Proteus Center’s Chairman Engr. Buhangin Receives Doctoral Degree

We are pleased to announce that our Chairman, Engr. Joselito F. Buhangin recently earned his Doctor of Engineering (PhD) degree from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He successfully defended his dissertation, “Toward a Framework for Planning Indigenous Regions: The Relational Approach “. Members of the supervisory committee include: Prof. Dr. L. Albrechts, Prof. Dr. H. Verschure, Prof. Dr. J. Mendoza and Prof. Dr. A. Loeckx. Members of the Examination Committee include: Prof. Dr. J. Van den Broeck, Prof. Dr. J. Schreurs, Prof. Dr. M. Loopmans, Prof. Dr. T. Coppens and Chairman, Prof. Dr. Y. Willems.

From your Proteus Center’s family…Congratulations, Dr. Joe Buhangin!

Is Branding Really Necessary?

Branding as it is understood today is an adoption of a system that can make a commodity product become special in the minds of the consumers. A common everyday product can be transformed into something valuable or even trendy and hip by using branding. And as utilized by both small and large corporations, the use of various branding strategies can be categorized under brand management. A perfect example is the case of a simple bottled water where the act of processing it, labeling it and promoting it can make it fetch for a higher price in the market. From a mere commodity product like water, it can become another product altogether just because of branding.

Under the traditional marketing mix (also known as the 4 P’s), the function of promotions are critical in how branding is implemented. This is because a product or a service that is better known by its target consumers has a good chance of being purchased and consumed. We all know that when this happens, the bottom line of the company which owns the product and/or brand is protected and organizational profit is ensured.  Once a consumer is highly satisfied of what the product is promising thru branding as against what it can actually deliver and provide, that particular consumer becomes dedicated to both the product and the brand. This is what is called as brand loyalty brought about by high consumer satisfaction. Brand loyalty can therefore transcend price barriers and marketers can literally increase the prices of their products to cover for these intangible benefits.

Most marketers or those pushing for their products to be sold and patronized believe that the need to utilize branding as a marketing strategy and as a tool to maximize organizational profit becomes very imperative in these challenging times. This is because of increased and cut-throat competition brought about not only by aggressive competitors but also by the new technology particularly in the area of communications and the widespread usage of the internet.  This has given consumers more power to decide what products or services to purchase in ways never before seen in any industry. In an instant, a consumer can compare similar and competing products and services and right away based on the information he has gathered he can make a purchasing decision. This aspect has put a great deal of pressure on brands to strengthen their positions in the minds of the consumers and continually seek ways to deliver greater value to them. Many corporations are now realizing that it is better to compete not just on price and volume/quantity alone. This paradigm shift can thus benefit consumers but also companies in the long run.

Carrying out different marketing activities such as employing effective marketing communication tools to attract potential consumer’s attention can enhance brand awareness especially thru the use of mass media including the internet. And awareness can be measured through the testing of brand knowledge and brand familiarity.

Whether one is promoting a product or a service and utilizing several branding strategies, it is always imperative to latch on to truthfulness. Whatever promises are communicated to the consumers, marketers must always make it a point to deliver on said promises and deliver it well. Otherwise, the perception that some marketers are just paid drumbeaters of large corporations without regard to the welfare of their consumers and are just after profit may dissuade many people into thinking that branding and marketing in general is a noble discipline.

House wants comprehensive land use plan completed

By DAVID CAGAHASTIAN, December 12, 2010, 1:30am

MANILA, Philippines – The House of Representatives recently adopted Resolution No. 43 urging the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Chairman of the Housing & Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) “to direct all local chief executives and local development councils to immediately complete the comprehensive land use plan of their respective local government units or, where one already exists, to review and update or modify the same as necessary, and to assess and review said Comprehensive Land Use Plan every ten years from completion or review thereof.”

Under the Resolution, both DILG and HUDCC are mandated to monitor compliance by the local chief executives and local development councils, grant incentives to complying LGUs such as, but not limited to, being accorded the priority in the provision of technical assistance and in the release of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA).

The resolution also calls for sanctions against the concerned local chief executives, officials or employees for failure to complete or review and update the CLUP due to negligence in the performance of duty or due to the inability to appropriate budgetary allocation therefor, or for failure to complete or review and update the CLUP notwithstanding the availability of funds, resources and the support of the sanggunian concerned.

Principally authored by Oriental Mindoro Congressman Rodolfo G. Valencia, the resolution said that not only will the CLUP promote a well-balanced utilization of land resources but will also reduce disaster risk and secure lives and properties through the proper identification and delineation of geohazard areas such as fault lines, landslide-prone areas and flood-prone areas, including danger areas such as riverbanks, esteros, drainage, seawalls and the like.

Among the salient features of the CLUP are: It ensures that prime agricultural lands, specifically irrigated and irrigable lands, remain totally non-negotiable for land use conversion or reclassification; optimizes the strong potential of unproductive non-irrigable agricultural lands which can be devoted to productive, profitable projects such as housing developments, and the like; discourages and prevents the continuance of idle lands that could be better designated for development into economic and socialized housing communities; improves realty tax revenues for national and LGUs resulting from appreciation in land values; and facilitates decision-making and approval of capital investments.

Reprinted from http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/292348/house-wants-comprehensive-land-use-plan-completed.

How to Use Strategies in a Changing Business Environment

Risk can be defined in a variety of ways depending on the sector or industry to which this is ascribed. For example, in the insurance industry risk can mean economic risk which can affect a person’s or organization’s economic security. People take insurance coverage to minimize the effects of a loss (death, disability etc.) thus maintaining a sense of security for himself and his family and/or beneficiaries. On the business and investment side, risk can mean the loss of value of a stock or capital. Overall, risk is defined as the possibility of a loss, hazard or injury that can occur to a person or organization at any given time.

We can then state that risk is present in everything people do. Risks that are not properly addressed and managed can disrupt the attainment of the personal or organizational objectives. The question of what levels of risk can an organization endure so that the organizational objectives will not be unjustly modified or rendered useless is a question every stakeholder must answer. In the world of business aside from knowing the risks, what sort of strategies can be employed so that the organizational strengths can be maximized and opportunities widened.

It is in this regard that strategies must be developed and implemented properly in order to counter the ill effects of risks. Generally, a strategy is matching the organization’s internal resources with the opportunities offered by the external environment. For example, doing business these days does not only mean interacting with customers locally or just those within the geographical limit of where the physical business is but can also mean taking the whole world as the possible market for a firm’s products and services. This is where the internet comes in which can also spell the difference between success and failure of an enterprise nowadays. A business organization not willing to accept the technological changes happening around is bound to limit its reach and potentials.

Relative to this is that marketing as a discipline must now be understood in the context of globalization. Again, the rise of the internet and the continuously evolving technology has reshaped and is still reshaping the familiar brick and mortar business model. Thus, a business strategy can now include: diversification, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances, cost advantage, competitive advantage, business clustering, price leadership, market dominance, reengineering, downsizing, restructuring, de-layering among others.

Yet, a common business strategy utilized by organizations and manufacturers is Porter’s Five Forces of Competition. The five forces as expounded by Michael Porter are: Rivalry, Customers, Suppliers, Entrants and Substitutes that focuses on the advantages of low cost leadership. The first one is rivalry and this means that competitors will likely avoid going into a price war with a known company espousing a low cost strategy. If the competitor would also wage a price war in order to win the market, the likelihood is high that the low cost company will still earn profits while the new competitor will not. The customers model on the other hand talks about the pressure end users can exert that can force manufacturing companies to produce goods and services at lower prices and later on those same companies that was forced to reduce their prices might go bankrupt leaving the more established low-cost based companies to monopolize the market.

The supplier’s model is about the relationship between the supplier and the buyer. When there are few suppliers the tendency is to ask for price increase from the buyers, this will lead again to an advantage for the low-cost based companies’ ability to absorb increase in prices without much effect on their customers.

Entrants describe a barrier to entry created by the cost leaders because of their operational efficiency reducing their product and services’ costs. And lastly, low cost leaders can attract customers because of their lower priced offerings while at the same time have the ability to develop substitutes for similarly low priced products.

Whatever strategies organizations will choose in order to win a market or create new one, it is imperative to always consider its internal strengths vis-à-vis the opportunities offered by the external environment. Much the same way, is to also consider the organization’s weaknesses relative to the threats posed by the competitors, the current political arena, economic situation and the likes. For some, this basic strategy may be considered an old school advice yet this has been tried and tested before many times over with a high success rate. So why reinvent the wheel and destroy something that is already working. Start with the fundamentals and with the organization’s confidence growing then it can now attempt a more “advanced” and up-to-date strategies to implement suited to its needs and wants.

Cooperativism

When people organize themselves to achieve a common goal, the process of arriving at the “destination” is hastened when people believe in the goal and are committed to walk the talk. Private for profit corporations and some associations practice this belief with the end in mind of making a decent return on their investments.

The cooperative movement is likewise in the same boat. Cooperatives, whose goal usually economic in nature, organize its activities so that cooperative members can benefit by making members’ lives more comfortable and economically sustainable.

The current United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon admitted that cooperatives allow people to pursue both economic viability as well as social responsibility in a world marked by rapid technological advances and intense wealth accumulation.

The cooperative movement is already considered an alternative to the excesses of capitalism and more and more people are recognizing the movement’s many advantages. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) estimates that there are around 1 billion people who are members of a cooperative and that 3 billion individuals worldwide have benefitted from this movement. Today, the cooperative movement continues its social and economic roles in many communities around the world.

In the Philippines, the latest data of the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), the government agency in charge of overseeing the cooperatives in the Philippines revealed that the country now has a total of 36,869 operating cooperatives with a total membership base of 9,825,476 individuals. This figure is roughly 18.45% of the 2010 population of the country with ages 20 years old and above (53,253,300).

The number of members in the Philippines may be comparable to Argentina’s 9.3 million members, Brazil’s 7.6 million members or UK’s 9.8 million members but is still way beyond India’s 239 million members or China’s 180 million members.

Indeed, the cooperative movement in the whole world plays a significant role in the individual member’s life as well as in his community’s development. For the rest of us who are already members of cooperatives, it is imperative to continue supporting these institutions and patronizing its services.

For those who are not yet into the cooperative movement, it is high time to join now and become part of the solution to poverty alleviation as well as providing empowerment to the marginalized members of the community. Cooperativism can thus become a model for global development.

Writers and their Writings

Writing as they say is a solitary pursuit. Writers often have to deal with a blank page staring them straight in the eye and the writer’s struggle often excruciatingly on how best to fill that blank page with sensible texts, all by their lonesome self. Rightly or wrongly, some claim that writing is best suited for people who are introverts and loners because these are the types who deal with their personal demons without the slightest assistance from others. Their imagination is their best tool to craft their masterpieces and lay claim to a semblance of greatness.

Yet, it is also a fact that writers cannot exist in a vacuum. They need the encouragement and approbation of people in order to feed their desire to continue with their craft. Add to this is that writers also need to expand their repertoire, develop their skills and learn new tricks to express themselves in writing thru the guidance of others.

Just like reading, writing is a personal endeavor which can differ from one person to another mainly because of the individual’s unique experiences. A sentence for example, can be interpreted many times over depending on the person reading it. Just like a group of words forged by the writer can attain a different meaning much different from the obvious.

What remains though, whether writers create a feature article, news article, blogs, travelogues, novels or whatever fancies their attention, the fact remains of the need to be steadfast with the commitment to improve their craft. Not only do they owe this to their readers but most especially they owe this to themselves.

Reality no matter how bitter it is can best be served by a writer who knows how to wield the power of the pen (or in our case, the keyboard) responsibly.

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”  -Ray Bradbury

Globalization and Business Process Outsourcing

Globalization and its resulting consequences are bound to affect every country as well as the people within it in ways we can never have imagined would happen. With the way technology is progressing, the free movement of people from one country to another and the ease by which people communicate these days, it is just a matter of time before we become what Strobe Talbott described in his 1992 Time magazine article, “The Birth of a Global Nation”.

This transition may somehow be attributed to its political character but not far from behind is its economic implications not only on the way governments operate but more so in the private enterprises that flourish nowadays. Corporations need not be bound by the constraints of their physical locations or by the labor services provided by the locals. Corporations can actually look overseas either by establishing their operations in another country (off-shoring) or hire foreign workers to supplement, complement or supplant their existing labor force (outsourcing). Whatever strategy business owners and managers choose, one thing is certain, they wanted to maximize profits by minimizing costs.

It is in this light that countries like the Philippines and India are leading in providing BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) services to the rest of the world. Their citizens’ facility with the English language, skill in information technology, relative low cost of operation and the quality of the labor force (college graduates) are some of the major reasons why large corporations prefer to offshore and outsource their operations in these countries.

The Philippines for example has a lot of professionals in the field of healthcare, finance, engineering, information technology and legal services who can add value to any corporation around the world. This is aside from the fact that Filipinos are known to be good at providing voice-based services like the ones found in call center operations. Add to these growing list of advantages are Filipino writers who can write good articles (well-researched and not plagiarized) meant for online publications. These so-called web content writers are a big help in increasing the traffic for a particular website.

Globalization has already changed a number of lives for the better. There may be some kinks along the way (both for the outsourcer and the outsourced) but it is up to us on how we can take this to the next level so that more people can benefit from this transition.