Great article today from SME Insight. Read the excerpt:

There’s a new food craze in town, and if you haven’t heard of it yet, you’re either out of touch or you’re getting too old. That’s because since 2006, many young kids, from grade school to college, have been saving up their baon for bowls of cereal they can buy in school. And a lot of yuppies troop to the nearest outlet for their cereal fix too.

So what’s with the bowl of cereal, you ask. At Cerealicious, a cereal bowl is not just a cereal bowl. True, cereals are drowned in milk here, but the toppings go from fruits to chocolates to puddings to coffee jelly and more. In fact, Cerealicious offers 40 cereals and 40 toppings and you can mix them any way you want to or go for any of the 20 certified “blockbuster” mixes cheerily named after blockbuster movies. Thus, you can munch on Charlie and the Chocnut Factory today, order Nutting Hill tomorrow, and snack on Oreo Afraid of the Dark the day after.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

A few months back, a friend proposed a franchise business to me that cost only P10,000. The business plan would allow me to choose whether to get a waffle stand, a burger stand and some other options I don’t recall anymore. She had forked over her money to the company before she met with me and she told me it would be a good business for both of us. I winced. I didn’t want any part in the business.

First, it had no track record and sounded too much like a network marketing business that was trying to sound like a franchising business. I know some very good companies that use network marketing strategies, but when there’s deception involved – even just a little bit – I know from experience that it’s best to stay away.

This article from MoneySense talks about five franchising myths to watch out for:

[Read the rest of this entry »]

(Photo from Agence-France Presse)

By J. Randell Tiongson, RFP®
Personal Finance Educator

I was thinking of a New Year’s Resolution for 2008, something I can choose… then not follow, haha! In my hobby forum (www.reefphilippines.com), someone asked us about our New Year’s Resolution and one wittingly answered that he will only make one, that is not to make any resolutions — funny guy. Seriously though, this is a great time to reflect on what I want to do for 2008.

I want to pursue my entrepreneurial endeavors for 2008. I have been happy with my career these past few years. I have a job I really love and I work with a lot of people I really like. I am thankful for what I have now… how many people can really say they like being an employee? I actually sincerely do. If only I get that promotion, then everything will be perfect (I really hope my boss reads this, haha!).

Now if this is the case, then what seems to be the problem? Well, there’s a tiny voice in my head that keeps on telling me that I can also be a successful entrepreneur. I grew up in an family of entrepreneurs. I am the lone employee in my family. In a brood of about 45 cousins in my mother’s side, there are only about 10 employees, maybe even less. My siblings can’t comprehend the concept of vacation leaves! That voice that keeps telling me to set up my own business is somehow rooted in my subconscious. There are times that I am happy that I am employed when I see my siblings go through some business reversals but I still feel that I also have the smarts to be an entrepreneur too.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

Photos from Agence France-Presse.

(I have not been able to access this blog for the last four days, so I’m posting my entry for last Friday.)

For the last, oh, 5 to 6 years, franchising has continued to fizzle and sizzle in the Philippines, cornering an ever growing share of retail sales especially in Metro Manila. A recent article by Tina Arceo-Dumlao of the Philippine Daily Inquirer that there are now “close to 900 franchises operating in the country from just 50 in 1995 and 64 percent of these are homegrown. These are largely in food, service and retail.”

Interestingly enough, many new franchise owners are 30-something and below, says the Philippine Franchise Association. They know the pulse of the market because they ARE a big segment of the “upwardly mobile professional” market. They are aggressive, looking not just at the Philippine market but ASEAN and beyond. They have nimble business sense and they readily morph and adapt their business strategies to suit the market — something that older, more traditional businessmen might have difficulty doing.

“Franchising is definitely a growing market,” Bartolome says. “Every month, there are entrepreneurs starting to expand via franchising. More and more Philippine companies that are franchising here are now inspired to expand beyond the shores like within the ASEAN region, Middle East and North America. I could see that within the next decade, almost all businesses will be into franchising,” says Amando Bartolome, a franchise consultant.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

The World Bank believes it has the answers. The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s banner story today shows a list of measures the International Finance Corp., the private sector development arm of the World Bank, is urging the government to adopt.

Do you agree with the IFC? It says the Philippines is weak especially in the areas of starting a business, property registration and ability to access credit.

In a nutshell, IFC suggests that the government should:

The proposal on the credit information bureau is particularly interesting because at the moment, lenders are keeping their own counsel on who is creditworthy or not. Why would they share that kind of information with their peers, no matter what they say publicly about “working together for the good of the industry.” The absence of a good database on potential borrowers makes it easier or bad borrowers to get a loan and raises banks’ past due loans.

Who is the end loser here? The banks to a certain extent because their image gets hurt, but more so good borrowers who get higher interest rates and a longer time to process loans because of more documentary requirements and credit history checking. At least, that’s how bankers explain the situation.

Unfortunately, getting that reform done will depend on Congress, where the road to an important bill can twist and turn like a supertyphoon dancing with another supertyphoon.