In my previous post, I wrote about the MarkProf Foundation Inc. which has been honing deserving graduating student leaders through a life-changing 7-weekend boot camp in Marketing Leadership. Just recently, MarkProf made official its roster of “Top 25 Marketing Management Trainees of the Philippines” through the graduation of its 11th batch last December 6, 2014. Kudos to the MarkProf scholars who successfully passed the rigorous training. On top of the mind-racing challenges, there was one exciting addition this year, a first in the MarkProf history – the Waters Video Challenge. Part of their overall grades would […]
In 2004, Ding Salvador (then newly–retired ASEAN president of Johnson and Johnson’s) and I put up MarkProf Foundation Inc. to help develop future leaders of the Philippines. We saw some biases happening in the corporate world where hiring of important entry-level positions, including management trainees, was usually limited to three schools, namely: Ateneo, De La Salle, and University of the Philippines (not necessarily in […]
Store retailing is a business that can easily be started. But with the rise of competition and many other risks in this industry, a store retailer must revisit and identify each business factor to have a competitive edge. There are two interconnected elements to have a profitable retail business. The first one is related to marketing while the second one […]
There are ‘marketing disasters’ that can be expected at year-end. One of these is what we call “ritualization”, a term that refers to practices that are wrong but are done anyway in the corporate world. Ritualization, as well as how to solve this, is part of the subject covered in the Marketing and Sales Implementation seminar / workshop Mansmith and […]
Q1: McDonald’s started the fastfood trend worldwide with the insight “people don’t dine, they eat and run.” They created many firsts which are now standard in fast food. What are firsts that McDonald’s has launched in the Philippines? Innovation and relevance are important for McDonald’s to stay on top of a fast-paced industry. Here in the Philippines, McDonald’s introduced the […]
Years ago, the franchise manager of a company was trying to convince me to invest in a barber shop franchise. I figured that a barber shop has a high repeat visit frequency so I was interested to know more. When I asked what was unique about the barbershop, I was told that it would be thematic, with the barbers dressed […]
Q1: I met you close to 25 years ago when you were country manager of Pioneer Hybrid Corn in the Philippines. Now you are Asia Pacific Corn Marketing Head for Syngenta, a merger of the agro division of Novartis and Zeneca. As a veteran in this field, can you share the highlights and developments that has changed the way business […]
The year was 1990. I was a rookie director of the Philippine Marketing Association and was in charge of the youth and academe sector. This position connected me with many marketing professors, one of whom was Prof. Emmanuel Fernandez, then Chairman of the Management Department of the Ateneo de Manila University. He heard me give a short talk in marketing and invited […]
Q1: You introduced two new product categories in the Philippines, Green Cross Rubbing Alcohol in 1952 and Zonrox Bleach in 1954. They are popular products now. What made you think there would be a big market for those products in the 1950s? Back the 1950s, I knew there would be a big market for alcohol because of my experience at […]
Chiqui and I co-authored “The WE Entrepreneurs” in 2010 and shared the ten building blocks to entrepreneurial authenticity. Reinforcing its status as the No. 1 book on entrepreneurship at National Bookstore, and in celebration of both Mansmith and Fielders Inc.’s 20th Anniversary as well as my 25th Anniversary as an entrepreneur then, we launched Day 8 Business Academy for SMEs […]