General Membership Meeting

Topic: Where to Begin and Invest: Investing 101

Speaker: Mr. Rafael Ayuste, Vice President, Citibank Savings, Inc.

 

The following matters should be considered when investing: specify and be realistic with your financial goal/objective; set a realistic timetable for the investment to mature; make sure that you have a high tolerance for risk (you must withstand the market pressures); and seek someone with ample experience who can guide you through your investments but make sure that the ultimate decision to invest or divest is yours alone.

Topic: Using Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) to Get Results From Your People

Speaker: DR. LAURENE CHUA-GARCIA, Organizational Development Specialist & Professor, De La Salle University

 

The corporate world, most especially high-level positions require: Leadership (persuasion being the key to being a good leader); Helping/Instructing others (should be able to relay thoughts clearly and being able to be of help to others too); Problem-solving (creativity in handling concerns; finding solutions to age-old problems); Initiative (willingness on prompt actions; learn to be a “starter”); Work as part of a TEAM (knowing how to relate with co-workers); and Frequent public contact (social skills required too). The higher the position, the more teaching is required. Otherwise, the “management gap” increases, and everyone loses. In all the requirements mentioned above, COMMUNICATION is the core element.

Topic: Understanding Retail Marketing

Speaker: TOBY CLAUDIO, Operations Manager, Quorum International (TOBY’S Sports & Arena)

 

Secrets to a successful marketing strategy: Just start it! Keep at it! Find the ‘blue ocean’ in the industry. Do something that people have never seen before. Find your ‘soulmates’. Soulmates are defined as people who can share the passion in business with you; people who have skills to complement and balance the passion; people who can share the financial responsibilities if need be. Infect your employees. Find meaning and purpose to whatever it is that you do.

[photos will be sent to you in a separate mail, labeled according to meeting dates]

Topic: Opportunities for the Philippine IT Industry for Y2009

Speaker: Mr. Jubert Alberto, Research Manager International Data Corporation (IDC)

With the first quarter of 2009 tracking done, Mr. Alberto briefed the COMDDAP member companies on the key trends for both the IT and Telecommunication Markets, IT spending proportions, Market Drivers and Inhibitors, with him capping the presentation with the Essential Guidelines or Opportunities to tap.

Highlights of his talk were the IT spending proportions as: 72.10% to Hardware, growth rate at 3.03%; 20.6% to Services, growth rate at 10%; and 7.3% to software, growth rate of 9%.

Market drivers are the (1) relative independent consumer spending; (2) government push to use ICT in the country; (3) BPO sustained performance; and (4) SME demands.

Details on the PC Unit Shipment Growth by Form Factor and by Technology were likewise discussed.

Topic: IT Overview for Asia 9
Speaker: JOSE ALLEN N. CACHUELA, Division Head, GfK Group Philippines

Topic: IT Overview for Asia 9

Speaker: JOSE ALLEN N. CACHUELA, Division Head, GfK Group PhilippinesGfK Retail and Technology, a sector of the GfK Group, tracks point-of-sale (POS) data, from retailers, delivering to customers standardized comparable reports form both the retail and industry markets.

Data related to the Asia 9’s (Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia) total technology market were given. As given, the factors that affect the growth of IT as far as point-of-sales is concerned: technology innovation, affordability, connectivity, and economic confidence. In general, it was reported that the total technology market showed weakening in sales amounts, value and prices.

With the member companies in attendance, and for the first time since its inception, COMDDAP EXPO MANILA was launched without its usual ‘Bidding/Marketing Launch”. The event marketing was held during the Membership meeting, with Event Chair, Bing L. Lastrilla detailing the many activities that will be held simultaneously, during the 4-day event from December 3 to 6, at the Hall 1 of the SMX Convention Center, Pasay City. As discussed during the meeting, COMDDAP, in collaboration with many organizations, but most especially with the CICT and Google, will hold the 3D Philippines Initiative, a project that aims to create a 3D virtual world of the Philippines, where communities can create a bedrock of shared information and resources. This collaborative undertaking plans to develop a complete and usable 3D model of the Philippines on Google Earth using Google SketchUp. This will include pertinent metadata to be used by various applications that will not only benefit the corporate, government, and educational sectors, but the Philippine society as whole.

“Consult-A-Lawyer” during the Informative Hour was the meeting highlight, another first in the membership meetings of COMDDAP. A team of litigation lawyers from the Cacayorin & Associates was present, led by Atty. Edwin Cacayorin, and supported by Atty. Zee Javier, and Atty. Don Radjaie. Inquiries from the members ranged from various concerns or instances related to importation, bouncing checks, consumer law, labor, and estafa. One of the best suggestions given is the inclusion of violator clauses necessary to protect the sale and transfer of goods in issuing of sales invoices and quotations to customers.