Executive Interview: Russell Yu, IKI Concepts

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

I had the opportunity to meet up with Russell Yu, the Director of IKI Concepts in Singapore. Russell is in the process of bringing his successful restaurant concepts from Singapore to the Philippines.

IKI Concepts In Singapore, Russell operates Kaiseki Yoshiyuki, Horse’s Mouth Bar and Uma Uma! Original Hakata Ramen. They are very popular spots on Orchard Road. Russell is in the process of bringing Uma Uma! Original Hakata Ramen to the Philippines with the first location opening in November 2015 at the SM Mall of Asia.

Interestingly, one of Russell’s ideas to attract talent in Singapore is to rotate the team through Manila. We know something about this as we do the same thing with our #AdventureEngineering program. We rotate our team through our Whistler, Manila and Singapore offices and use that adventure as a core part of our recruiting effort – and it works. Russell’s take on this is interesting and I think has legs. Singapore’s restaurant and retail businesses have a big challenge when it comes to recruiting. The Singapore unemployment rate is 1.9% [2014 (Q4)] and it is difficult to bring in non-Singaporeans for the roles. So many restaurants and retailers go understaffed. The concept of rotating team members from Singapore through to Manila could be that added benefit to not only attract A players but keeps them around. Interested in learning more about the opportunities at IKI Concepts, reach out to their HR team.

Retail News: Canada’s Joe Fresh Coming to the Philippines

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

imgres Canada’s Financial Post is reporting that the retail brand Joe Fresh is expanding further into Asia with the announcement of its partnership with SSI.

Joe Fresh is owned by Loblaws and has hundreds of stores throughout North America. SSI is the premier partner for restaurant and retail groups looking to enter the Philippines.

FamilyMart out of Japan choose SII along with Salad Stop from Singapore. Joe Fresh is another brand expanding into the Philippines in partnership with SSI.

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Planning on expanding to the Philippines? Here are some helpful resources

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Are you thinking about doing business in the Philippines? With almost 100,000,000 people, mostly English speaking, a fast growing economy and the worlds largest centre for voice based outsourcing – the Philippines is a hot market.

Many business owners are coming to the Philippines looking to setup their restaurant chain, expand their retail business, outsource some of their operations or getting into the outsourcing business themselves.

I have compiled a bunch of resources that will help you along the way with your research of the Philippine market.

BPOs

Simon Meers of Wint and Kidd, tells his story about how he transitioned his Australian business to the Philippines and eventually opened a BPO. Read more about Simon’s story.

Clare Matchett, another Australian shares her story about human resource challenges in the Philippines, how they recruit, hire and manage their team as well as why she learned Tagalog. Read more about Clare’s story.

David Elefant has worked with tons of business owners wanting to setup in the Philippines. He is a fantastic resource to get your setup questions answered. Read more about David and what he is doing in the Philippines.

If your interested in learning more about setting up in the Philippines then check outMike O’Hagan‘s tours. He brings in entrepreneurs looking to see first hand how it all works. Read more about Mike.

Then of course there are questions about taxes, Government organizations, etc. Here are some resources on SSS, PhilHealth, Pagibig and PEZA.

Restaurant / Retail

Adrien of Singapore’s Salad Stop in the the process of expanding his restaurant chain into the Philippines. Read more about his adventure.

Eileen Grey, a business women in the Philippines who has grown The Picture Company into a multi-location success story. Read more about her experience here.

Andrew Masigan talks about his restaurant chain in the Philippines and how he got started. With 14 stores open and 2 more on the way, Andrew has some great experiences to share about operating in the Philippines.

Here is a video we shot a while back with startup founders and other stakeholders as to why they think the Philippines is a great place to do business.

Executive Interview: Simon Meers, Managing Director, Wint & Kidd Inc (Philippines)

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

As part of a new series on this blog we will be profiling PayrollHero users to learn more about them, their business, where they go to learn and best practices.

Last week we spoke with Clare from SeekingService, this week is Simon Meers, Managing Director, Wint & Kidd Inc (Philippines). We asked Simon a few questions and his responses are below:

1. What brought you to the Philippines?
We were in the process of implementing a new ERP system for our company in Australia (Air-Met Scientific); we had a database of some 30,000 customer records that needed to be cleaned up before we uploaded it into our new system. I was looking for a team to do that and all roads were leading to the Philippines. I employed 5 or 6 people in 2013 to undertake that work and having successfully completed that task I realised that my team in the Philippines could undertake other activities to support my business. I currently have 14 team members providing support services in data management, sales and marketing, technical service support, website SEO and content management.

2. Tell us about Wint and Kidd?
Recently we moved to a larger office and incorporated a local entity in the Philippines (Wint and Kidd), WK is a boutique BPO for my business (Airmet) and we are offering that service to other Australian businesses. We currently have capacity for 45 employees and 14 are employed to service Airmet.

3. What is the background on the company name?
Albert “Wint” and Charles “Kidd” are fictional characters (villains) in the James Bond novel, and the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever in the James Bond series. They are referred to in the novel and the film as “WINT and KIDD”, and act as enforcers for the smuggling chain of the Spangled Mob. It is their mission, amongst other things, to make sure the smuggling of diamonds, and everything connected to it go off without a hitch. I am a fan of the movie and the in particular the era of movies produced in the 70’s. In addition the name sounds like a professional consulting company.

4. What makes your company different?
At Wint and Kidd we believe that outsourcing or off-shoring should be used to transform a business not necessarily replace elements of it. We want to support businesses to deploy new ideas with ease, try new concepts without it being cost prohibitive, redirect key members of their current team to high pay off activities. There are other companies that provide outsourcing in the Philippines. They may share the same basic broad concept, but our partners work with us because of the people we provide and how our services are delivered. We understand that outsourcing must be efficient, effective and highly professional to succeed; we set out to connect people with what matters most — the experience for them and their customers.

5. When it comes to HR policies, what do you different that your employees love?
The Philippines employment law is very well established, in addition to meeting all our employment obligations we encourage our team members to work with energy and passion, to take responsibility and get involved in our continual improvement processes. Our offices are spacious and we have the latest technology, we promote a friendly and family atmosphere which is very important in the Filipino culture. We celebrate birthdays and other significant events; this encourages loyalty and a sense of belonging to an organisation that is genuinely interesting in the well being of its team members.

6. Where do you go for learning? (ie. what blogs, magazines, papers, etc do you read, watch)
I am a member of a CEO group which meets monthly to share experiences, I typically have 4 or 5 business books on the go at once because I find that most books should be only 100 pages long yet they pad them out for “perceived” value so I tend to skim them and move from one to the other. I have basically given up on watching commercial television; I get my fix from subscriptions to Netflix, Stan and dedicated sports streaming services. I was a “news hound” but to be honest it was just putting stress on my life and suffocating me with bad news stories so I just stopped watching the news and now just read my iPad over breakfast to keep up with the headlines.

7. Android or iPhone?
I started with the iPhone some years ago and have continued to support that product; I find it easy and intuitive.

8. Where do you find most of your talent? (which job site? what tactic do you use, etc?)
I tend to find people rather than advertise and hope that they can find me. I typically use LinkedIn to find people and then reach out for a conversation around opportunities. I use DISC profiling to ensure that any candidates are really well suited to the roles I have on offer.

9. What does 2016 look like for Wint and Kidd?
We will grow our services and continue to add real value to more businesses in the Australian market. My personal bent is business renovation and change management, I never stop looking for ways to improve my own business; I want to share my experiences and assist others.

10. Who is your ideal client?
We love clients who are looking to make real structural change to how they operate. Anyone can shift a bit of work offshore, we are not interested in clients who just want an ego boost by being able to say that they have a VA, we are in the business of driving measurable results, and our business is only as good as the experience we provide for our clients; we specialise in business transformation and my team in the Philippines is only one piece of that puzzle.

11. What was the biggest challenge when you setup in the Philippines?
There are so many layers of government that want a piece of the action and relationships between each group fragmented. Often you need to ask the same question in three different ways before you land in the right place.

12. What was the biggest positive surprise when you setup in the Philippines?
There is an enormous pool of talent in the Philippines and no shortage of human capital coming onto the market. The Filipino culture is one of resilience and this makes them ideal operators for contact or call centre work applications. Filipinos understand our culture; they get our jokes and share many of our values. They are a largely “Christian” based society which means they celebrate and share most of our religious holidays which is very convenient. The time zone is only 2 hours difference from the Australian East coast and is identical to the Australian West coast.

13. What were you doing before PayrollHero (for your hr tools) and how is it now with PayrollHero?
When I set up Wint and Kidd I wanted to leverage the best technology available, all my systems use cloud based software and PayrollHero was an obvious choice. It provides me with the visability I need when I am back in Australia, the system allows my internal accountant to maximise her time and the integration with the statutory bodies is very convenient.

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Executive Interview: Mike O’Hagan of Mike’s Manila Tours

Posted on June 21, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

As part of a new series on this blog we will be profiling executives that are working to help entrepreneurs and business owners expand into new markets.

Mike O'Hagan We spoke with David Elefant a while back about doing business in the Philippines, today is Mike O’Hagan who conducts tours of Philippine BPOs to Australians who are interested in setting up their operations in the Philippines.

1. Can you tell me more about your business (tours)?
Every 2-3 weeks, I bring 6 Western business owners to the Philippines where I teach and show them “how to offshore”, all the alternatives with the do’s and don’ts. They range from pre-start-ups, micro, small, medium, large and even listed companies.

There are seven different offshoring solutions – I teach all seven. We cover back office process, specialised services and manufacturing.

I also give them a massive dose of entrepreneurship.

The business is called MikesManilaTours and was started 3 years ago. I started after I made many mistakes when establishing a couple of offshored teams here and after observing many others making the same mistakes.

My role is to educate – as opposed to showing them their prefect solution. That is why unlike other offshoring tours where commissions are involved, my tours are unbiased and are designed to equip business owners with enough information about the good and bad sides of offshoring in order for them to make a wise decision for their business.

2. Why do you like the Philippines so much?
Offshoring is a worldwide trend. The mantra is make it in the east, sell it in the west. I’ve been involved in Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Russia and Ireland. They have their points but none match the Philippines for friendly, helpful well educated people. The Philippines government is backing the industry and making in easy to operate. The country is stable and easy to access.

3. Why is the Philippines a good market for Australian companies to outsource to?
Worldwide, the Philippines stands out due to over 100 years of education in English with Christian core values combined with 3rd world wages and massive numbers of workers. When aligned with the internet/cloud computing and allowed any sized western business to access these educated workers, the Philippines is a unique and very attractive opportunity.

The same time zone as Western Australia means we generally employ between 6am and 3pm when the biggest player, USA, who employ 75% of the 1 million plus workers engaged in offshoring, employ from 10pm until 4am. This means that Australian businesses don’t need to deal with night differential wage adjustments for their off shored workers.

The workplace culture of Australians also suit the Filipino work ethics.

4. What is the biggest benefit to the Philippines?
It’s the new export. Money coming into the economy, directly into the households – whilst only giving their time and education in return. For years, the Philippines has been struggling with the supply of jobs. Australian businesses offshoring to the Philippines help the country elevate the unemployment problem by providing job opportunities for Filipinos.

I also feel there’s something in – how can we alleviate poverty? Employ them!

5. What is the biggest challenge for Australian companies setting up in the Philippines?
Misinformation. A lot of Australian companies set up in the Philippines without fully understanding what they’re getting themselves into. They fail to understand the different ways they can engage services / solutions, fail to comprehend the education levels and skill gaps in Filipino manpower, and they fail to allot time to understand the culture differences.

MikesManilaTours is structured to overcome these issues.

6. What resources do you consume (and suggest people consume) for learning about HR in the Philippines? (newsletters, blogs? magazines?)
I learn from other business owners. I do this in closed confidential type groups where we share all. My favorite is EO – Entrepreneurs Organisation. I’m very careful with blogs. I place more trust in the personal trustee Filipino staff than most of what’s written online.

7. What area of the Philippines do you suggest people setup their BPO in and why? (Fort, Makati, Pasig, etc)
Manila is typical of capital cities (worldwide) in a way that it attracts the smarter graduates who come for the better opportunities with higher wages. They then discover transport and higher costs dilute the dream. Today, large Aussie businesses are also poaching staff in NCR.

If you need people with high level skills – then Manila is the best choice for you. If your needs are common skills then the provinces are far better. Lower wages, more loyalty with the staff.

8. How many tours do you do a year?
I have 6 other businesses in 4 countries so I run the tours when I’m available. Numbers may be a better way to measure this – to date we have brought over 320 people up. Many have multiple business interests – no idea how many. We estimate we have created about 5000 jobs.

9. How many of your attendees actually end up setting up in the Philippines?
My numbers are a little warped by “Accountants”. Of the 320 about 100 were accountants who notoriously are not very entrepreneurial. About 25% of the accountants do something in the Philippines. Of the remaining 220 people, about 83% take action after the tour. Usually they move some of their processes, then discover they can create more value by developing and adding new processes to their business – some engage specialised services – a few create entirely new businesses from the opportunities that they have realised when they went on tour.

10. What is the most important thing to keep in mind when deciding to do business in the Philippines?
Trust. You must know who to trust. There are many “advisors” who are biased with their advice due to commissions and directed agencies. Every week, I’m finding Aussies in trouble because they received the wrong advice – they didn’t fully understand all the alternatives.

11. any other thoughts? tips? feedback?
Learn before you do. Nothing beats coming to the Philippines and seeing for yourself how it all works – where the big gains can be made.
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