Finding The Perfect Business Match

A businessman would like to bring his laundry franchise to the province. A supplier of seafood from Mindanao wants to bring his products to Manila. A supplier of salt-crushing machinery is looking to tie up with a salt company. The owner of a diner in the province is interested in expanding to the city. These businessmen were able to find their perfect match through business matching, which was integrated for the first time with the trade exhibits at the 27th Philippine Business Conference (PBC), held recently by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) at the Edsa Shangri-la Hotel in Mandaluyong City.

"Business matching is essentially the identification of promising investment opportunities or business projects and their endorsement to potential takers," Francisco Floro, PBC business matching committee chairman, explained. "The objective is to actively promote Filipino firms in foreign as well as domestic markets, with the hope of developing business relations through marketing, exchange of information, joint venture or financial assistance." One-on-one matching took place in the exhibitor’s booths, with each appointment pre-matched and scheduled by the secretariat.

Samie Lim, chairman of the committee on trade exhibits, noted that this year’s exhibits highlighted the growth of sunshine industries in the country "specifically in the field of information technology (IT), and showcased the e-services in government."

With the participation of the Information Technology Foundation of the Philippines (ITFP), together with Ayalaport, Unisys and the Contact Center Association of the Philippines, the public got the chance to experience the government’s service delivery through the use of information and communication technology particularly with government agencies such as the Department of Foreign Affairs, which featured passport renewal on-line in real time at the exhibit site, and the National Census and Statistics Office which handled requests for birth certificates.

The Mindanao region, in particular, was featured in the trade fair. Over 150 exhibitors came from Mindanao, specifically Davao, Cagayan de Oro and Caraga. There were also exhibitions from Bulacan, Bacolod, and Bicol. Likewise, there were exhibitors from Australia and Canada. An estimated 5,000 visitors from nine countries and 79 local chambers of commerce and industry, international trade missions, entrepreneurs looking for national and global partners as well as private and government business partners were among the visitors at the trade exhibits. Foreign visitors who came from the US, Finland, Vietnam, China, Japan, Canada, Brunei and Singapore comprised about 10 percent of the over 1,100 delegates who joined in the business matching.

"The PCCI exhibits and business matching ware a huge success," says Isabelita Sy Palanca, co-chairman of the trade exhibits committee. "Over 1,000 business matches were made during the two-and-a-half-day event. Exhibitors reported almost 100 business matches that showed great potential. These were in the areas of nationwide transportation, supply of machinery, real estate sales, development of web-based programs, financial services, franchising and seafood supply."

"In the previous years, business matching was done only for two hours within two days for a total of four hours," Palanca relates. "But this year, for the first time, business matching was done the whole day, every day of the convention. Furthermore, it was opened to the public so that we got a lot of walk-in visitors who participated in the business matching.

With these successes, PCCI president Mike Varela and PBC chairman Jimmy Tang announced that henceforth, this year’s innovations of having whole day business matching with exhibitors and opening the exhibits to the public would be institutionalized. This is in keeping with the vision of PCCI to promote nationwide enterprise development. PCCI is the only truly national association with 116 local chambers located all over the Philippines. PCCI likewise has a wide international reach, having established linkages with 21 foreign business councils and 12 foreign chambers based in the Philippines.

"Truly, the PCCI nationwide network is a vehicle for business development," says Palanca who is also the charter president of the Women’s Business Council of the Philippines, charter vice-chairperson of the Confederation of Women’s Business Councils and commissioner for business and industry of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW). "So we are encouraging new members to join because there’s a lot of networking and business opportunities for them. PCCI is also encouraging its members to lobby for the Chamber Law which will make the PCCI the private sector group that will do business data gathering and processing so that data becomes more accessible to businessmen, planners, government as well as non-government organizations, which will make them better prepared for globalization."

A tourism convention is scheduled to be held, says Palanca, which will be as big as the recent 27th Philippine Business Conference. "A group of 87 Spanish investors in tourism will be coming to the Philippines next week upon the invitation of the PCCI," Palanca says. "There will be a three-day conference between these tourism investors and our local entrepreneurs who want to put up their land for hotels, for resorts, for golf courses, for shopping centers. Indeed, the investors are coming."

"One of the things also being pushed is franchising," Palanca notes. "So you can see a situation where you have a provincial concept looking for a Metro Manila partner, or you have a Metro Manila franchise that is being pushed in the province." Next year, the Philippine Franchise Association is planning to go on a nationwide provincial road show. "They will visit Cebu, Davao, Cagayan de Oro, for example," Palanca explains, "so they need to contact the different chambers of commerce in these places. As an exhibitor at the PCCI exhibits and business matching, they were able to network with the other exhibitors such as the Davao Chamber of Commerce, the Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce, the Albay Chamber of Commerce, and they have already set up their schedule for next year. The types of franchises range from laundry to food to haircutting."

"After September 11, we were told that exports were down because the market was down," Palanca observes. "However, we are forgetting that we have 73 million Filipinos who are also consumers. We have this domestic market and we must not forget them."