Innovation

19Jul 2019 by Josiah Go No Comments

Q&A with Matimco President Charlie Liu on BTB Branding and Innovation

BTB Marketing, Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Matimco, which is more popularly known for their Matwood, is the market leader in premium treated wood. The company is celebrating its 55th year this 2019 and its President and CEO, Charlie Liu, shares the best practices of a business-to-business organization like theirs in marketing and innovation. Q1: Wood is perceived as a commodity. Matimco branded Matwood and is now the leader in the upscale treated wood segment. Can you share with us the insight two decades ago that led to this branding and product innovation? A1: Back in the 90s when the imposition of a total export ban on lumber was implemented, the local market was a-washed with cheap supply of lumber mostly coming from illegal logging. It was impossible for us to compete using our legal…

02Jun 2017 by Josiah Go 1 Comment

Q&A with GlaxoSmithKline PH President Lynn Baxter on Executing Innovative Ideas

Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Lynn Baxter rose from the ranks as a medical representative in the UK through local, regional and global positions leading different products and markets in various countries such as China and Belgium. She is currently the President of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the Philippines. GSK is a research-based, patient-focused global pharmaceutical firm. She shares her insights on the sales innovation process happening in GSK. Q1: GSK is operating in a highly regulated pharmaceutical industry, yet, it added another layer of internal process where the sales force is no longer rewarded based on the number of prescriptions generated. Why was this practice changed? What new metrics will you use? What are your options if this doesn’t work out? A: At GSK our mission is to help people do more, feel better, live…

24Mar 2017 by Josiah Go No Comments

Q&A with Citibank Consumer Head Bea Teh-Tan on Bank Marketing

Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Bea Teh-Tan was appointed Consumer Business Manager for Citi Philippines in March 2013 & has just been appointed as Consumer Business Manager for Citi Indonesia upon regulatory approval. Prior to this role, Tan was Credit Payment Products Head managing the consumer finance portfolio, including credit cards and personal loans of Citi Philippines. Bea was earlier recognized as one of the most promising young talent in the financial services industry by The Asian Banker. She was awarded in 2008 as one of the Top 100 Most Promising Young Bankers in Asia Pacific and Gulf Region. In 2015, Bea was also featured in Town & Country Philippines as one of the top 50 Most Influential Women in the Philippines. In August 2016, she was recognized as one of the Most Influential Filipina…

09Jan 2017 by Josiah Go No Comments

Q&A with 8990 Housing CEO JJ Atencio on Innovation

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Januario Jesus Atencio III or JJ for short started 8990 Housing in 2003 with P180 million in revenues. By end 2016, it jumped to close to P10 billion with 55% gross margin and 40% net margin. JJ shares his insights on how to attain phenomenal growth rate and how to sustain it with a goal of selling 12,000 new homes yearly. Q1: You believe 'Mass housing is not about housing but about people', tell us briefly about this philosophy. A: A business as imbued with a social mission should look beyond the numbers. Business is about people: your customers - the people who buy from you; your employees and contractors - the people who work, sell and construct for you; and because we are now publicly listed, the people who…

15Apr 2016 by Josiah Go 1 Comment

Q&A with SEAOIL CEO Glenn Yu on Combining Innovation and Integrity

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, interviews, Q&A, Retailing

Q1: SEAOIL is the largest independent fuel company in the Philippines and is now one of the top 60 corporations in revenues. Can you share with us the major challenges you encountered as a new entrant in the retail business in 1997 and how you overcame them? A: When we started the retail business, we were aware that we will compete with industry giants who have been in the business for decades. We needed to create our own niche to secure a sizeable share of the market, so we leveraged on lower pricing to attract customers. True enough, price-conscious motorists, specifically the PUV drivers, became our frequent patrons. Long lines of jeepneys were a usual sight at our stations. However, when the bigger oil players started to feel the pinch they began matching our pump prices. We realized that pricing alone cannot be relied upon as a competitive advantage in this industry…

22Mar 2016 by Josiah Go No Comments

Q&A with Penk Ching on Innovation

Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Q1: What is one word you want your cakes to be known for and why? A: Bespoke...because it’s customized and personalized. Q2: You have been successful in the super premium cakes category. What have you been doing right all these years to create a niche leadership in the cake industry? A: Wow! Doing it right? It’s the first time I heard this phrase over the last 3 decades... to start with, it was a slow and sure step process that I enjoy over the years. I didn't feel the pressure initially as I took it as a hobby. I was half hearted during the first few years because I was in the corporate world for more than a decade. So I told myself, if I am doing a shift of…

27Mar 2015 by Josiah Go 2 Comments

Q&A with Cebuana Lhuillier Pawnshop President Jean Henri Lhuillier on Innovation

Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Cebuana Lhuillier is in the Guinness World Record as the largest chain of pawnshops in the world with close to 2000 outlets, bigger than many banks combined, serving mostly - the ordinary "unbanked" population. It’s president, Jean Henri Lhuillier shares his thoughts about innovation. Q1: How do you go about understanding your target consumers and what have you discovered about them? A: We know a lot about our clients, and the market we serve. We talk to our clients in so many ways, in our branches, thru our Customer Care hotline and in our digital platform. On top of this, we engage on a national scale UAI study complimented with other several consumer researches thru FGD etc. Our frontline people are there where the actions are, we have an open…

20Feb 2015 by Josiah Go No Comments

Q&A with IdeaSpace President Earl Valencia on Incubating Innovation

Entrepreneurship, Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Q1: What is IdeaSpace? Why was it set up? What is its vision? A: IdeaSpace is aimed to help grow a Philippine economy through science and technology. We were set-up by the First Pacific Group of Companies to foster a spirit of technopreneurship in the country and encourage more young people to consider becoming entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists. The goal is for anyone in the world to think of the Philippines and talk about the innovations that changed lives. Q2: You have a Stanford MBA and then worked at Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group at the Silicon Valley Global Headquarters in the US. What convinced you to come back to the Philippines? A: Coming back to the Philippines was not an easy decision. I myself had what most people called a "dream…

07Nov 2014 by Josiah Go 2 Comments

Q&A with Victoria Court CEO Archie King on the Innovation Process

Innovation, interviews, Q&A

Q1: The unserved market of non-motel (or drive-in hotel) goers is much, much bigger than the motel goers. You have since expanded your target group to include the party market. What was the insight that led you to this new market segment? Party segment has evolved from guests’ requests. It started from guests asking for rooms they can use for parties. From there, we were encouraged to have more suites. Party Segment is a way to introduce our thematic suites. It has become more of a talking point to introduce our product to a new market. Its more of to make them see and try the rooms that we have. It so happens that we get a lot of shower parties and stag parties. So we develop more of these…

09May 2014 by Josiah Go No Comments

Q&A with Mr. Tommanny Tan, President, FERN Inc. on Channel Innovation

Distribution, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Marketing Plan in the Philippine Setting

Q1: Not many people know your history, but you actually took over FERN Inc. as a turnaround operation. Please tell us about your early days. We Bring Prosperity to Every Home by Tapping the Entrepreneur in Every Filipino. This is the vision, which the pioneers of FERN Inc. had when they first started in 2003. We envisioned uplifting the lives of Filipinos away from poverty and into prosperity. Rather than rely on dole outs and charity, FERN encourages Filipinos to create wealth by becoming confident entrepreneurs and business builders. I was inspired by this vision; that is why I invested in FERN. Back then, FERN was just starting out as a networking and direct selling company that sold apparel. The problem was, there was no unique and innovative products or…