By Gerry Plaza
You’ve got it all set. A sound business plan. Expertise. Familiarity with the market. State-of-the-art tools. But no one is biting. What went wrong?
Small businesses really played hard but they still stare at a huge deficit against the competition. We’ve talked to people who went through the same perilous journey but came back […]

Unconventional strategies for multiplying your sales

By John Calub
Imagine a salesman without a brochure, without a business card, and even without a briefcase walking out with a closed deal (worth millions) from a customer he never met before. This maverick continues to make his sales calls wearing jeans and he doesn’t even carry a pen! What’s […]

Business software company Business Objects is targeting small and medium enterprises, a market where it sees faster growth in the country.
Previously the company had a clientèle of mostly large enterprises, including Unilever, Globe Telecom, Philippine Airlines, Bank of the Philippine Islands, and Cebu Pacific.
Their current solution offers business intelligence for SMEs, in which data could […]

By Florian Cecil Torres

Local wine consumption is growing, which is impressive for a nation of beer-drinkers. Here’s a quick look at the global wine market and how well we’re imbibing into it.
Ninety-eight percent of alcoholic beverages in the Philippines are supplied by domestic producers. This figure includes the ubiquitous San Miguel beer products and domestically […]

By Art Ilano
Pricing one’s product or service is often a stumper. Are we pricing too high? Are we pricing too low? Set a price and this will often result to pricing anxieties.
Here, then, is a crash course in pricing that, hopefully, can bring about a bit of much-needed peace of mind, at least when it […]

Getting the Demand Side of Purchasing Right
by Ma. Gloria Talavera
Most businesses can manage the supply side of purchasing. But not everyone knows how to manage the demand side.
It often amazes me how fast-food chains like Jollibee Foods Corporation and KFC ensure that stocks of patties, burgers, and chicken arrive on time so that you […]

My MBA students and I had a bit of discussion last night about research and development activities in the country, and why we do not have an “R&D culture” here. Is it because we’re a developing country?
Well, yes, the fact that we’re a developing country does count as a factor. We simply do not have […]

A sale can be made or broken at the store, depending on the performance of the sales people who represent the brand. Because of this, it is imperative that management has a way of gauging and monitoring their sales force’s actions.
Enter the mystery shopper.
The mystery shopper is an average person like you and meâ€???party of […]

There’s a consumer beverage that is slowly gaining a following across the globe. But there’s just one big catch: it’s a product would normally be considered as unfit for human consumption.
The product is Kombucha tea. It is now a a $34 million industry, according to the Wall Street Journal. Add to that a currently strong […]

Next time you think that that nice person you just met is being a pushover, think again. He may be slyer than you think.
Turns out that being nice is actually a strategy. For individuals, it is a survival strategy: by being nice, a nice person accumulates less enemies and even ends up with a larger […]