Philippines Books

Archive for January 15th, 2009

If you were unable to run a successful business back home in Glottal Stop Pennsylvania, what makes you think you can make a go of one here in the Philippines?

So many people think because they can get something started for a lot less than back home they can become a tycoon overnight. Many go for the food industry and try and run a bar or a restaurant. This is probably the hardest industry to be in, even if to those who have never worked in the game it looks fairly straightforward.

Don’t forget you will have to hire Filipino staff. It may sound cruel but there is truth in the humorous observation that if you train the staff well, don’t let them go to lunch or else you’ll have to give them a refresher. Good staff with initiative and the oomph to use it are almost impossible to find. Most of them have gone overseas where they earn a more realistic remuneration for their abilities and efforts. If you do get a good one, holding on to them may be impossible because as soon as they can, they’ll be off to greener pastures too.

In any business anywhere, staff are usually your biggest cost and your biggest headache. Here in the land of lip service, it gets worse. If you are trying to run something in a provincial backwater, you have my sympathy. If it is going to be a Filipino style affair and have nothing more technologically advanced than a banana leaf for a plate, give it a whirl. Otherwise, think twice, then find something else to do.

I learned the hard way my socialistic leanings to giving the working class stiff a fair go don’t work in this country. Instead, if you are nice to the employee they simply feel it will be even easier to steal from you as you won’t get upset and angry and scream at them. These people are not westerners and they have a different set of values and standards to those of us from western countries. Accept it, it’s neither good nor bad, just the way it is. If we start expecting Filipino’s to do business as we do it and to have the same ethics and standards we prize, pretty soon the reasons we came here in the first place will disappear.

If this country does beat its culturally ingrained, rampant, endemic and systemic corruption and incompetence, then things will get rather expensive very quickly. Dare I say it may no longer appeal! Think about it, just like you should think about any business venture that costs more than a hundred bucks or so.