From “bangus” . . . to semi-conductors

(Are we alone in our faddish culture?)

35 years or so ago Laguna Lake made us bangus (milkfish) country. We also went from poultry breeding to “lechon manok” to tilapia to shrimp country. In parallel we went from garments to semi-conductors; and it appears garments are making a comeback. Grey or white, we are proud of Filipino “abilidad” and creativity – driving our economy.

Today we are talking – but not yet stampeding? – about medical tourism, logistics and of course, tourism in general, i.e., nature’s gift to us. Fads are not our monopoly. The world has witnessed a number of them: from the gold rush to the tech bubble to the housing bubble, in tandem with hedge funds and derivatives.

But what separates winners from losers? Goldman Sachs last week reported their best ever profit performance. Their supporters point to the quality of their management – characterized by long-term thinking; yet detractors credit their access to power as the true driver of their success. In one word, ideas separate winners from losers. For example, despite the tech bubble Apple and Google continue to be very successful.

Proctor & Gamble’s biggest brand is Pampers. Can we imagine that diapers which are ordinary products will be the biggest brand of such a global behemoth – that one brand’s global revenues alone are equal to roughly a 5th of total Philippine exports?

Wall Street analysts who do analyses for a living don’t or can’t influence P&G on what products to develop – they are not tapped into product architecture modeling given the many categories or sectors they analyze. The moral of the story: whatever products or services – electronics, agribusiness or BPOs, etc. – our exporters are thinking, so long as they understand the elements of competitive advantage, they should be gung-ho with their ideas, i.e., that the products generate healthy margins to support aggressive investment spend or marketing. (Or why Germany, the world’s biggest exporter, is fortunate: Italians are very creative – we associate them with fashion; and they do produce Ferraris and a host of state-of-the-art industrial products – but where there’s less association, i.e., they can use more marketing efforts.)

The writer is offering his time gratis (specifically January/February timeframe when he is in Manila) to our exporters if they are keen on product architecture modeling and are committed to marketing beyond our borders. Filipino marketers can likewise demonstrate to our exporters how they can employ product architecture modeling in product development, i.e., the writer has no monopoly on this tool that global marketers use to their advantage.

On the other hand, government agencies (tasked with providing leadership in trade and industry especially exports) and legislators should pursue requisite legislations to ensure that our exporters have access to industry- and economic development-enhancing initiatives, e.g., strategic infrastructure, laws that encourage and facilitate competitiveness and efficiency, including openness to foreign direct investment – beyond soliciting foreign aid we should be aggressively soliciting foreign investment, use it or lose it.

Likewise, government needs to provide leadership to manage parochial tendencies that remain very strong – or why Obama seems to be still in campaign mode. And this is where media can help – via educational-type documentaries and/or analyses that can succinctly explain why we have been left behind in economic development. Or more to the point, why we have alarming poverty, i.e., our GDP is meager.