It’s delightful that beyond ‘Arangkada Philippines 2010: A Business Perspective’ from the JFC (Joint Foreign Chambers) we’re crafting highly focused and integrated plans spelled out in news reports: ‘Government creates separate PPP units in line agencies’, ‘Export council (EDC) looking to set annual targets for 2011-2016’, ‘Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) launched its annual intercollegiate competition for best advocacy plan’; and they all seem to support our higher growth targets.
Indeed these initiatives manifest our innate ability to put plans together. Many years ago the writer piloted a couple of planning models from two consultancies: one from the Philippines and one from the West. But developed for his company a much simpler model: with clarity, set up for execution and dynamism, not to be static. And no doubt Filipinos would pooh-pooh the model because of our holistic perspective. But the lesson for the writer under conditions of extreme or global competition was and still is (and why he keeps to a simple model to the amazement of his Eastern European friends) is that without the spirit and bias for execution, ‘all the best laid plans of mice and men’ can come to naught – while a functioning, pragmatic plan can be honed to exploit the competitive arena!
And that model is: ‘to drive revenues, margins and efficiency’ – the key being congruence plus sustainability. For example, he was just given a (39-slide) PowerPoint presentation to raise the market share of a brand by a young marketing manager (who had earlier pushed a great initiative to raise market presence) with an emphasis on a specific variant – backed up by loads of statistics and consumer and market research – and a great model for 360-degree or integrated marketing; and the missing piece? The bottom line: ‘Show me the money!’ The example came to mind reading the news report ‘Academic exercise’ – re PRSP’s annual intercollegiate competition. The winning plan sounds great and perhaps more than meets the parameters of the competition and the writer’s comments in that context is unfair. But the point of this blog is to raise our consciousness about spirit and execution.
The EDC’s annual targets for exports will focus us like a laser – finally we are addressing a gaping hole in our GDP, export revenues of $100 billion. Hopefully we would inject them with the proper spirit and be dogged in execution? For example, why do we think publishing our plans would benefit other countries? For us Filipinos openness has a higher purpose beyond raising the performance bar: to inculcate transparency and develop integrity – which we take for granted and why corruption is insidious; to the writer’s grandfather, it simply is show backbone, not ‘yabang’ [braggadocio]? Other countries would benefit only if we don’t have the spirit and bias for execution?
Highly competitive global companies (where talented people flock because they’re treated like talents not peons; and thus are recognized as preferred employers) are grilled by financial analysts about the specifics of their plans including new, innovative if not breakthrough products and all one needs is to Google them and presto they are for the world to see! Connectivity – not isolation or parochialism – nurtures great ideas, including economics. While it was a Brit (Tim Berners-Lee) who developed the idea behind the World Wide Web, inspired by the record-keeping method of Darwin of connecting one thought after another, it was a US military research efforts that facilitated connecting separate networks. (And despite WikiLeaks the US is not about to turn progress and innovation back!)
The tasks of the PPP (private-public partnership) units in line agencies would be more challenging. There will be competing interests from every conceivable sector that would want to piggy back on their spoils. For example, there are now interest groups justifying a closed-skies policy. If we are proud of how good our plans are why do we worry about open skies – bring ‘em on? Plans that are long-term cannot be judged by short-term impact – i.e., one step backward two steps forward? What it requires is lateral thinking: how do we mitigate the short-term impact? If we can’t then the acid test is: are we building towards a stronger sustainable economy – that we should bite the bullet and take the short-term hits? The road to eternity is not paved with gold – it is straight and narrow? But we can’t shake off our ‘Filipino inclusion and compassion’ – that have characterized our missteps over the last 40-50 years, raised by an ex-NEDA chief? We’re not looking at replicating the last 40-50 years – or does history repeat?
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