Big business, big brothers and big dreams

Early this month, I spent time with the Selecta team to celebrate a job well done. I shared with them how some 25 years ago, we were practically on our own with this well-loved Filipino brand that we had just acquired. We were up against Magnolia, which was the dominant brand at the time. My brother John took charge of the brand for a number of years and took Selecta to a whole new level. This was only possible because we saw that, in order to nudge Selecta a little further ahead of the competition and not just be on a level that constantly competes to be number one, we needed to do something more.

The first step was to admit that no one can do this alone. With the number of brands coming in to the local market, we needed to tie up with one of the best companies in the world and, of course, that was Unilever. They brought in the technology we needed to compete in the ice cream market, to create the innovative products that you see today, to be able to expand the number of SKUs and bring to the Filipino consumer products like Magnum and so many others that have become synonymous with affordable, quality ice cream.

Combined with Filipino innovation and a feel for what ice cream the local market would want, Selecta grew by leaps and bounds and became the dominant player it is today. With the partnership with Unilever going strong, I am quite certain that it will be another exciting year for Selecta.

What makes the Philippine market so unique is its micro-retail landscape. If you’re a consumer brand and you don’t have a presence in the sari-sari stores, you’re not a big player. That’s why I always tell my team at Selecta to take care of the retail side of the business. I remind my team that their biggest clients are not the upper A, B or upper C, it is the masa. It is the small mini-marts, the corner stores that carry our heart logo; whenever I travel and see that same heart logo in other countries, I can’t help but feel proud.

The small stores keep our business going, and it is in our best interest to keep their businesses going. The competition knows this, too. But I tell my team to welcome competition because it will always be there. That is the way of business. Besides, it’s nice to have competition because if you had no one nipping at your heels, you would not need to push yourself to become better, and the consumer will be poorer for it. There will be no drive for innovation or to deliver better service because there’s nobody out there to fight. That’s how a brand withers and dies, and becomes vulnerable when something better comes along and topples it.

I suppose this is where my two worlds – RFM and Go Negosyo – come together. I can’t view one without seeing the context through the other. When I speak of “big-brothers” in business, I see it applied even to our journey at RFM. Even large companies need big brothers, same as how MSMEs will benefit from being integrated into the value chain of big companies or to be mentored and given access to larger markets through partnerships with malls or nationwide retail chains. My immersion in the world of Filipino MSMEs reaffirms my conviction that the fate of the smallest survival entrepreneur affects the largest companies. In Tagalog, I think the saying is, “Sakit ng kalingkingan, ramdam ng buong katawan.”

That’s why I posed this question to the Selecta team. What is in store for this company? Then I posed a bigger question: what is in store for the country? The biggest challenge today is elevating the lives of Filipinos, especially small entrepreneurs. It is these small entrepreneurs that sell our products, they are where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. They suggest our products to the consumer, and they are the ones who can tell us which products the consumers want and what they think of them.

At Go Negosyo, we teach these micro and small entrepreneurs how they can scale up by mentoring them, by pushing for favorable policies and making financing more accessible. The effort is all worth it once you get to listen to the aspirations of the entrepreneurs.

Sometimes all they need is encouragement from successful businessmen. This is especially crucial when things are not turning out the way they planned. This is when they come to us and ask for advice. I tell them that nothing is impossible. Once upon a time, RFM bought a soft drink company called Cosmos Bottling. We were up against Coca-Cola (and even Pepsi) and it was a David and Goliath battle through and through. Never did I imagine that we would disrupt things so much and match their market so closely that Coca-Cola would offer billions of pesos to buy us. But it happened.

I even told my Selecta team that I want them also to explore a life of entrepreneurship and put up their own businesses. Like I said, nothing is impossible.

It is in our country’s best interest (and even in the interest of the large corporations) to see small entrepreneurs become medium and that some of them make it to become large corporations and create more jobs and contribute to a more active economy where people have the means to participate in the economy. When this happens, there will be greater prosperity and it will be for all.