In the name of the father

No one wants to be outsmarted these days — not even an air-conditioner.

Thus, Concepcion-Carrier Air Conditioning Company (CCAC), the country’s foremost air-conditioning company, recently unveiled the Carrier Smart+Cool System at the Maybank Theater in BGC, just as summer was starting to breeze into the Philippines.

“This revolution in the Philippine cooling industry will bring the practical benefits of smart aircons to the mainstream market, making life easier, faster and simpler for its customers,” says CCAC chief executive officer Raul Joseph “Jojo” Concepcion, whose father Raul “Ronnie” T. Concepcion fulfilled his own father Jose Sr.’s dream of being Carrier’s official Philippine arm in 1963.

Concepcion Industrial Corp. chairman emeritus Raul ‘Ronnie’ Concepcion by the portrait of his father Jose Concepcion Sr.

In 1998, the Concepcions entered into a joint venture with Carrier Corp., which invented the air-conditioner in 1901 and is the largest air-conditioning corporation in the US. The joint venture brought the Concepcion Group into the league of global players. Jojo assumed a top position in CCAC, especially when Ronnie concentrated on being a consumer advocate by being a watchdog of the impact of government policies on the lives of the ordinary consumer.

Jojo now fulfills his own father’s dreams by steering Concepcion-Carrier  to even greater heights — to the mountain peak, truly a metaphor for the kind of cool their air-conditioner brings about.

“Together with its companion app, the Carrier Smart+Cool System can help you manage your monthly budget. It allows you to monitor and track how much energy, in peso amounts, your aircon has consumed in real time, and even alert you before you go past your electrical consumption limit. The system informs you when your aircon is no longer working efficiently and making you use more power. No more bill shock!” says Jojo of the smart aircon.

He adds: “With the new Carrier Smart+Cool System, you can have cooling just the way you like it. You can turn on your aircon from wherever you are. You could be a few feet away, or stuck in traffic on the way home and still look forward to a cool welcome when you arrive.”

According to CCAC, you can turn your aircon to on and off at different times on different days, and even change the temperature.

The Carrier Smart+Cool System also makes cooling more relaxing and easier for you. It warns you when your aircon needs to be cleaned, and makes getting service easy with a customer service chat function. You will even have updates on the status of the service personnel during cleaning, and you can even pay for it online. Much easier for you than ever before!

In the book The Odyssey of Raul T. Concepcion, which his mother Menchu and I co-authored, Jojo said of his father, “Many people despise hard work. My dad taught us to enjoy hard work, to realize and appreciate those who work hard.”

“My childhood dream was to be a successful, hands-on entrepreneur,” Ronnie or RTC told me when I was writing his biography in 2012. He was born 10 minutes after his brother Jose Concepcion Jr. on Dec. 29, 1931.

“My father taught me to pay much attention to details, to work hard and to be hands-on with my work. He also taught me the value of a good credit rating,” RTC shared in his biography.

RTC never compromised on the quality of the Concepcion Group’s products, not only because the family name was seared into them, but also because he believed in the intelligence of the consumer.

“If you can’t produce quality products,” he told a consumer magazine in 2001, “you’ll lose your market share.”

This belief is shared by his son Jojo, who once told a gathering of big businessmen, “We are Philippine business, and the Philippines is our business, too.”

The Industrialist

When Ronnie Concepcion received the coveted Management Man of the Year award in 1990 from the Management Association of the Philippines, he was cited for steering Concepcion Industries  Inc. into becoming “one of the country’s most integrated manufacturing conglomerates, providing jobs to thousands, and ultimately giving the country significant fuel to move forward.”

His ventures included the P500-million air-conditioning manufacturing plant inaugurated in 1993 in Cabuyao, Laguna, which made possible the seamless transfer of AC technology to the country.

Jojo says in the book that his father’s ability and his foresight to steer the company to where it is and to do it without foreign help was testimony that “the Filipino can.”

The Concepcion Group is the largest appliance producer in the Philippines, and the only all-Filipino appliance manufacturer still humming. It not only sells but manufactures the No. 1 air-conditioning units  (Carrier) in the country.

 As a result, the same Carrier air-conditioners manufactured and sold in the Philippines are now available in the entire Asia-Pacific region. In 2012, exports accounted for 15 percent of the joint venture’s total sales.

Looking back, RTC told me once that he accomplished all this by running a tight ship and exceeding expectations.

“We maintained a lean staff and trimmed overhead expenses. We had no loans. We are net lenders, not borrowers. So when the business climate is bad, we can weather it.”

“If there is one singular achievement that defines RTC, then it should be his being an advocate of Philippine industrialization,” says Menchu, his wife of almost 59 years now. “He has always been referred to as an industrialist. His contemporaries and their companies have long gone, but RTC is the last man standing.”

Thus, it is no surprise that RTC’s sons Robbie, Jojo, Patrick and Ton are following in his footsteps. (The Concepcions’ only daughter Rica helps out in her mother’s real estate business.)

(Seated) Menchu and Raul Concepcion; (standing) Gina Hechanova, the author and PeopleAsia’s Jose Paolo dela Cruz.

The smart AC

After much research, CCAC found that many consumers want experiences that revolve around three aspects: fast, simple and easy. In response, it is now making efforts to deliver these in the air-conditioning category.

The company’s goal is to provide end-to-end solutions for customers that make their cooling experiences the best they could possibly be with less fuss and in less time, with the ability to be customized to their specific needs and wants.

“Making this happen requires a combination of cutting-edge technology, excellent products and reliable after-sales service, something which the company has steadily been preparing for,” says Jojo.

At the event, CCAC also launched innovative products for Filipino consumers. Among these was the Klarwind Duo 2-In-1 Bundle, a first in the retail market that combines a slimpac and a high-wall aircon with one multi-split outdoor unit. It gives you triple savings on acquisition, installation and maintenance costs, and is inexpensive to run with a high-energy efficiency rating of 19 combined performance.

The company’s plans for 2018 show how it is changing along with the evolving needs of the aircon market. “Making things fast, simple and easy is the right way to delight and satisfy its customers, whom it always puts at the heart of its business. This is what drives the company to deliver the unique Carrier experience,” concludes Jojo.