Global plane, train builder chooses Cebu

Bombardier Transportation, the global giant that builds planes and trains, has chosen to open its finance center in Cebu, the progressive resort city in central Philippines, to service the multinational company’s international operations.

Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia and acting Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama led local officials, representatives from the business community, Cebu-based diplomats, and members of the Cebu media in gracing the grand inauguration of the Bombardier Finance Center at the TGU building in Cebu City’s upscale Asiatown IT Park on April 27, 2009.

The search began in August 2008 months after top Bombardier officials mandated the formation of a finance shared service center to reduce cost and increase the quality of financial information.

A team scouted several countries in Europe and Asia. They considered, deliberated and evaluated various qualified places. And Cebu stood out as the best place to combine work and leisure.

“Best tourist attractions, presence of people with good English skills, cost-efficiency and political stability are some of the major factors that led the team to choose the Queen City of the South to be Bombardier’ Transportation’s Global finance service center,” said Kennerth Lundgren, head of the financial services project, change management, ERP and Process Improvement.

An initial 25 Filipinos are now being trained to serve as the finance center staff. Search for competent accountants and finance wizards would continue to complete the planned 150 workforce. After two months of training, they will be brought to the United Kingdom for work shadowing. By October 2009, all of Bombardier’s finance operations will be transferred to Cebu.

Doris Mongaya of PRWorks Inc. pointed out that the Bombardier decision came about even before the onset of the global economic crisis that hit First World countries badly. “This means Cebu has what it takes to compete for the relocation of vital facilities of global giants that now need to streamline operations to increase efficiency.”

PRWorks Inc. is the sister company of the newly-formed Konseptworks that won the event management contract for the grand inauguration of the Bombardier finance center. A result of Mongaya’s partnership with Bong Abela of Concepts and More, the new company focuses on corporate events and marketing for international and national companies looking at the vast market in Cebu and Southern Philippines.

PRWorks Inc., in particular, takes pride in its excellent access to local governments, the local business community, and local media that has made it the favored local partner of Asia’s event and PR giant Teamasia, Globe Telecom, Sanofi-Aventis and SPC Power Corp.

Filed under: Events, News , Business, Cebu, Economy, global crisis, Philippines, planes, Prworks, trains, Visayas

Globe Telecom taps PRWorks for Vis-Min coverage of Annual Stockholders’ Meeting

TWELVE journalists from Visayas and Mindanao again covered the Annual Stockholders’ Meeting of Globe Telecom held at the Intercontinental Hotel Manila in Makati City last April 2, 2009.

Four business writers and editors from Cebu City, five from Davao City, one from Bacolod City, and two from Iloilo City arrived in Manila with Globe Telecom Cebu’s Jerry Yntig on April 1, said PRWORKS Inc. Managing Director Doris Mongaya.

Doris Mongaya (seated, second from left) poses with journalists from Visayas and Mindanao who covered the recent Globe Telecom Annual Stockholders' Meeting.

During the press conference after the stockholders’ meeting, Globe Telecom President and CEO Gerardo C. Ablaza, Jr. announced that the company recorded its highest quarterly revenue performance in the fourth quarter with service revenues of P16.3 billion, up 5% quarter-on-quarter and surpassing the previous best of P16.1 billion from the same period last year.”

Globe Telecom “maintained its momentum in wireless subscriber acquisitions by adding one million SIMs, ending the year with a total subscriber base of 24.7 million, up 22% from a year ago. The Company’s mass market brand, TM, led the growth, accounting for 70% of the 4.4 million net additions in 2008, bringing in more than 3 million incremental SIMs.

The Company also registered its strongest broadband subscriber take-up this quarter, driven by healthy demand for its wireless broadband offer. This period’s net additions of about 55,000 exceeded the performance

of the first three quarters of the year, enabling the Company to close the year with a broadband subscriber base of 234,000, almost
double that of 2007.”

Having recognized Visayas and Mindanao as a vast market growth area, Globe Telecom has continued inviting journalists from Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod and Davao to cover its annual stockholders’ meeting.

This year, Globe Telecom tapped the services of  PRWORKS Inc., the preferred PR and events agency in the Visayas and Mindanao, as its partner in making the nationwide coverage possible.

——–

Globe Telecom board chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala (right) poses with deputy CEO Ernest L. Cu, and President and CEO Gerardo C. Ablaza Jr.

Filed under: Events, News , Business, Cellphone, Corporate, Globe Telecom, Mindanao, Philippine Business, Philippine Economy, Philippines, Prworks, Stockholders, Stockholders Meeting, Visayas

PR campaign key to Diva2Diva hit

Filling up a plush hotel ballroom with 4,000 Cebuanos on a Monday three days before payday proved to be a challenging task when organizers of the Cebu hit Diva2Diva concert began selling tickets during the long 2008 Christmas vacation.

To recall, both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day fell on a Thursday. Considering that the Philippines celebrated Jose Rizal Day – to commemorate the death of the national hero – on December 30, 2008, the whole country experienced the longest Christmas holiday in years. Filipinos came back for work only on January 5, 2009.

The concert was set on December 12, 2009 – the Monday right before Cebu’s grand Santo Niño feast and Sinulog festival the next weekend. Competing for attention was another concert at the same venue on a Friday featuring a comedienne Pokwang of a popular television noontime show that appealed to a wider audience.

Two contrasting feedbacks immediately met PRWorks Inc. Managing Director Doris Mongaya on December 29, 2008, the Monday after Christmas. The agency handled sales and marketing for this grand pre-Sinulog event.

Cebu socialites, business executives and top government officials who stayed in Cebu during the long Christmas vacation were excited to learn that three Philippine divas – Kuh Ledesma, Pops Fernandez and Zsa-Zsa Padilla along with popular male singers Erik Santos and Jed Madela – would perform in a pre-Sinulog concert at the Grand Pacific Ballroom of the Cebu City Waterfront Hotel and Casino on January 12, 2009.

They began buying tickets for choice seats in bulk. After New Year’s Day, practically all the choice seats in the first five rows were filled up.

However, tickets in public outlets in Cebu City’s top malls – Ayala Commercial Center and SM City – were not selling fast as expected during the long vacation. Many prominent Cebuanos were out of town while others complained that a Monday several days before payday was not a good day for the difficult Cebuano market. The middle class meanwhile preferred to buy tickets for the Pokwang show.

With most of the Diva2Diva tickets pegged at P2,500 and P2,000, the initial feedback from ticket outlets was negative in the sense that Cebuanos are accustomed to less expensive concerts in the past. Moreover, the neophyte producer refused to invest in full-page newspaper ads but instead focused on posters placed in malls, call center officers, restaurants, and Cebu nightlife hangouts.

With only eight days to sell tickets starting on the day people begin going back for work, PRWorks Inc. was presented with a dilemma. Would it push for a slashing of the ticket prices to respond to the feedback received from ticket outlets? Or would it persevere in the set pricing scheme but focus on specific niches to fill up the rest of the plush Waterfront ballroom?

After assessing the situation, PRWorks Inc. decided to push through with the pricing scheme.

However, the agency also launched a public relations campaign designed to reach out a non-traditional concert market. According to Doris Mongaya of PRWorks Inc., “We set out to reach out people who have money to spend and don’t rely on the 15^th day paycheck but have yet not decided on what entertainment fare they intend to enjoy during the pre-Sinulog days.

To achieve this, the agency pushed for the putting up of a big billboard befitting a grand pre-Sinulog extravaganza at the busy Gen. Maxilom Avenue. Then, instructions were issued to place the remaining posters at luxury dining destinations around Metro Cebu.

This was followed by press releases positioning the concert as the grandest pre-Sinulog event with a special focus on the Cebuano glitterati falling over each other seeking choice front seats. The subliminal message sent was: “This is THE pre-Sinulog concert. One has to be there or you’re not ‘in.’”

On December 8, 2009, PRWORKS Inc. conducted a press conference at the plush Chinese cuisine destination The Ching Palace that featured phone patch interviews with the divas. An excited local entertainment media responded with prominent features about the Diva2Diva show that week until weekend.

These moves worked like magic on the target audience. Ticket sales grew exponentially especially the premium P2,500 tickets as well as the pang-masa and middle class P300, P700 and P1,000 tickets.

Known socialites who came home from their extended vacations outside Cebu started calling the different ticket outlets reserving what choice seats were left.

Hours before show time, Cebu’s well-heeled high society crowd came in their party’s best quite early to settle in their reserve seats. The hundreds who came to buy at the last minute had to settle for the remaining seats worth P2,000. The other categories were already sold out.

True to their reputation as Philippine divas, Kuh Ledesma, Pops Fernandez and Sza-Sza Padilla wowed Cebu’s high society crowd – which is admittedly a difficult audience to please – with a grand three-hour extravaganza that set the tone for the week’s Sinulog festivities.

—————————————————————

Links to Diva2Diva publicity that appeared online:

Ticket sales are up for ’showdown’ of divas

Diva2Diva: Kuh Ledesma, Zsa-Zsa Padilla, Pops Fernandez, Live in Cebu

Text bahin ni Cutie alang kang Pops nakapaukay sa media

Filed under: Case Studies , case study, Cebu, concert, Diva, Festival, music, Philippines, public relations, Santo Nino, Sinulog

Diva 2 Diva

Filed under: Events , Cebu, concert, Diva, Festival, music, Philippines, Santo Nino, Sinulog

The Prince Warehouse Club Sari-Sari Festival 2008

3RD SARI-SARI STORE FESTIVAL: Senator Mar Roxas inspects different stalls of participants of the recent 3rd Sari-Sari Store Festival, held at the Cebu International Convention Center, together with Roberto Go, President of Prince Warehouse Club. Roxas, who authored the newly enacted Magna Carta for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), gave a speech stressing the importance of “never giving up the long term” and to “act by design, not by default,” as a means to personal success and national development.

The Sari-Sari Festival 2008, The Prince Warehouse Club’s landmark event held at the Cebu International Convention Center last July 25, 2008, was organized by PRWorks. Dubbed as Sari-Sari Society Convention the past 2 years, Prince Warehouse Club aspires to make this year’s gathering bigger and more fun-filled thus the name Sari-Sari Society Festival. Prince Warehouse Club aims to bring together members from all over the province through the festival by way of an exhibition, a variety show, and helpful discussions on entrepreneurship, micro-finance, and sari-sari store best practices and success stories. This is Prince Warehouse Club’s way of expressing gratitude for the members’ continued support in sustaining and advancing the club’s vision.

Visit The Prince Warehouse Club Sari-Sari Festival 2008 Blog »

Filed under: Events , Business, Cebu, Philippines, Prince Warehouse Club, Retailing, Sari-Sari Store Festival 2008, Sari-Sari Stores

Cebu ranks 8th for investors

By Linette C. Ramos

CEBU CITY — Foreign investment experts have again noticed Cebu City’s potential for business and ranked it as eighth of the Top 10 Asian Cities of the Future, in a list by the Finance Direct Investment (fDi) magazine of the Financial Times Group.

Only two other Philippine cities, Quezon City and Davao City, made it to the top 10, ranking seventh and 10th place, respectively.

Cebu City also ranked fourth in the list of 10 most cost-effective cities, seventh in the best quality of life category and second in development and promotion, next only to Singapore.

Continue reading ‘Cebu ranks 8th for investors’

Filed under: News , Business, Cebu, Cebu City, Commerce, Economy, Philippines, Small and Medium Enterprises, Top 10 Asian Cities of the Future, Visayas

RP renews membership to AFECA

AFTER MORE THAN 10 years of absence, the Philippine’s meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) industry has revived its participation and membership to the Asian Federation of Exhibition and Convention Association (AFECA).AFECA is an organization of MICE industry leaders in Asia. It was organized to give Asia a voice in the MICE global industry. The Philippines is a founding-member of AFECA.

“They (AFECA members) looked for us because the Philippines is a founding-member and we were gone. Just this year, we are coming back,” said Marissa Nallana, chairperson of the Philippine Association for Conventions, Exhibit Organizers and Suppliers (PACEO).

Ms. Nallana recently attended the AFECA annual general meeting and the 2007 Asian MICE leaders forum held last September 25-27 in Taipei, Taiwan. She said the country’s revival to AFECA, through PACEO, is a joint effort of the organization and the Department of Tourism.

Filed under: News , AFECA, Business, Cebu, Cebu International Convention Center, CICC, Commerce, conventions, Economy, exhibitions, incentives, meetings, Philippines

Cebu Motorshow Benefits Vis-Min Entrepreneurs

Transport entrepreneurs in the Visayas and Mindanao are among many exhibitors who will benefit from the 8th Motorshow Cebu International at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) on October 16to 21, 2007.

Haydee Kwan, Motorshow Philippines International, Inc. Director, that is spearheading the only event of its kind and magnitude outside Metro Manila, revealed this

Over the years, small and medium-scale transport entrepreneurs in the countryside have survived and grown on their own merit. Now, we want to make sure that their industry and ingenuity will get the attention that they deserve, Kwan said.

Located away from major manufacturers of automotive and motorcycle accessories and parts, provincial Filipino entrepreneurs are known for their ability to produce alternative transport products often made from scrap materials.

In lieu of accessories and parts that are difficult to access in remote areas, these ingenious innovations often amaze even the more established manufacturers of auto and cycle parts, bodies and engines.

The Motorshow Cebu International will provide a good exposure for these small companies who fill a special niche in a rapidly expanding transport market. Throughout the six-day event, meet-and-match possibilities between buyers and sellers are endless, Kwan explained.

Filed under: Case Studies , Auto, Business, Cars, Cebu, Cebu International Convention Center, CICC, Commerce, Economy, Motoring, Motorshow, Philippines, Visayas