Commentary Archives: 2010
Apr 15, 2010
Sadly, the news is not good. Last year, Malaysia welcomed more than 22 million international visitors to its cities and resort areas. Thailand welcomed almost 15 million, and tiny Singapore more than nine million. In Southeast Asia’s largest country by population, Indonesia, arrivals declined slightly but the country still managed to attract more than five million visitors. Fast-emerging Vietnam was a destination for about 4.3 million foreign visitors.
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Apr 08, 2010
In January, I wrote about some good and bad tourist experiences in the Philippines’ premier “world-class” resort island, Boracay. On the positive side, the island has improved transportation links and the airport and the aircraft it services continue to improve. Many of the boutique hotels offer terrific value for money, and personalized service that keeps bringing guests-and friends of guests-back to the island.
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Apr 01, 2010
The Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia will account for almost 90% of growth in online ad spend in Southeast Asia in the next five years according to research conducted by Media-Interactive, AC Nielsen, and Yahoo! The value of online advertising in the Philippines is expected to reach Php 1 billion this year as young and influential Filipinos increasingly look to the Internet for entertainment and to network with friends.
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Mar 24, 2010
Intuit founder and former chairman Scott Cook once said, “For every one of our failures, we had awesome spreadsheets,” explaining that what looks good on paper doesn’t always work in reality. If fact, “nine out of 10 companies that succeed start out following the wrong strategy,” according to Innosite Ventures managing director Scott D. Anthony. “New businesses can’t be forecast,” he told a group of Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) members last week.
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Mar 17, 2010
In 1999, the Philippines had a poverty rate of about 30%, compared to close to 70% in Vietnam and nearly 60% in Indonesia. China had a poverty rate of about 45%. Thailand had already managed to reduce the incidence of poverty to less than 10% of its population, and in Malaysia, the incidence of poverty was less than five percent. Consider the case today. The incidence of poverty in the Philippines is still about 30%. But its rivals have fared far better in their efforts to reduce poverty.
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Mar 11, 2010
Executives in the business process outsourcing industry (BPO) are naturally curious about how presidential candidates in the looming May national election view their industry, and what they will do to sustain its growth if elected. But the executives understand why the candidates seldom make public statements about the industry, or the Philippines’ appeal to investors in general. To the voters who will elect the president-mostly desperately poor Filipinos mired in the D and E socio-economic classes-a job in the BPO industry is way too aspirational to matter to them.
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Mar 05, 2010
When I was a much younger man in graduate school, my MBA classmates and I were prohibited from using calculators in finance classes. The reasoning was that we would not be able to calculate present value if our calculators broke down and we were forced to make calculations manually. By the time I received an advanced degree-several years later at another institution-calculators were as common as pencils and erasers used to be.
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Feb 24, 2010
A just-released economic snapshot survey conduct by McKinsey Quarterly suggests that most managers globally expect their companies to grow profits this year, and that improved profitability will primarily come from increased demand rather than further reductions in costs. Notably, managers in emerging economies are even more optimistic about 2010 than their peers in developed economies
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Feb 18, 2010
Presidential candidates are understandably focused on the voters who will or will not elect them in May. With voters in socio-economic classes D and E accounting for 90% of the population and close to that many registered voters, candidates’ value propositions invariably communicate promises of education, increased prosperity, and new opportunities. This is the moment for classes D and E, the only time they have a profound impact on the political future of the Philippines.
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Feb 11, 2010
"The best way to promote the Philippines effectively is to leave the Philippines out" of the marketing message, Camarines Sur governor Luis Raymund "Lray" Villafuerte, Jr. told 250 delegates to the MICECON 2010 conference in Subic Bay last week. Although Mr. Villafuerte's remarks were met with stunned silence initially-quickly followed by boos and "No's"-the young governor was steadfast, repeating his advice at least twice more.
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