And communication for all

Alan Supnet, segment head for OFWs of Globe Telecom, is a man in a hurry. The reason is obvious: he wants to make sure that Globe reaches more Filipinos and helps “enrich their lives.”

“Jay Mendoza, one of my mentors in Globe nominated me to the YMMA,” shares Supnet. “ I was told by Jay that I have all the qualifications to win the award.”

Supnet told us that the Young Market Masters Awards (YMMA) is an advocacy project organized annually by Mansmith and Fielders Inc. The YMMA seeks to recognize young marketers aged 35 and below who have done outstanding brand building and innovation for their companies. This award gives recognition to the young people who serve as role models to the youth and form the core of future leaders of society.

This is the third year that YMMA has given out awards. This year there were seven awardees. Supnet won the award for marketing management for having spearheaded Globe Kababayan together with his team.

Supnet has been with Globe for that past 13 years and he says that he started with the company as a management trainee doing jobs like sending faxes and photocopying documents for his bosses.

Of course, hard work never goes unrecognized in a company like Globe and so Supnet worked his way up and was eventually tapped to help in the launching of the AutoloadMax service.

The job of getting the AutoloadMax service into companies like Jollibee, McDonalds and Caltex, among other large companies, was part of what Supnet had to do.

He was content with that work because he saw that he was helping more Filipinos stay in touch with their loved ones by what he was doing.

“At the start Globe was marketed as a premium brand because it is associated with the Ayala group,” adds Supnet. “We felt that if we just focused on the high-end market we would not be able to serve the whole country. Globe has always tried to reach out to a wider segment of the market.”

Matter of fact, Supnet adds that Globe Prepaid serves an estimated 20 million subscribers.

“Today there are hundreds of thousands of activations for Globe in a day,” he adds.

Supnet’s work did not go unrecognized and he was tapped to do work that involved getting to the OFW market in Hong Kong, which had been at the time untapped. That was about four years ago. Supnet was 31 and his task was to see how Globe could reach out to the Filipinos who were working abroad.

“If there is the most challenging aspect of my stay in Globe, it is that I have been able to help the company reach out to more OFWs,” shares Supnet.

Supnet and his group headed to Hong Kong where they discovered just how Globe prepaid cards were being marketed. The place they visited is known as the World Wide House in Central where Filipinos gather on Sundays.

Supnet found out that there were stores in the World Wide House that sold Globe prepaid cards to OFWs.

“The OFWs would scratch the call cards and send them back to the country,” says Supnet. “Because what the OFWs found out is that if they would send cash the money might not be used to purchase call cards.”

While talking to the OFWs there, the overseas workers shared with him that many of their family members would use the money sent home for other needs and then on top of that they would ask for money to purchase call cards.

The Globe prepaid cards made it to Hong Kong through biyaheras who would buy them here and sell them to the stores in Hong Kong.

Globe OFW SIM cards

That discovery four years ago led to the development of the Globe OFW SIM cards.

“When I got back here I was excited because our products were already being sold in Hong Kong even if we didn’t know it,” says Supnet. “And this meant that there was a demand for it.”

Supnet and his team legalized the sale of call cards in Hong Kong and even helped in putting up banners that announced the availability of the call cards in different stores in Hong Kong.

After Hong Kong, Supnet and his team went to Singapore and found out that the same phenomenon existed.

“And then we formed a small marketing team that went from one country to another to get retailers or distributors who would carry our load,” adds Supnet. “Today, we are present in about 15 to 16 countries worldwide.”

More services have been added by Globe to make sure that the needs of OFWs are fully met.

The Globe Kababayan was created to offer relevant services that address the remittance, reloading and communication needs of OFWs with the purpose of helping bridge the distance between them and their families in the Philippines and keep them connected.

There is also the Globe Kababayan GCASH international remittance through text for fast and secure way of sending cash remittances to the Philippines.

Sending cellphone credits to loved ones in the Philippines is also made easy with International AutoloadMax, which allows OFWs to send P150, P300, P500 and P1,000 worth of load to Globe and TM subscribers.

OFWs in Hong Kong and Japan can also send cellphone credits to their families in the Philippines through International Share-a-Load.

Globe Kababayan has also introduced co-branded prepaid SIMs especially for OFWs such as the SingTel Kababayan Prepaid SIM in Singapore, OK! Kababayan Prepaid SIM in Taiwan, CSL-Kumusta Ka Kababayan SIM in Hong Kong, and Hotlink-Kababayan SIM in Malaysia.

It offers IDD phone cards as well such as the Chubun International Prepaid Card in Japan and Shinetown Telecom IDD Phone Card in Hong Kong to make it convenient and affordable for the OFWs to keep in touch with their families in the Philippines.

OFWs’ lifeline

Supnet shares that there are more than eight million Filipinos abroad who work so that their families can have a better tomorrow. Being far from their loved ones makes communication a lifeline for them — a pressing desire that is a lot deeper than usual.

This need to keep the communication lines open has led to the development of Globe Kababayan, a sub-brand envisioned to identify various opportunities in the overseas Filipino segment. It offered and marketed tailor-fit cellphone services that helped bridge the gap among Filipinos abroad and their families and friends in the Philippines.

After a year of solid and painstaking planning with his team, Supnet finally launched Globe Kababayan in the first quarter of 2005, which offered a complete roster of mobile services that enriched the daily lives of OFW communities and their families worldwide.

Supnet’s efforts in meeting Globe Kababayan’s business objectives led to the achievement rates of a whopping 138 percent in the last two years and an impressive cost-to-revenue ratio of only three percent.

What is even more inspiring is from a zero contribution in 2004, his team’s endeavors, particularly in the international arena, are now hitting the billion-peso revenue levels.

With these successes, Globe has recognized Supnet’s major contributions to the firm with his promotion to the VP level in October 2007.

Globe Kababayan is only one of the feathers on Supnet’s cap. During his 13-year stint in Globe, he has handled some of the company’s biggest projects and has made significant contributions to the achievement of Globe’s corporate goals.