The General Santos City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc., Department
of Trade and Industry (DTI), SMED Council, Inc., the City Government of General Santos, and RK Franchise Consultancy together with the Filipino International Franchise Association (FIFA), will hold the
4th Mindanao Franchise Expo on June
26-28, 2009 at the Gaisano Mall of
Gensan Atrium, General Santos City.
The three-day 4th
Mindanao Franchise Expo is one way of bringing franchise opportunities closer
to the Mindanao regions where the franchise market is growing stronger. This
event is definitely a showcase of successful franchisers from Manila, Cebu,
Davao and General Santos City to prospective Franchisees and new and promising
concepts in food, retail or services to consider franchising. Franchising has evolved also in
Mindanao to be the most successful way to expand a business or to go into a
business by yourself. The fastest way for business owners to grow a business is
to franchise it out instead of opening own branches. On the oher hand, the
safest way to invest money is to get a reputable franchise as franchises offers
the advantages of being proven profitable, provide training, opening assistance
and operations manual.
With the success of online social networking, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are tapping into the global phenomenon to give their businesses a boost via the newly-created site called Bizster.com.ph.
Site developer and Plantersbank affiliate SME.com.ph says the Bizster network hopes to promote “More Business than Usual”. As an online business network, Bizster allows its members to Connect with Business People, Promote their Companies, and Profit from market leads.
Connect with People. Bizster makes it possible for businesses to connect with potential business partners, prospective clients and suppliers at NO COST. Bizster provides SMEs a ‘face’ and allows better mileage in expanding territories through the reach of the Internet. By joining Bizster, an entrepreneur already has the option of inviting any of 500 SME.com.ph web clients to their contacts list.
Promote. Two of marketing’s five Ps are Place and Promote, Bizster does that for FREE. Placing spots on televisions or radio, putting up billboards along EDSA and national promotional campaigns are way too expensive for SMEs. Bizster gives subscribers an online presence 24/7 at no cost to their budget!
By allowing members to edit and provide their own content, Bizster helps small businesses become comfortable and confident with the web as a marketing tool. Blogs and online catalogues allow members to increase their stickiness and promote recall for their products and services.
Profit. The possibility of turning queries into revenues is high with the social network model. The marketability and profitability of a venture depends solely on the Bizster member’s ability to manage content. Content is still king. The more useful and persuasive content a Bizster member provides, the greater the opportunity for reaping profits.
3,000 Pangasius Fingerlings were released at the inauguration of Pangasius Demo Farm last September 23, 2008 which was held at the Tiongson Farm, Brgy. San Isidro, GeneralSantosCity. The said inauguration was attended by some dignitaries from government, business and media sectors led by City Mayor Pedro Acharon, Jr.
“The purpose of this project is to showcase the actual growing of Pangasius Catfish from fingerlings to grow-out on its marketable size. This is directly supervised and assisted by the VITARICH Corporation in six (6) months time,” explained by the Pangasius Industry Cluster Development Officer.
VITARICH Corporation committed to provide all production inputs of the Pangasius growing at the 600-700 sq. meter pond of Tiongson Farm which is owned by Mr. Victor Tiongson, Chairman of SOCSARGEN Catfish Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative (SOCAFAMPC).
On the same date, Pangasius Industry Cluster was also formally launched and introduced to be the first in the region to have this kind of Industry Cluster.
Meanwhile, City Mayor Acharon expresses his full support on the new Industry Cluster.
“I am happy that the city of General Santos has again discovered and initiated another potential inland fishing which is the Pangasius,” the Mayor said.
1st District Congress Office Chief of Staff Bebei Gonzales, DTI-12 Asst. Regional Director Dorecita Delima, BFAR-12 Aquaculture Division Chief Sukarno Anayatin, NIA Representative Valentino Arabit, Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) Representative Danilo Pandes, VITARICH Corp. Product Manager Arnold Talastas, SMEDCI President Tess Pacheco and SOCAFAMPC Chairman Victor Tiongson were also present during the said event.
Reaching out
Pangasius Industry Cluster is jointly upholds by the Department of Trade and Industry-12 (DTI-12), Local Government Unit (LGU), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources 12 (BFAR-12), National Irrigation Administration (NIA), VITARICH Corporation and the SOCSARGEN Catfish Farmers Multi-Purpose Cooperative (SOCAFAMPC) todevelop, promote and intensify the catfish product in the region.
“To saturate the local demand of the market, we are promoting here another potential inland fishing to increase investments in the region as well as to increase the volume of our export products and produce more employment through Pangasius Production and Value Adding,” DTI-12 ARD Delima said.
Several research and consultations have been conducted to confirm that fresh and processed pangasius indeed is an emerging product with great potentials for development and growth in the region.
To widely disseminate the information, series of Business Opportunity Seminar has been done in 2 days last Sept. 22-23, 2008 mainly at the 3 provinces (Sarangani Province, Koronadal and Gensan) which targets the potential and existing fishpond operators and investors to introduce the new industry.
GENERALSANTOSCITY—More business process outsourcing (BPO) offices are likely to open in Mindanao as key cities like General Santos continue developing business environments which are especially attractive to information technology (IT) firms.
“Mindanao and its major cities should be aggressive in their campaign to improve the talent, infrastructure and environment needed to advance in the sector of IT and IT-enabled services,” said Maria Jamea Garcia, executive director for talent development of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP).
BPAP says that the country is well positioned to corner a 10-percent share of the global outsourcing and offshoring market by 2010, with potential revenues of about US$13 billion and additional direct employment of close to one million workers.
Mindanao cities like General Santos, Iligan and Zamboanga have strong potential as competitive offshoring sites—particularly when the labor and infrastructure resources of their neighboring municipalities and provinces are factored in, according to USAID’s Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program, which is helping to facilitate BPO investment in the region.
Under the government’s Philippine Cyber Corridor initiative, these three (3) cities have been identified as promising hubs for providers of a wide range of IT services, said Patricia Abejo, Director for Cyberservices of the Commission on ICT.
The services include contact center operations, animation, medical and legal transcription, software development, e-learning, e-entertainment and gaming, and other back office services, such as finance and accounting, and human resource development.
“Developing these additional cities would help the Philippines achieve a more balanced distribution of growth [in the BPO sector]. This will ease some of the pressures on costs and help seed development in other parts of the country,” Jamea said.
asiu
red and initiated another potential inland fishing which is the Pangasius,” the Mayor said.
