Management
Issue No. 9 - February/March 2003
BIG Sales Call
How a multi-site company in the Philippines uses telephone text messaging to keep up to date with sales on a daily basis
by Colin Pearce
Only in the Philippines! It is not only one of the friendliest and happiest places on earth, it is also one of the most intriguing. There’s a surprise on every corner. I learned a management idea from a company in the Philippines which I rate as one of the most brilliant management strategies I have ever seen. It amazed and wowed me.
I learned it while speaking in Manila and Subic Bay last year at conferences for Greenwich Pizza Restaurants.
Greenwich (pronounced in a broad Filipino accent, Greeeen-ich) is one of the Jollibee Foods Group of companies. Jollibee is a franchised hamburger restaurant chain and is the only company that outnumbers McDonald’s sites in any country of the world. There are 400 Jollibees, 200 Chowking – Chinese food – and 200 Greenwich restaurants in the group.
The group was founded by Tony Tan (‘Sir Tony’ as his thousands of team members call him) 25 years ago. Sir Tony was named Businessman of the Year in the Philippines in 2001 and is one of the most charming and humble men you’ll ever meet. He started with one little hamburger kiosk in 1978 and wanting his workers to be as busy as bees and happy employees he called the store, ‘Jollibee.’
The day before the 2001 conventions started, Franchising Manager, Froilan Manotoch was taking me on a few site inspections . At around 10:30 AM Froi took a text message on his phone and as he put his phone away, he beamed, “Sales are up from the previous day— again.”
A bit surprised by this announcement coming from a text message, I asked, “Sales from where—commissary or warehouse orders?”
“No, no!” he said, “That’s our retail result from yesterday, from all our stores. We get this report at this time every day.”
“Wait a minute!” I said. “You have 200 stores. You must have a computer system to die for.”
I wanted...
