One of the key contributions of Harvard Professor Michael Porter is popularly known as the Five Forces. Simply put, it defines the five major forces that affect profitability in an industry. These five forces are bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, competitive intensity, threat of new entrants as well as threat of substitutes. One of the many features […]

The Philippine Franchise Association (PFA) is the Philippines’ pioneer and largest franchise association. It’s officers list includes the who’s who of business with Samie Lim of BLIMS Furniture as chairman emeritus, Yvette Orbeta of Wendy’s as chairperson, Bing Limjoco of Francorp and Robert Trota of Max’s Group as vice chairmen and Franklin Go of Goldilocks as president . Its membership […]

Q1: You are an industrial engineer and you started as a methods officer in the finance function in 1977 for Unilever (then PRC). How did this influence your thinking process in your long career in Customer Development? A: Industrial engineering, in my view, is the application of science in business.  The professional advance of Customer Development (previously called Sales) from […]

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MLM is an acronym for Multi-Level Marketing, also known as network marketing. It is a form of direct selling but with the compensation plan as its core innovation; rewarding sales from people directly and indirectly recruited. The MLM compensation plan is designed in a way that network members will recruit their own downlines, which used to be the never ending […]

Q1: Why is Private Equity (PE) better than getting bank loans, crowd sourcing or getting friends/relatives as partners? A: PE has its strengths and draw backs and ultimately it is up to the Sponsors/ owners of the business to assess whether they see a fit with an outside party investor and their overall strategy and funding requirement. If the Sponsor is simply looking for low cost credit […]

Don’t celebrate yet – hold that promotion to the next position! Review your expansion plan first. Know that many situations of high sales may not be sustainable. 1. Few Repeat Customers When sales are mostly from new customers with only a handful of repeat customers – you may have lost many customers, accounts, and distributors. Retention is the problem. 2. […]

Q1: You have been president or managing director of San Miguel Brewery, Kraft, URC and many other companies, then you shifted to the government as president of Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) – Pharma.   I understand you were able to turnaround PITC, (“a consistently profit-challenged” government company) within your 14-month stay. What issues plagued PITC and how did you […]

Josiah Go features the movers and shakers of the business world and writes about marketing, strategy, innovation, execution and entrepreneurship

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