On August 27, 2026, I will celebrate 12 years of blogging. When I started JosiahGo.com in 2014, my objective was simple: to share what I was learning and make practical business knowledge more accessible to students, entrepreneurs, managers and business owners in the Philippines. I did not realize then that blogging would also become a record of my own reinvention. […]
Many corporate executives talk about culture, but very few can seamlessly connect deep organizational values with hard, marketing strategy. Unilab President and CEO Sebastian “Backy” Baquiran belongs to that rare breed. In fact, Backy achieved a historic milestone in the Philippine business community by becoming a rare two-time Mansmith awardee. What makes his trajectory fascinating is the order of his […]
On paper, companies are logically consistent: Yet execution still breaks down. Not randomly, but predictably. Because between strategy and behavior sits a force most organizations underestimate: Incentives determine what people actually do when no one is watching. And when incentives conflict with strategy, incentives always win. Here are ten points to consider: 1. The Real Architecture of Execution Every organization operates […]
While visiting Bangkok with some old friends, we stopped by a popular shopping mall where one of them decided to get a suit made. The proposition stopped me in my tracks: One coat. One shirt. One pant. One tie. Custom-fitted. Ready in 24 hours for roughly US$137 (Baht 4,500, or Php 8,300). My friend ended up upgrading his raw material […]
When news broke that the United States government moved to close the $800 de minimisthreshold, the tariff-free customs exemption long leveraged by Chinese cross-border platforms Shein and Temu to ship direct-to-consumer parcels via air freight, industry observers treated it as a sudden geopolitical shock. But from a strategic auditing perspective, this outcome was not a surprise. It was a structural load […]
Why Systemic Alignment Across the Strategy Links Beats Isolated Tactics Every Time I walked into a Pop Mart store in Shanghai and saw something unexpected: a Chinese company had built a global consumer brand around something most businesses struggle to manufacture: emotion. The shelves were filled with collectible figures. Customers were examining boxes, anticipating what might be inside, comparing figures, […]
We all know King Solomon for his wisdom. He is history’s ultimate poster child for deep strategic insight. If he were a modern CEO, he would be the visionary founder featured on every business magazine cover, the legendary entrepreneur who inherited a stable organization from his father, David, and rapidly scaled it into a golden conglomerate of unprecedented wealth, complete […]
Every year, I meet business owners who ask essentially the same question. “Our products are good. Our people work hard. So why aren’t we growing?” It is a fair question. What’s interesting is that another company, in the same industry, serving the same customers, often grows much faster. Same economy. Same regulations. Sometimes even the same suppliers. Yet the results […]
Recently, I attended the Philippine premiere of Dear You, a moving film about overseas Chinese pursuing a better future while remaining connected to their roots. Despite its modest budget, lack of major stars, and dialogue largely in the Teochew dialect, the film found a wide audience because its story felt authentic and universal. It reminded us that behind every immigrant journey […]
Author’s Note: This is an expanded version of last Friday’s article on the value proposition as a contract for relevance. When companies fail to deliver on their value proposition, the usual explanation is poor execution. Sales overpromised. Operations underdelivered. Customer service failed to manage expectations. Sometimes that is true. But when the same failures repeat across markets, teams, and leadership cycles, […]