Binalot's success: Wrapped in family tradition, innovative business solutions

MANILA, Philippines - Jumpstarting a business and turning it into a thriving venture is never easy. Any successful CEO will tell you the primary ingredients would include appropriate capital, a brilliant business concept and enough gumption to see it through.

These, though, are not enough.

Just ask Rommel Juan, owner of Binalot, one of the country’s more original fast food chains, and scion of a family of successful entrepreneurs.

“It wasn’t easy at first,” he says. “Aside from doing everything, we had to be doubly creative.”

Rommel says that when Binalot was established in 1996, there was no physical set-up. He and his brother Raffy used his pad as base of operations.

“You know how condos are. You can’t have a business in a residential condo, much less something that involved a lot of cooking,” he says.

Rommel, who, together with his other siblings, spent his childhood summers at his father’s office where he learned the value of hard work, was taught early on the importance of paying attention to what customers say.

Thus, Binalot’s earlier strategies involved delive-ring customers’ orders with survey forms. “During lunch, we would deliver them their orders with the survey forms. Then in the afternoon, I’d come back to collect the forms. We learned a lot from those surveys. Some of our product offerings and even our pricing strategies were suggestions from those surveys,” he recounts.

Taking it to the next level

Rommel reveals that although Binalot is quite established in the niche it has carved for itself, it continues to evolve. Not just in terms of its operations and marketing platforms, but also in its back-end technology.

“SMEs face a lot of hurdles when they are just starting, and most of them financial,” he says. “We take some very important things for granted like proper documentation or inventory or just making sure that our customers can easily call us anytime, from anywhere.”

Rommel, who recently had a PLDT-SME Watcher installed in his Greenbelt branch, says SMEs can benefit a great deal in investing in technology.

“I’m so excited with all the available technology. And to think that even the most basic set-up, say a laptop, Internet connection, a fax machine can spell a big difference for any business,” he says.

Advocating Negosyo Boost for SMEs

As Rommel realized, a lot of other SMEs need to invest in technology. “It’s so competitive these days that if you are not properly equipped, competition can easily devour you.”

He cites PLDT-SME Nation’s various products as must-haves for any SME. “What’s good about it is you actually have a choice on which product bundle you would want, depending on what stage your business is in.”

What Rommel is referring to is PLDT-SME Nation’s Negosyo Boost program, which comes in three packages — Negosyo Launch, Negosyo Advance, and Negosyo On-the-Go. All three are available through an easy monthly payment scheme.

“SMEs are crucial in pushing our country forward and I truly believe that if we are to improve our business competence, then technology is the way to go. I’m happy that PLDT-SME Nation has introduced these programs, especially for SMEs like ours. We cannot do everything by ourselves. It’s about time somebody took care of our needs,” he says.