Restaurant Executive: Ben Lee, CEO of Sarnies

Posted on February 2, 2016 by Stephen Jagger

In 2015 we started doing interviews with restaurant, retail and BPO entrepreneurs to learn more about their businesses, how they make decisions and what’s next for them. These interviews have been quite a success and we plan to continue them into 2016.

First up this year is Ben Lee, the CEO of Sarnies.

“Started a few years ago by Aussie Ben Lee, Sarnies is a pumpin’ little café located in the bustling CBD. Here at Sarnies, we are passionate about our products and their quality. Grass fed beef; chicken free from hormones and antibiotics; bacon cured in-house – all so that you’re guaranteed a fantastic meal every time.

‘Sarnies’ may be slang for sandwich, but we’re much more than that. We serve up hearty breakfasts; gourmet sandwiches; massive salads, homemade bakery treats and a damn good cuppa.” (sarniescafe.com)

Sarnies Coffee

1. Where are you from and what brought you Singapore?
I am originally from Australia and was brought here via a job in my previous life working in a bank.

2. How many restaurants do you currently run?
Four in Singapore with four soon to be opened in Malaysia and one soon to be opened in Thailand.

3. Which one was the first?
Sarnies Cafe on Telok Ayer Street (136 Telok Ayer Street Singapore 068601)

4. What do you like about doing business in Singapore?
For me its a good mix of familiarity and new opportunities to discover. It has been a great entry into Asia for us.

5. What are the challenges for doing business in Singapore?
The tightest labour market in all of history.

6. What advice would you give a business person moving into Singapore, that you wish you knew before moving to the country?
Given it’s the lowest barrier to entry of any city in Asia, competition is fierce in the restaurant game. There’s a lot of good stuff here.

7. How do you choose locations for your businesses?
We go for busy working areas where people don’t have to move very far to get their coffee. And the smaller the footprint the better to keep the rental low.

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The 8th Annual Proactive Accountants Conference: 12 to 16 July in Bali!

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Pragya Gupta

We recently spoke to Rob Nixon about his software business: Panalitix. It is a software as a service that provides accounting data from small businesses to accountants around the world.

Panalitix has an exciting event coming up that accountants should definitely catch. They are hosting their 8th Annual Proactive Accountants Conference between 12th and 16th of July. The conference will be in Bali, Indonesia. Accountants will get a chance to meet their colleagues, hear some great speakers and attend networking events (and of course, spend time in BALI!).

Jack Daly, will be the keynote speaker. Among other speakers, the conference will feature Keith Abraham, creator of Living with Passion, Daniel Priestley from the program Key Person of Influence, Tamara Trentain, digital marketing expert and Karen Abramson – CEO Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting.

Make sure to catch the conference in Bali! 375 accountants have already signed up for the event here.

To know more about outsourcing in the Philippines, you can read our blogposts featuring BPOs like VKW Inc, the Outsourced Accountant and Wint & Kidd. You can check out our executive interview section for all our interviews. You can also read our blog post on doing business in the Philippines, if you are looking for more information about BPOs in the country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkFNyLDBzH0

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Executive Interview: Rob Nixon, CEO & Founder of PANALITIX

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Stephen Jagger

Rob Nixon is the CEO and Founder of PANALITIX, a software as a service (SaaS) platform that provides analytical accounting data from small businesses to accountants around the world. Rob does a lot of education work in Australia and New Zealand with accountants and showing them how/why to outsource to the Philippines. We did a question and answer with Rob about his experience with the Philippines.

1. Can you tell me a bit more about yourself and your business?

PANALITIX is a software as a service (SaaS) that provides analytical accounting data from small businesses to Accountants around the world
I have been working with Accountants for 21 years yet I m not one – I left school when I was 16
This is my 8th company and by far the most exciting
I educate Accountants on how to run a better business and how they can help their clients run better businesses
I constantly tell accountants they need to outsource repetitive tasks to lower cost labour in developing countries
I have been outsourcing to India for 4 years and the Philippines for 2 years.

2. Why do Aussie’s outsource to the Philippines?

We love the time zone difference – 2 hours
We love the English speaking abilities
We love the abundance of labour
We love the cost benefit – Australia is 5 times more expensive for the same task when all costs are added

3. What are the benefits?

Definitely cost – 5 times difference
Eagerness to work – the Philippine team member wants to work and they work hard
easy to get along with
The service culture means they want to serve and please their customers

4. What are some of the downsides you have seen with outsourcing?

if you don’t train the new team or give them clear instructions if will not work
you have to initially travel to get the team up and running*

(*Note: Check out our other post about Mike O’Hagan’s Manila tours)

5. What are some of the best practices others should follow?

create good systems so the worker knows what to do
have good quality IT so solid communication can take place quickly
have 100% of systems cloud based – no transfer of files.

6. Do you suggest your clients start outsourcing to a company? or setup their own Philippine company?

Not initially. Go through a BPO and get the hang of working with a remote team.
Then when the team is 20+ think about incorporating.
If you’re going to have a team over 10 people there needs to be management in place to keep them working

7. You talk about “future proofing” – how can more people learn about future proofing their businesses?

My latest seminar tour is in Australia and New Zealand in July & August. Covering 12 cities.
It is designed for Accounting firms and their team members
Full day workshop on how to to future proof the accounting firm and remain relevant.

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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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