When quitting is not an option

MANILA, Philippines - Businessman Joel Go is the first to attest that his family’s business has gone through the worst of times.

Joel, grandson of Go Tong and son of Jose Go, the men behind the Ever Gotesco Group of Companies, said they’ve experienced every unimaginable crisis (man-made and natural) in handling their conglomerate in the last three decades or so.

The most recent misfortune is the burning down of the five-hectare Ever Gotesco Grand Central Mall in Monumento, Caloocan, one of the Gos’ flagship stores in the country.

It would have been easier for Joel and his family to throw in the towel, pull out the plug and fold up the company.  But he said, this has not always been the case for them as quitting is not an option when you still have a plan B.

In every business gone wrong, the Gos always try to rise up and build, so instead of being discouraged, Joel said they would build another mall in replacement of the gutted Ever Gotesco Caloocan branch.

“What we plan is to rebuild the mall, tear it down to come out with an innovative construction. We will soon start rebuilding the mall,” Joel said.

Thirty years after his grandfather built the Gotesco empire, Joel said they’re proud to have weathered all the bad things and bad economies that come with building a business.

 “It’s easy to fold up, just like in the US where they declare bankruptcy and file for Chapter  13, but we’re not like that. Thirty years on, we are still here and we want to grow longer, we want to grow the business,” Joel said in an interview.

These days, Joel’s hands are full, being the chairman of the United Doctors Corp., the president and director of the Metropolitan Medical Center College of Arts and Science and Technology, Majestic Plus Holdings Inc. and the director of Ever Gotesco Golf Club Resort Inc., Ever Gotesco Resources and Holdings Inc. and Gotesco Properties.

In steering his business to prosperity, Joel said he credits his father and grandfather for teaching him the ropes. 

The 39-year-old Electronics Engineering graduate from De La Salle does not view business failures as misfortunes or punishment from God.

 “I call them challenges. It’s what gives you more fire, more reasons to wake up in the morning. You feel that fire in the belly when the challenges are there. We don’t see these as punishments but as challenges, we accept and overcome,” he said.

 They have overcome so many failed businesses already, Joel said, and it was not just the closure of Orient Bank, the banking arm of the Gotesco Group during the Asian financial crisis in 1997 that they had to contend with.

Joel said they’ve started a slew of businesses that thrived in the beginning but floundered in the end.

In fact, in Joel’s younger days, he started a lot of innovative businesses that clicked at the start but folded up because of the changing times.

In every failure, Joel was not disheartened but kept on being positive, tenacious and persevering.

Joel ventured into his first business right after college, in the mid-90s when beepers were the rage and his family introduced Infopage.

 “At that time, we were encouraged about the booming telecoms so we were the first one to introduce beepers, you know the era of Beeper 150, Easycall and Pocketbell,we launched Infopage, we were the first one to introduce that,” he enthused.

But with the advent of the cell phone technology, the beeper was defaced and so Joel’s business closed shop.

Not one to give up easily, Joel again opened another venture, the Price Smart, a warehouse club.

Price Smart was a new concept in shopping in the 90s, he said.

“Price Smart is a pioneer business. But Price Smart soon folded up when others started opening bigger warehouse stores,” he said.

Although his businesses closed shop, Joel takes pride in the thought that they’re one of the few who pioneered and took risks in innovative businesses, back when entrepreneurs opted for safer business ventures.

 “We’re really more of a risk-taker, against the odds, we just kept on slugging away our vision for our ventures until we found success,” he said.

He said the only way to survive in the cut-throat world of business is to keep on innovating and adapting to the changing times.

“The first person to adapt to change becomes successful. If you adapt, then you come out on top,” he said.

His other secret to keeping up with the changing times is travelling.

“You learn so much from travelling. The best learning you can have is travel because you learn from a lot of countries. Department stores are an innovation of Japan, supermarkets are the innovation of the US, when you travel, you learn why these countries have become successful,” Joel said.

Today, unknown to many, the Gos, through the leadership of Joel, is still keeping businesses in retail, leisure and health care.

Aside from the malls, Joel attends to their hospital, a nursing school and a slew of other real estate-related businesses.

 “But our core business is still the mall,”  Joel said, adding that he is determined to continue the legacy of his grandfather.

Joel emphasized that at the heart of their business is maintaining a culture of hardworking and honest employees who are willing to learn and adapt to change.

“I think it’s very important to instill core values in our employees. You have to make sure that systems are in place and there are rules and regulations. You have to make them realize that they should  have a clear goal of what they want to be or where they want to be,” Joel said.

Meanwhile, he said he is excited about the Metropolitan Medical Center in Tondo, a hospital that caters to both rich and poor and could proudly equal the country’s top and world-class hospitals in Quezon City and Alabang.

The hospital is patterned after Taiwan in terms of providing health care as they’ve introduced the Universal Health Card which is efficient, fast and mass-based.

“We keep it affordable because it is in the Tondo area, but we also cater to clients in Masangkay, Chinatown area. Our hospital is very clean and efficient and we also have state-of-the-art medical facilities,” he said.