The wizards of ACE

In our standard MBM program, we have long held the distinction of being experts in the case method for which our students have the daunting task of poring over hundreds of business cases to hone their analytical skills and to gain mastery in the functional areas of finance, marketing or operations.

There are also the myriad cases in the burgeoning case bank of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship involving our ME students themselves. Their true-to-life stories of entrepreneurial transformation have prompted many to ask us in awe: Is the AIM now running a school for E-wizards?

Blame it on the gloom and doom scenario that continues to present itself to us. Indeed, the demand for miracle workers in the business community far exceeds the supply. Thus, we are importuned to continue sharing the seemingly magical stories about the enchanted thinking processes that have enabled our entrepreneur-students to know what is actually important and essential and to construct paradigm-shifting businesses.

It is as though each one has been equipped with a wonder wand that can transform pumpkins of threats into golden carriages of opportunities; as if each student-entrepreneur now carries a sorcerer’s stone that can breathe immortal life into an enterprise or a flying broom that allows him/her to soar to exhilarating heights of success.

Others have wondered whether the ME program provides a litany of management incantations that can mesmerize the minds and melt the hearts of customers, suppliers and employees. Or if each graduate is branded with a mystical mark that calls out, "Look at me now!", something like an anting-anting.

On the contrary. Our crop of master entrepreneurs is made up of ordinary mortals. Through their learnings we have gifted the, like the proverbial Magi, with gold (symbol of the wealth their prospering now generate), myrrh (symbol of the empathy and sacrifice they extend to their workers and to the clientele they serve) and frankincense (symbol of their continuing spiritual, emotional and mental growth).

Take the case of two overseas Filipino workers. One is a banker of 23 years who enjoyed the good expatriate life in an Asean country. A self-confessed corporate slave with a bona fide "employee mentality", he decided to come back and run a business distributing palm oil. He read an advertisement on the ME program and decided to confirm the merits form an ME alumnus. Upon entering the program, he registered sales of 14,000 cartons of palm oil at 15 kilos per carton. This year, sales reached 112,000 cartons.

Why? How? His greatest insight was the lesson on QDP or quality, delivery and productivity. He conducted a consumer survey and found out that customers wanted cost efficiencies in their use of vegetable oil so he changed his sales pitch. He convinced his customers that while they had been using 1.5 kilograms of coconut oil, they needed only 0.75 kilograms of his palm oil.

Quality, he argued, was more important than cost, a lesson he learned from his guru. He liked our mentoring or "guruing" process so much that he decided to be a guru to his own people. Beyond the workplace, he is a teacher of "NTpreneurship", NT referring to the New Testament.

The other OFW is an electrical engineer who sought the sandy fortunes of Saudi Arabia. After that stint, he became a teacher to small-scale entrepreneurs back in the Philippines.

In 1989, he turned entrepreneurial by selling the programmable logic controller, an industry-based computer. He also set up a training center for advanced technologies in industrial automation. Like our first overseas contract worker, he saw an ME program advertisement and subsequently signed up.

Commenting on his greatest learnings, he cited his finance classes for many "eurekas" or what we call serendipitous findings and realizations. Such discoveries we also term as their "aha!s".

He learned how to examine his books and he discovered that his products had low margins and dismally low profits. He resolved to pursue the higher margins of engineering services and project maintenance contracts. Thus, margins rose from 20% to 44% and net profits zoomed from 2% to 15%. Even his training center became profitable.

Product line analysis proved invaluable. To motivate his people, he based commissions and incentives on margins realized from contracts. If they exceeded 30%, he gave out 3%. If margins fell below 20%, he gave none.

The magical tales of these two balikbayan worker would strike many as too good to be true. But our OFWs now confidently quip: "Bakit ka pa nga mangingibang bayan kung nandito naman ang kayamanan?" (Why seek your fortune abroad when you can find it at home).

(Eduardo Morato, Jr. is the dean of the Asian Institute of Management and chief architect of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship and its Master in Entrepreneurship Program. For further information/comments, you may mail him at:

HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]" [email protected]

Published "Enterpreneur’s Helpline" columns can be viewed at www//:aim.edu.ph)