OFWs' negosyo future

As I write this column, our family is off to our Baltic Cruise, with around 50 Concepcion parents, siblings, in-laws, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Friends also joined us, like Mary De Leon and Ed Mijares. Aside from Filipino guests, there are 300 Filipino crew members who are among the 600 of the Crystal Cruise Serenity. This is our 3rd Crystal Cruise. It is a little like a nightmare, with all the children running around the ship.

We will be celebrating my father’s 80th birthday this Christmas and are currently celebrating my wife’s golden year. My column last Monday in the business-life section caught her by surprise.

Like on the other cruises we have taken, Filipino crew are the best. They provide superb service and known for home-grown hospitality, which has made us the most preferred provider of overseas workers. Even back home, BPOs and call centers show the dominance of Filipino service all over the world.

Last week, we started featuring inquiries from readers. We receive a lot of questions about negosyo from aspiring and starting entrepreneurs. To help out our readers, we requested Go Negosyo Angelpreneurs to give their expert advice. This week, let me share an interesting case of an OFW couple’s negosyo attempt.

“We are an OFW family who returned in May 2003, from almost 20 years of working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We created this Taho Station food cart business in October 2004 and have made very good progress since then, after years of trying and persevering. But right now, we seem to be not doing enough or not doing the right things to make our business progress properly. Our development is slow and decision making is too tentative. Can you help us with some words of encouragement or discouragements, please.”

-Jojig & Malou Nava

For the Navas’ case, we have requested words of wisdom from one of the best. The Go Negosyo advocacy is proud to have Professor Andy Ferreria as one of our Angelpreneurs. He is an esteemed and well-known entrepreneurship guru who has greatly contributed to the success of many entrepreneurial ventures.

“First let me congratulate and admire you. The 20 years of being an OFW family was used not only to generate income to sustain a family but also created savings that went into investments that was used for an entrepreneurial venture that lead to local job generation and helped in the circulation of money in the economy. OFWs should follow your road map towards family financial freedom.

“An enterprise has a natural life cycle. The increase in revenues at the start of an enterprise is rapid. This is called the introductory phase. There is moderate growth over time. The next phase is the growth phase. This is a rapid growth period. What took years for the introduction phase to achieve, will take only a few months to attain in this phase. Then comes the maturity stage where there is slow or no growth over time. If the flatness of growth continues, it will eventually lead to a decline phase where the revenues/profits will dive faster than the growth stage.” 

I suspect that your enterprise has reached the maturity stage. To get out of this maturity stage and continue the growth phase and avoid decline, you must continue to do what you did in the introduction and growth phase. This is to continue innovating and making the products and practices that delivered the results of the past obsolete. In your introduction and growth stage, your innovation on the traditional taho gave your enterprise the desired economic growth. I suspect that your slow and tentative decision making is a sure sign of the lack of the desire to innovate. You were faster at the start and this innovation continued to happen and resulted into growth. Your slowness is drawn from a fear of challenging the successful results of introduction and growth stages. What made you grow was your process of innovation. Not the results of innovation. As such, challenge the results via continuing the innovation process.  

I suggest that go back to your original success process. Innovate to continuously meet unmet needs of the market place/customers. Come up with flavor of the month and see which one will click and therefore become a standard flavor. 

I have a saying... do it right the first time but do it better the next time... the next time... the next time.... the next time... the next time... the next time... every time.” – Prof. Andy Ferreria

Thank you to Prof. Andy and the Navas for sharing. We encourage more readers and negosyo enthusiasts to send in your queries. Our negosyo experts will be very much more than happy to help.

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Contact me: [email protected] or Joey Concepcion Facebook account. Visit www.gonegosyo.net. Watch the top rating entrep show GO NEGOSYO: Kaya Mo! on GMA News TV, Saturday and Sunday 8-8:30 a.m. Send GONEGO to 2910 for daily Go Negosyo Text Tips in your mobile phone.