There are actually several, let me mention some of theme:

1. National Marketing Conference – a must-attend conference that will showcase the important trends in marketing to be presented by thought leaders and exciting speakers, both local and international. Scheduled on June 24 and 25 at Hotel Sofitel. Expected attendance is about 1,000 participants.

2. National Marketing Month including Strategic Marketing – declared as national marketing month is the month of July. The major event is Strategic Marketing where we share with students the latest trends in marketing. To be held in four cities. In NCR on July 3 at Aliw Theater with about 2,500 students. In Cebu on September 13, in Davao on September 17 and in Baguio on November 26.

3. Agora Conference in October and the Agora Awards in November.

4. Chapter activities in 14 Cities.

Application of Advanced Research Techniques

2010-03-12T01:22:00.000-08:00

A. Introduction

Dean Felix E. Asprer, outgoing PCDEB president, Dean Nelson S. Abeleda, incoming PCDEB president, CHED Representative Dr. Conrad Inigo, the PCDEB staff, fellow educators and industry practitioners, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

I can think of two reasons why I am here as your keynote speaker. First, as the 2010 President of the Philippine Marketing Association, a non-profit non-stock organization. PMA fully supports PCDEB and the CHED-industry linkage.

Second, because of my involvement in predictive analytics not the least of which is my association with IBM-SPSS.

I decided to relate the topic of advanced research to governance for two reasons. First, to suggest that what I intend to discuss is applied research or the use of research to improve performance. Second, I have been actively involved in governance, particularly in local government and professional associations.

I got into this advocacy mainly because of my experience in performance management in the private sector. Having been through this initiative for some time and having been in an educator myself, I have always maintained that there must be a stronger and deliberate effort to promote the principles of governance in the academic sector.

Similar initiatives in several sectors yielded very positive results. These include the banking and healthcare sectors (hospitals in particular).

As a result, the banking sector has demonstrated resiliency and strength even in the face of the global crisis that affected many foreign banks.

Hospitals that have institutionalized the principles of governance are now very profitable as compared to their situation some ten years back and are offering healthcare services that are comparable to the best in the world.

B. Discussion Coverage

I will focus on two elements of research and try to give examples or approaches that are being used by researchers and decision makers around the world. These are data collection, and analyses for insighting including deployment of research findings.

Let me start with a case that presently dominates our free time, air space, advertising space and much of the time and resources of Filipinos. The presidential election. On the screen is a statistical estimate of the percentage of voters who remain undecided as of our latest survey.

In October 2009, about 40% of voters were yet undecided as to who among the presidential candidates they will vote for. Undecided, as a concept, includes those who did not have a choice, those who had a choice but were not definite, and those who claim they were definite but were open to switching depending on whether the endorsement remains the same or the platform of other candidates is more attractive.

In December 2009, the percentage of undecided went down to 35%. In our February 2010 survey, the percentage of undecided went down to 27% which was expected. I anticipate that this ratio will go down to around 10% towards the end of April 2010. What is the significance of these figures?

There are three things to consider. First, election is often decided by the undecided particularly in a tight race. My gut tells me that in this year’s election, for the President, that will be the case. Limiting election expenditures to communicate to the undecided will keep election spending to a level that is more realistic and optimal. Overspending stems from reckless targeting.

Second, with data on the undecided, it is possible to create a predictive model that will tell us who those undecided voters are –their profiles including age, gender, income, and concerns – and where they are located. This model may then be deployed in an existing database. Once tagged, a subsidiary database may then be created. This subsidiary list will show where these undecided voters are. Limited resources can then be allocated with maximum effect.

Third, it becomes a guide for a cost-effective campaign management. While it is not a guarantee for success, it improves that chance and sets a limit to election spending. Why spend money to cover those who have already decided? Why not spend that money on those who are still open to persuasion?

This video clip shows how this approach helped the Obama team reach out to those who mattered most during the U.S. elections – the undecided voters.

C. Data Collection

I recently attended a seminar organized by ESOMAR (of which I am a member) on the social media and how they are applied in research. The transition is rather spectacular – from a scenario where the researcher is in full control of all elements of the research to a scenario where the respondents become co-creators of the research output.

What is remarkable in this new approach, called Web 2.0, is how qualitative research has transitioned from a live discussion to an online panel. What is even remarkable is how it is able to replicate a social community online. The result is a very rich collection of insights that could never be generated in a traditional panel or FGD.

Imagine a branded online social community composed of around 30 to 50 diet pill users and would be diet pill users. Imagine further that these community members share their concerns, fears, experiences, successes, and new information online, not just one time but as desired or as many times over a period of three to six months. Imagine some more that in this group of 50 diet pill users and would-be users, anyone may initiate a discussion or present an issue for discussion.

I tried to promote this new approach to my clients. It is an uncharted territory and there is hesitation among the local clients to venture into this methodology.

Data collection is certainly evolving. It is moving towards a multi-mode or the use of multiple data collection channels for one survey. However, users and researchers are quite skeptical about the inclusion of the non-traditional channels for data collection and the combination of various channels for one survey.

In the 2008 SPSS Directions that was held in Las Vegas, there were several breakout sessions and presentations on the multi-modal research. Multi-modal is a “survey that is administered in multiple research modes, for example, web-based and phone-based, or web-based and paper-based.”

Proponents of the multi-modal approach believe that “A low cooperation or response rate does more damage in rendering a survey’s results questionable than a small sample because there may be no valid way scientifically of inferring the characteristics of the population represented by the non-respondents.”

There are three types of multi-modal approaches, each one with a different level of difficulty. One type is the multi-mode where one channel is used for one sample segment in a survey. A second type is the sequential mixed mode where different modes are used to collect data from different types of respondent. The third type is the parallel mixed mode where the respondent is able to choose the preferred mode and is able to switch from one mode to another.

For those who have been using it, results have been spectacular: Increased response rates, reduced non-response error, improved sample coverage, respondent centric, and reduced cost.

We have tried using this multi-mode – CAPI, CATI and FTF. There are indeed challenges. But those challenges are surmountable. The challenges are related more to factors such as availability of a sample frame for channels that require it, and data merging.

I have presented this to industry and clients remain skeptical about it. My sense is that for this to become an acceptable approach for data collection, it has to start in the classroom. Future decision makers (the students today) will have to be exposed to these new systems and be given the opportunity to experience and personally evaluate this approach.

D. Analytics

When I did my MBA and took the subject of marketing research, I learned that the objective of research is to provide information, not to make a decision. It was the belief that decision making was a function of many other variables. Similarly, the objective then of advertising was to communicate a message, not to sell. It was also the belief then that selling was a function of many other variables.

Arguably, that scenario has changed. In advertising, they talk about success fee, no longer just commission and production cost. In research, they are now talking about empowering frontline personnel to make decisions based on the output of research.

This video clip (crime watch) shows how investigators or police officers have been empowered to make decisions using research output.

This type of a research falls under the umbrella of data mining or predictive analytics. Predictive analysis helps connect data to effective action by drawing reliable conclusions about current conditions and future events.

Data mining is the process of discovering meaningful new correlation, patterns and trends by sifting through large amounts of data stored in repositories, and by using pattern recognition technologies, as well as statistical and mathematical techniques.

There are two types of data mining – supervised and unsupervised.

Data mining or predictive analytics is very useful for managing risk and for institutional research. In industry, there are applications of data mining in marketing, risk management, production management and supply chain management.

Popular applications of this methodology are the cross-sell and the upsell. You will notice that bank branches are now more aggressive in selling multiple products such as car loans, housing loans, pension funds, and other insurance products. What they are doing is actually cross selling. The starter product is the deposit account. The cross-selling is done on other bank-owned products.

But cross-selling to whoever walks into branch or to every client in the database is usually not very productive. It is like finding a needle in a haystack. By using data mining and the appropriate analytic technique, we can create a model that will tell us who among the clients in the database are more likely to respond to a cross-sell initiative. Each prospect is tagged and becomes a target for cross-sell campaign.

The same principle applies for up-selling. Other popular applications are credit scoring, customer retention or churn management, fraud detection, and campaign management.

In the academic sector, there are many applications. In Westpoint, they conducted a study to determine who among the cadets are likely to continue through graduation and those who are more likely to stay in the military service. By predicting who are less likely to continue, interventions may be implemented before the cadet decides to drop out.

Some of the questions that are ideal platforms or subjects for data mining are shown in this chart. You will notice that there are equivalent corporate questions. Who are the students likely to take most credit hours? Who are the ones likely to return for more classes? Which alumni are likely to donate more? What courses can we offer to attract more students?

Case # 1 on the screen is about the use of data mining to create meaningful learning outcome typologies. By applying analytics, the school was able to improve understanding of student types and helped educators and administrators better meet the needs of varied students.

Case # 2 is about transfer prediction. The objective is to prepare the University for the number of transferees from the community college. The approach was to define a model that will identify who among the community college students are likely to transfer. The school also created a model that predicted the community college students who are more likely to succeed and complete the program.

Case # 3 is about predicting alumni pledges. Why do we have to attempt predicting this outcome? This approach is not necessary if there are only 100 graduates. We can send mailers to all 100 graduates and make personal calls to all 100 graduates without incurring huge costs. But if there are say over 5,000 graduates and growing, it would take a huge investment to reach out to all of them just to find who among them are going to pledge.

The application of advanced research techniques has provided institutions in many countries with the instrument for managing risk and improving performance. However, in the Philippines, decision makers have not fully embraced the value of using such research techniques to improve performance and to manage risk.

Again, my sense is that we need to first bring this to the classroom, make faculty more comfortable in using them, then equip the students who will soon become the decision makers.

(Keynote address of Dr. Nick Fontanilla during the 9^th Annual Philippine Council of Deans and Educators in Business on March 12, 2010 at the Auditorium of Lyceum Philippines University)

Marketing as Growth Accelerator

2010-01-29T02:49:00.001-08:00

(Acceptance speech delivered by Nick Fontanilla, Ph.D. as 2010 president of the Philippine Marketing Association during the induction ceremony on January 27, 2010 at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City)

1. New Drivers

What is the focus of the Philippine Marketing Association in 2010? Let me answer this question by first looking at some significant trends.

There are five new trends that are likely to drive or are driving significant changes in the corporate environment and marketplace. Of course there are more but I would like to focus on these five because they are potentially the important agents for major change. These are the availability of knowledge, open connectivity, the power of the individual, resource networking and emergence of the third place.

1.1. Free Knowledge.

Many companies created tremendous value, both shareholder and customer, by providing their services for free. Yahoo is still available for free. Google created so much value by providing more services for free. You Tube remains a popular site for its free services. All the online social networking sites are joinable for free.

This philosophy of creating value by providing products and services for free is best synthesized in Jimmy Wales' dream that served as the thinking platform for Wikipedia. He said, "Imagine a world in which every person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we are doing."

How does one create shareholder and customer value by providing services for free? This requires radical thinking. A radical customer-driven thinking. A change in the way that we conceptualize and create value. A change in the way that we interpret our balance sheet.

1.2. Connectivity (pixel)

We are all connected through fewer than six degrees, writes Mitch Joel in his book Six Pixels of Separation. Six pixels mean “that I know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone – who knows you. In other words, you can get to someone within six layers of connection. “That was the past, according to Joel. “In the digital world, there are no degrees of separation between you and your customers. You’re connected to those who are potential customers.

When I registered in Linkedin some years back upon the invitation of a business colleague in Chicago, the site gave an estimate that there were more than 15,000 Linkedin members that were part of my network. And I barely started. My colleague’s network became my connectible network. His networks’ networks also became my connectible network. I have not checked my network now. I would hazard a guess that it is in the millions.

When you think about your Facebook, Myspace, Friendster or Twitter, a personal network of millions is just possible. Imagine the numbers when you have, say, 100 friends within the network, and each of your 100 friends would have their own 100 friends in their respective networks and each pair has only 15 to 20 common friends. That is a problem in Trigonometry. But that should come out to a lot of people within your network.

In other words, when a company thinks hard enough and works smart enough, this company can connect to all its customer, one-to-one, dialogue with the customers, one-to-one, and engage the customers to the extent that the customer becomes a partner and a friend, one-to-one.

1.3. Resource Networking

To be competitive, marketing practitioners must use resources and technologies that are globally up-to-date. To get around the financial constraint attendant to this strategy, successful companies have resorted to resource networking.

Resource networking is a daring strategic platform that businesses use to put together resources and co-create a personalized experience that is purpose driven. This strategic platform was conceptualized by C. K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan, both professors at the Ross School of Business in University of Michigan. Labeled N=1; R=G this platform has a business context but had been effectively used in government and politics.

N=1 is a phenomenon where value is co-created by all stakeholders. The focus is on the centrality of the individual. R=G emphasizes that access to resources should be multi-vendor and global. The focus is on access to resources, not ownership of resources which is the traditional method. Using N=1; R=G as the platform, manufacturers access resources that are available from those most capable to deliver them and, in real time, co-create (with one consumer at a time) a personalized experienced.

Krishnan cites Apple as a company approaching the N=1; R=G business model. By accessing appropriate technology wherever it is available at a managed cost, Apple co-creates with every user a selection of favorite songs, one song at a time. The number of products, services and vendors that are involved in this co-creation is amazing. Most of them are not even owned by Apple.

Reflecting forward at what we can do at the local level, N=1; R=G is a strategic model that is ideal for Philippine companies and organizations. The road forward can be less resource hungry, less bumpy. It provides a network for defining and building intelligent models that is socially and financially viable.

1.4. Emergence of the Individual

Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher has over two million followers in Twitter, an online social media network. Before he worked his way up to this number, he challenged CNN, a global and powerful broadcast network, to a public contest -- to get a million followers in Twitter. Kutcher won. An individual winning over an institution. With what he won, Kutcher donated 10,000 mosquito nets to places that are infested with mosquito.

Individuals, not social institutions, are beginning to have more social, political and economic power. One person who advocated for more community support on an ailment that has never been taken seriously for research and development sent an appeal to an open-ended audience via the world wide web. Millions replied. The government and the private sector moved to provide financial and technical support. The EDSA II revolution happened so fast mainly because individuals, equipped with cell phones, provided the critical mass to engage the government in a solid fight against corruption.

Each person, through the use of technology, can reach millions in an instant and create a response that is equally instant. Everyone has basically the same access to information and knowledge at a socialized cost, and to opportunities that before were reserved to the privileged few.

This is not a social development where individuals escape from the protection and care of communities, but one where the individuals, liberated by freer access to knowledge, purposely become the powerful and effective instruments of communities for positive change.

David Mercer presented a thesis that the primary social force for change and development will be the individual. Individuals have liberated themselves from strictly social beings who depend so much on social institutions to social beings who are less dependent on others to innovate, discover, advocate and earn.

Mercer believes that over the longer term, full flowering of this individualism will represent nothing less than a quantum leap in social organization and that the “philosophy of individual empowerment is likely to be the greatest force for change….”

1.5. Third place

What is your Third Place? Home is my First Place. Office is my Second Place. Church, of course, is above these places. My Third Place is Starbucks. Many others consider the Mall as their third place.

Billy Coburn strikes a complete note on this question in his article Cafés of community: the Starbucks principle.

Home is a good thing. Home for the holidays. But home is not the only thing. In fact, sometimes family closeness gets just a little too close, especially during the holidays. After a few days of togetherness — right about now, three days after Christmas — many of us would probably welcome a little time away from home.

That second place, home being the first place, is usually work. At work we form friendships, socialize and spend a considerable chunk of the week. It’s a place where we practice our vocation and participate in a community of colleagues. But home and work are not enough. Sometimes we need to get away from work.

We need a third place.

No one understands this better than Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks. Schultz founded Starbucks on the premise that Americans are missing a third place in their lives — a place that his coffeehouses can fill.

He understood that in America, as well as in Italy, it’s not about coffee, it’s about connection. That’s the Starbucks Principle. And for many, it seems to be working.”

It works for me. Perhaps, it works for many Filipino consumers, too. I remember, during disasters and special events, only one store would be open. Generous use of electricity. Of the space. Of the tables. And services within the Café. That’s the Third Place. This needs radical thinking and understanding of the consumer behavior.

2. THE PMA

2.1. Marketing at the Crossroads

What does this mean for marketing and for corporate development? At the 2003 CMO Summit and from the random notes of Yoram Wind of Wharton School:

“….Marketing should be an engine of growth and profitability for the organization. It should link the insights from the market with the strategies of the firm to drive the creation of value through developing relationships with customers. Marketing should create and build leadership brands that consumers love and it should lead the continued transformation of the company. A McKinsey study presented at the Summit noted three primary opportunities for driving growth: Integrating customer insights more broadly into business functions, integrating business strategies with brand strategies, and Integrating marketing and go-to-market execution. Marketing perspectives can serve as an engine for growth through several approaches: Creating market-driven vision and value proposition, using market insights to drive innovation, leveraging technology and marketing to create convergence, and rethinking customer experience and relationships. Marketing, at the interface between the organization and the environment, can provide new opportunities for value creation and growth. It should be a concern to the entire organization. Marketing provides opportunities by identifying opportunities to serve unmet needs of current customers or new customers for the company’s current and new products and services. A focus on growth requires an integrated approach, cutting across the organizational functions and activities.”

These notes from Yoram Wind support the validity of the five emerging trends which highlight the centrality of the customer in an organization’s corporate culture.

But more than the centrality of the customer, marketing practitioners should create a new form of thinking that does not only look at the needs of the customers. This new thinking considers a marketing approach that positively transforms organizations, consumers and communities. In other words, marketing practitioners must create marketing that is meaningful for the people that it serves.
What is marketing that is meaningful? Bob Gilbreath, Chief Marketing Strategist of Bridge Worldwide, says that marketing has meaning when it adds value to people’s lives, whether or not they immediately buy what you are selling. I attended the national advertising congress organized by the Philippine Junior Marketing Association where more than 2,000 marketing students and teachers attended.

Jos Ortega, past president of Philippine Marketing Association and CEO of J. Walter Thomson presented selected outstanding ads. His own favorites. One of these was D7 from Thailand. D7 is a ready-to-drink coffee in can. The Ad has several versions, each version showing a typical Thai bureaucrat behavior that is negative and regressive.

The Ad shows a D7 can suddenly slapped on the cheeks of the bureaucrat. That reverses the behavior of the public servant and transforms this person into an efficient and dedicated public servant. A message is splashed on the screen saying – WAKE UP THAILAND. The intention is clear. The message simple but meaningful.

This is where marketing and marketing practitioners should be headed. Becoming an engine for corporate growth by creating marketing that is meaningful and value-adding to people’s lives.

2.2. The Philippine Marketing Association

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE PHILIPPINE MARKETING ASSOCIATION AND FOR MARKETING PRACTITIONERS?

- WE MUST RECOGNIZE THE ROLE OF MARKETING AS A GROWTH ACCELERATOR, AND IN TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES AND PEOPLE.

- PHILIPPINE MARKETING ASSOCIATION MUST PROVIDE THE EXPERTISE TO DISCERN WHAT SUCCESSFUL MARKETING STRATEGIES ARE AND HOW THESE CAN SERVE AS GROWTH ACCELERATORS.

- PHILIPPINE MARKETING ASSOCIATION MUST BECOME THE VENUE FOR THIS DISCERNMENT AND FOR SHARING THESE BREAKTHROUGHS TO PHILIPPINE INDUSTRIES AND TO MARKETING PRACTITIONERS IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

3. The 2010 PMA Board

Every Philippine Marketing Association Board of Directors follows the tradition of raising the bar of excellence through innovation. The 2010 Board will not be any different. The new Board commits to continue the tradition of raising the standards of excellence. We hope to do this by using the accomplishments of past Boards as a springboard for creative engagement and by highlighting the significance of marketing as a discipline in an environment that is looking for more effective approaches for sustainability and long term viability.

Our theme for 2010 is Marketing as Growth Accelerator. The theme is suggestive of the role of marketing in accelerating corporate growth, promoting sustainable development, and advancing relevant advocacy. In 2010, we intend to highlight marketing breakthroughs – successful marketing strategies and programs – that provided companies and organizations with the competitive edge and served as an engine for corporate or institutional growth.

We will endeavor to engage all our stakeholders including marketing-related associations, marketing professionals, government, students and faculty, and our members through sharing, dialogue, participation, fellowship and partnership wherever and whenever these are appropriate. Lined up in 2010 are traditional PMA events and programs that will showcase marketing as a driver and growth accelerator.

We invite everyone to participate in this year’s activities and to be part of this community of professionals with the vision of promoting and sharing best practices and excellence in marketing.

Shaking Off the Cobwebs in 2009

2010-01-10T01:40:00.000-08:00

How do we shake off the mustiness in 2009 and get a pretty good start in 2010?

One way is to relive the good old memories in 2009 and previous years. The time I spent with the regular members of the Loboc Children’s Choir tops them all. The choir had a practice in their make shift studio. We were invited to listen in up close. That was far more special than being in the front row in an auditorium.

A secondary treat when you catch them in practice is that you get to see and listen to the second liners – the six to eight-year old kids who will carry on the tradition of top level international singing. I was able to listen to and watch the regulars perform again in October 2009. They were still awesome and oh, so grown up.

Another way is to look at the present as part of your desired future. Writer C.C. Noble says that “you must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated with shortterm failures.” I agree. The future is our hope. And the best way to prepare for that future is to begin. Viewing the present from the perspective of a desired future gives more meaning to the challenges, difficulties, problems and mustiness of the past.

To shake off the cobwebs of 2009, I am looking forward to 2015 when Acre, Inc. is the leading online research company in the Philippines. The OR-TRACK team of Acre, Inc. crafted a roadmap to 2020.

The first attempt is through Makilahok, an online survey covering four modules – halalan, isyu, pinuno and pangarap. There will be more in 2010. Watch out for other online research products.

I.M. FREE

2010-01-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

I like this shirt for what it stands for. Donated by Chikka, I won it in a raffle during the DigitalFilipino Club Christmas party on December 14, 2009. As I normally do, I gave it away to a colleague. Realizing later that it was something I wanted, I got it back by trading a more expensive shirt.

For Chikka, the company that generously gave away this shirt, it symbolizes many things about its services not the least of which is its being available to all users for free.

To male friends who saw it, it symbolizes male emancipation -- the chance to shine again.

To me, the message on the shirt (I.M. FREE) symbolizes radical thinking -- in marketing and management.

Many companies created tremendous value, both shareholder and customer, by providing their services for free. Yahoo is still available for free. Google created so much value by providing more services for free.

This philosophy of creating value by providing products and services for free is best synthesized in Jimmy Wales' dream that served as the thinking platform for Wikipedia. He said, "Imagine a world in which every person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we are doing."

Free knowledge. Free email services. Free VOIP. On the shirt of a friend says, Sleep with Me, Free Breakfast. Free wi-fi services. Unlimited text.

How does one create shareholder and customer value by providing services for free? This requires radical thinking. A change in the way that we conceptualize and create value. A change in the way that we interpret our balance sheet.

(For comments, email to abfontanilla@yahoo. com or nick.fontanilla@gmail.com)

My Heroes of 2009. The Romy Martins of Acre, Inc.

2010-01-01T03:37:00.000-08:00

Romy Martin is a friend and colleague from way back. He cracks jokes with the precision and timing of a professional comedian. He is a good friend. As a friend, he stands by you through thick and thin. When I met him, he was a mid-level corporate executive. Eventually, he rose to the top to be the president of one company based in Palawan.

I write about him not because he delivers the punch line very well. I mention his name not because of his success in the corporate world. Rather, I write about him because he was able to rise above all others with limited education and perhaps under difficult circumstances.

From what I gathered, he succeeded for two major reasons – for working hard (harder than most others) and for his loyalty to the corporate mandate. He was on the job whenever and wherever needed. He was present even on occasions and events when degreed and intelligent executives would be vacationing or playing golf. He was among the first on the scene when there was a disaster or an accident. He was literally there when the company needed him – anytime under any condition.

I salute him. This borrowed statuette is for him.

I also offer this symbolic statuette to my staff, the Romy Martins of Acre, Inc., who stood by me until December 31, 2009. Many other employees did their part and sacrificed a lot during the year. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. However, with their permission, I would like to give special mention to those employees who decided to work on the day (December 31, 2009) when everyone else was starting to celebrate the New Year. I salute them. They are shown in the picture below:

The Society I Want for the Country I Love

2009-11-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

It is based on interconnectivity of communities --

• “The Community of the Future” published by The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Non Profit Organization in 1998 advanced a proposition that the “The global community of the future will be at its best a series of communities that are interdependent and diverse, embracing differences, releasing energy, and building cohesion.”

• This philosophy was written before the onset of online communities and the new diaspora described by Bob Johansen which is creating millions of virtual communities with common interests and passion. Unfortunately, these communities, while connectible and connected, have short life span.

• Community is more ‘substantial and attractive than society,’ according to William Outhwaite, who also writes that community and civil society have a common origin in the late and medieval and early modern reception of Aristotle’s thought.

• Outhwaite also suggests that unity in a society or community is directly realized by its own elements because these elements are themselves conscious and synthesizing units.

Its source of strength are the individual community members

• “The Community of the Future also suggests that “The broader global community will be enhanced by the health of the many smaller communities that constitute the whole. Those living within each community define all community.”

It is more focused on values, less on material accomplishments

• More of communities, less of towns and regions

• Borrowing from John C. Bogle –

More value, less cost
More investment, less speculation
More simplicity, less complexity
More trust, less of counting
More professional conduct, less of business conduct
More stewardship, less of salesmanship
More of leadership, less of much management
More focus on commitment, less focus on things
More 18th century values, less of the 21st century values
More character, less of success.

The President I Want

2009-10-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

Less of the creative promises. More of definitive targets.

Less discussion on what needs to be done. More commitment on what the Philippines would be at the end of the six-year term.

Less discussion on what problems we inherited from previous presidents. More of what the new president commits to pass on to the next generation.

I will vote for the candidate who can commit to the following targets by May 2016.

1. On basic education, a ratio of one classroom to 30 students (maximum) across all towns in the country with each classroom equipped with at least one computer and all the books required.

2. On tertiary education, University of the Philippines reclaiming its ranking as among the top 10 universities in Asia.

3. On law enforcement, a ratio of one police to 300 people across all Barangays with each police fully equipped with all the tools for effective policing.

4. On health, a population growth that is 20% less than the ratio in 2009 and an average life span that is 20% more than the level in 2009.

5. On revenue generation, 200% more than the level in 2009 including revenues generated by the BIR, BOC and BID.

6. On foreign investments, 200% more than the level in 2009 particularly in critical investment areas such as energy, transportation and infrastructure.

7. On environment, a forest cover that is three times more than the present level and all rivers, esteros and water bodies in urban urban areas free of vertical structure.

8. On transportation, Bicol and Baguio interconnected by high speed, efficient train systems.

9. On roads, a national road network that is 100% longer than the level in 2009 40% of which would have an average roughness index of 4.5 (at any given time).

10. On enterprise development, an SME population that is twice that of the 2009 level. Existing SMEs (of about 1.0 million) are given assistance to generate at least three additional employees (or at least 3.0 million new jobs in six years).

Mastery of Risk

2009-10-01T17:42:00.001-07:00

October of each year is when we celebrate statistics and recall the significance of this discipline. The annual event goes by each year with just a ring of stakeholders, mostly statisticians and academicians, attending the conference that the Philippine Statistical Association and other institutions organize.

It is not surprising that the annual celebration is not as popular as other professional events such as information technology, marketing and human resource. The field of statistics has an image closely associated with cold numbers and algorithms.

Tools and procedures in statistics are made to sound very inclusive with labels such as logistic regression and discriminant analysis. Back in college, some colleagues avoided degree courses that required the subject statistics. The discipline generally attracted talents who were usually office-bound and preferred a profile that was low key.

I am quite familiar with this perception because I have had the opportunity to work with extremely talented people in the field of statistics. At the same time, I am quite involved in a business primarily driven by statistics.

It is interesting how Peter Bernstein describes the value of statistics. Bernstein is a consultant and author of six books in economics and finance including the bestselling “Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street.” He is also editor of The Portable MBA in Investment and founding editor of The Journal of Portfolio Management.

He says that “The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk.” The core of that idea is statistics, a discipline that allows decision makers to look at the past and, with the precision of a scientist, confidently manage the future.

Statistics, he says, guide us over a vast range of decision-making, from allocating wealth to safeguarding public health, from waging war to planning a family, from paying insurance premiums to wearing a seatbelt, from planting corn to marketing cornflakes.

In more developed economies, statistics, as a discipline, has been transformed into a very important engine for governance and corporate decision making. Practitioners work hand in hand with corporate decision makers. There are many proven practical applications that benefit industries and government. Three hot applications are fraud detection, credit scoring and micro-targeting.

The goal of fraud detection is to manage or prevent the commitment of fraud. Fraud is a billion dollar menace. It affects government and private banks, insurance companies and many other institutions. Fraud has a broad definition and includes money laundering. Hot money that travels from one country to another is considered fraudulent. After the 9/11 incident in America, it became a hot application to manage the unrestricted flow of dollars financing terrorism and terrorist activities.

Through a clever application of computer-aided statistics, governments and banks are able to process terabytes of transactions and identify, with a high degree of confidence, the most likely fraudulent cases. This telescoping enables intelligence units to focus on the more likely fraudulent transactions with ease and precision at the least cost.

Credit scoring is an old application but is not as extensively used in the Philippines as it is in other more developed economies including those in Asia. The use of statistics in credit scoring enables users to create a working model that predicts, with a determinate level of confidence, customers who are good, moderate or bad credit risks. Used with powerful computers, this model may be deployed to identify, at the point of contact, customers who should be approved or denied of service without the need to elevate the decision to top management.

Microtargeting is a new application. Its application as a campaign strategy started in the 2004 presidential election in the United States. Its value was fully exploited by Barack Obama when he won the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party versus Hillary Clinton. It uses the same principle in analytics and statistics.

The discipline of statistics is so important to leave the task of celebrating and promoting its value in the hands of statisticians alone. The primary beneficiaries – decision makers and government executives – must find time to partner with the practitioners to drive the widespread use of statistics in decision making.

To paraphrase Bernstein, the capacity to manage risk, and with it the appetite to take risk and make forward-looking choices using statistics, are key elements of the energy that drives the economic system forward. Let us support statistical month.

The Asia-Pacific Centre for Research (Acre), Inc. is doing its share in promoting the value of statistics in decision making by organizing this year’s SPSS Users Group Convention around the theme of Discovery. This will be held on October 22, 2009 at the Sofitel Hotel in Pasay City. To register, contact Veronica Nicolas (Veronica_Nicolas@spss-ph.com)

(for comments, email to nick.fontanilla@gmail.com or abfontanilla@yahoo.com)

acreinc@20: 2nd Phase of the Corporate Journey

2009-09-29T23:23:00.000-07:00

As I write this article, stockholders of SPSS, Inc. are preparing to decide on IBM’s offer to acquire SPSS, Inc. With the concurrence of management and an attractive premium for all common stocks, the acquisition is almost like a done deal. I believe that IBM will greatly benefit from this acquisition. First, it will fortify its consulting portfolio with downstream software applications. Second, it will acquire the capability to provide predictive analytics to growth-driven sectors. Third, SPSS is the leading analytics company and offers unique products and experience.

Acreinc has been SPSS’ partner in the Philippines for most of its corporate life. We share and are committed to SPSS’ mission of driving the widespread use of data-driven decision making. The time and resources Acreinc has invested to carry out this mission is I believe disproportionate to the predictive analytics’ current market size which. We call it advocacy and our social contribution towards improving the competitiveness of local companies.

We are not certain how IBM would restructure the distribution system in the Philippines. As an advocate of data-driven analytics and decision making, Acreinc will continue to invest on people, resources and marketing in the areas of predictive analytics and statistics. We are too deep into this advocacy to retreat. Hopefully, we will be given the same opportunity by IBM to provide decision makers with a powerful tool for analysis and decision making.

Predictive analytics in fact underscores the very essence of the second phase of our corporate journey. It is in this phase from 1995 to 1999 when we re-engineered Acreinc’s corporate business – from a research company providing IT solutions to an IT Solutions company providing research. There is a world of difference between these two major corporate strategies.

Acreinc Reengineered

In research, we were more focused on the implementation of a contract and less focused on marketing to get the contracts. In analytics, we were more focused on sales and marketing to get the contracts and less focused on the implementation. That difference alone needed a major shift in our corporate resources and methodologies.

Going though the second phase of our corporate journey, we had mostly technical persons and had little resources in marketing and market development. Re-engineering our human resource was probably the most challenging task. We needed to change the orientation of our programmers, data analysts and statisticians. We had to make them more customer-centric and sales oriented.

In the beginning, most of our people avoided answering the phone afraid that the caller was a sales prospect and would be asking questions about products and services. Slowly, they got the essence of customer service and how analytics could value add to the customers’ business. It took all of three years to re-invent our human resource from a strictly technical orientation to a customer-driven orientation. There were some Acreinc employees who responded to the shift in orientation with flying colors. They became the backbone of our new operations.

We activated a sales team whose members had the competence to not only provide the technical part of a consulting engagement but to also attend to very demanding pre-sales activities. The sales cycle for analytics products at that time was about eight to 16 months. Sales funneling and client management systems had to be customized because none were available.

That phase was an important learning experience. It provided us with the competence in sales and marketing layered on top of our technical competencies. Our sales profile reversed. In the beginning, research revenues accounted for 70% of total. Towards the middle part of this phase, software revenues accounted for 50% of total even if the volume of research continued to grow. It was this combination that enabled us to venture into other downstream software applications.

New Solutions

It was during this phase when we decided to expand our product mix to include other downstream applications, that is, software products that were used for decision making and analysis.

First on the block was a German product whose objective was to optimize production in heat-generated power plants. In this type of operation, efficiency (higher production) was inversely related to plant integrity (plant maintenance and sustainability). Performance of executives with responsibilities in efficiency was based on total production. Conversely, performance of executives in plant maintenance was based on the upkeep and continuing operation of the plant.

In this environment, the higher the heat level in the plant, the bigger the production volume. However, the higher the heat level maintained in the plant, the higher the chances of breakdown. There was a mismatch in the objectives. To make decisions, executives were using primarily experience and gut feel. The product that we sold provided an optimal solution based on linear programming. It defined optimal levels of production and plant maintenance.

Second on the block was a U.S. product whose objective was to trace and mitigate system losses in the transmission of electricity from the power generating plant to users and clients. At that time, government allowed distribution and production companies to incur system losses of up to nine percent. Companies absorbed system losses over and above the nine percent hurdle rate. The majority of distribution companies were in fact incurring losses that were more than the cutoff rate of nine percent.

Third on the block was a U.K. product on performance management, Balanced Scorecard in particular. We later supplement this with a U.S. product that included other performance management frameworks such as activity based costing and activity based management. This became acreinc’s third division. We continue to maintain this division and provide software and consulting services to many companies in the Philippines.

(This is Part 3 of a series of articles on the history of acreinc@20. It is about organizational and corporate transformation from 1995 to 1999. There is usually a time in the life of an enterprise where management challenges the business and the concepts that gave the enterprise its corporate life. Should we continue to be a player in the industry where we now operate? How can we leverage the resources and experience that we have to expand or venture into other businesses? How do we create an enterprise that grows faster and earns more? This is one of the most challenging moments of Acre, Inc. It was at that time when the environment was changing and business was growing fast. The speed by which technology was changing was also very evident, putting pressure on capital investments and process improvement. For comments, write to abfontanilla@yahoo.com or nick.fontanilla@gmail.com)