Anniversaries

September was a month of anniversaries.

A year ago, HP offered to buy Compaq for about US$25 billion. The deal closed about nine months later. At that time, I suggested that you sell HP and buy Dell. If you had bought Dell, you would be up 50 percent and HP down 25 percent. (A few sayings come to mind, hindsight is 20/20 and I should put my money where my mouth is.)

A year ago, the jetliner missiles hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the diverted missile of UA 93 landed on a farmland in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 lives were lost, more than a few thousand families orphaned and more than a few thousand heroes rose to the challenge.

Thirty years ago, Martial Law was declared by then President Ferdinand Marcos because of the political chaos and anarchy. (Some of my colleagues at work were not even born then.) A few hundred Filipinos were put to sleep. A few billion pesos were squandered.

Why do we remember anniversaries? We remember because we want to be reminded of either the joy of a birth or sorrow of a death. In the case of 9/11, the death of America as a safe haven. In the case of Martial Law, democracy died but resurfaced 14 years later. Unfortunately al-Qaeda, lawlessness and corruption still live. I wonder when we can celebrate their deaths?

My Two Cents: September is not a bad month. My wife married me 14 years ago on a nice sunny day in September. It drizzled a little that day, the angels were crying for joy, because I married one of them.

Customer Service

I write this column to continue the fight for good customer service; two firms impressed me recently.

Le Soufflé. This restaurant is one of the last surviving restaurants among the pioneers at Fort Bonifacio, when the Fort was launched a few years back. Remember Fat Willy’s and Mondo? Soufflé continues to have loyal customers from its days at Greenbelt. Why do they have loyal customers? Consistent food and attentive service translate into value. Although their prices are a premium to its neighbors, Pier One and Dencio’s, the total product is of good value. Keep it up!

Ramcar’s Express Hatid. Our car battery recently failed on a Monday morning. Panicked, we went to our neighbors to car-pool the kids to school. Our driver very confidently just dialed 843-1111 and called Express Hatid. This is a delivery service that brings a new car battery to stranded motorists. With a failed battery, your car does not go anywhere, and having the battery come to you is a godsend. Kudos to the folks who thought this up! In a bind, stranded motorists like me are no longer price-sensitive and will pay through the nose to solve their predicament. (Then again, why does my battery fail so often?)

I forgot to mention in my previous column that Prof. Tommy Lopez also suggested that car service companies should consider running their operations not on weekends but rather at night. His proposal was simply elegant. For one-car families, when do you have the time to spare and have your car maintained and serviced? At night. I am sure a premium of 25 percent to cover the overtime will be acceptable to the consumer as his choice is the loss of one weekday or more importantly, a weekend. This is a truly 24-by-7 business model.

My Two Cents: I use the no-drive days to service my car. But with Mr. Fernando at the helm of MMDA, no-drive days may soon be a thing of the past and Prof. Lopez’s suggestion would come in really handy.

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Dickson Co is CFO (C is for Cheap) of Dfnn, Intelligent Wave and HatchAsia. For comments and suggestions, e-mail [email protected].