BRIAN To
While looking for a coffee shop in Manila a few years ago, a British tourist of Chinese ancestry ended up wandering through the halls of Philippine General Hospital.
Instead of finding a Starbucks or Coffee Bean shop to slake his thirst for caffeine, however, he found himself staring at an overcrowded emergency room (ER) and was shocked at the long line of people awaiting their turn at the charity ward.
It was literally an eye-opener for Brian To, the accidental tourist who happened to be a renowned professor of strategy and leadership, a senior fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and adviser to many Fortune 500 corporations and governments.
To began to ask questions: Are these patients not as privileged as others? Why is there such a long queue? Why is there so much pandemonium in the ER? The figures are, indeed, staggering. Every year, roughly 4,000 to 5,000 patients are admitted to the PGH Medicine charity wards and intensive care units. For every single admission, the average patient needs to spend at least P9,000 for medication, supplies and procedures, which is definitely huge for a family living on minimum wage.
The professor decided to do something, keeping in mind that perpetually writing a check could only do so much.
Leveraging on his expertise in strategy formulation, development and execution, he teamed up with Sagip Medical Foundation Inc. “SAGIP Buhay” to offer a “mini-clone” of strategy programs offered by leading universities around the world.
SAGIP Buhay makes available life-saving medicine and procedures free of charge to the indigent patients of medical wards, with the help of volunteers from the medical profession.
Two birds, one stone
For To and SAGIP Buhay, it’s like hitting two birds with one stone: Local corporations and family-owned enterprises will have a crash course on Strategy and SAGIP Buhay can raise more funds. Since then, To has thus helped champion the cause of the foundation, devoting some of his precious time to travel to the Philippines, believing that if there’s any chance that people would be willing to pay to hear him speak, it would help more people at the charity ward.
That was how To and SAGIP Buhay conceptualized the “Powerful Strategy Formulation Seminar,” a three-part program meant for companies whose success is based on the creation of innovative business, service and products strategies and the effective and timely execution of strategies that build value and market position.
Participants are exposed to creative strategies aimed at both services and products, with an emphasis on being distinct from what competitors are offering and on developing capabilities that rivals cannot match easily. Special aspects of the program include sharpening strategic skills, fine-tuning business model, innovative business modules, product differentiation with a view to growth and globalization, and transforming plans and strategies into results.
In 2012, To conducted the first part and second parts of this program series with a great deal of success, organizers said. On Aug. 28, he will conduct the “Strategy Execution Program,” the final part of the seminar series at the Bayanihan Center, United Laboratories Inc. (Unilab), Mandaluyong City.
This is a one-day program to introduce participants to critical concepts of control and reward, compensation mechanisms that enable commitment and involvement for highly successful strategy execution.
Here, To is expected to share the kinds of action that determine what a company’s strategy will be; why strategies are partly proactive and partly reactive; what the challenges are when executing corporate-wide strategies for global growth, and why a company’s strategies tend to evolve over time.
The goal is to make participants, which will have to pay a registration fee of P3,000 each, more confident in executing their ideas, plans and strategies.
To is a graduate of Harvard, HEC Paris, Oxford, John F. Kennedy, INSEAD, and Wharton, and holds postgraduate degrees in Management in Science and in Public Management, as well as a doctorate in Business Administration. In 2004, he received a doctorate from Middlesex University, and completed a doctorate in Chinese Business and Management in 2010.
He consistently strategizes for revenue expansion in Asia, North America and Europe, and has facilitated over three initial public offerings and billions of dollars in value creation and sales growth in diverse industries. He has advised and coached numerous CEOs, managing directors and corporations toward significantly advancing profitability, apart from global leaders in North America and Asia.
What strategy?
“The reason why I felt that the subject of strategy is so important is that, outside of Japan, about 93 percent of corporations are family-owned, depending on whose research you look at. In addition, most strategic annual processes fail, [at a rate] greater than 90 percent. Why is that? One of the reasons is that, in most businesses, management has not received education in strategy. They may be particularly competent in strategy formulation but not so competent in strategy development or execution,” he tells the Inquirer.
Failures are not always about corporate governance, To explains. “It’s mostly about incorrect strategy, poor timing, bad leadership, conflicts/disputes, technology, or mostly ego of leadership particularly in family-owned corporations.”
Strategy is seen to be particularly more interesting with the looming integration of Southeast Asian economies in 2015.
As to why there are only a few big Filipino corporate names mapping out overseas expansion programs, To said one reason could be lack of preparation alongside the huge capital required to go offshore and the sort of export know-how.
By sharing his knowledge to corporate folk, To is also sharing his optimism on the Philippines.
“I’m inspired by the people here, and I wish that the development institutions will be inspired as I am,” says To, who also teaches advanced strategy to the military. “This is probably the number one country in the world that, in my mind, is just a community that really reflects and symbolizes untapped wealth of knowledge and resources. It really epitomizes that. I cannot think of any other country where the people, their attitude, their culture and their abilities and skills, are so untapped and underutilized that the culture is [one of] waiting for opportunity,” he says.
“I cannot think of any other country where the population is so resilient and adaptable. And that makes the Philippines so interesting.”
As an external observer, To says the Philippines is making a transition from being a rabbit to becoming one of Asia’s tigers. Like a rabbit, To observes that many Filipinos seem to be always diplomatic, always letting somebody else say something.
“You’re a regional rabbit that must make the decision now to become a regional tiger and join the other Asian tigers. Now is the time,” he says, adding that without overseas remittances, local sociology and economics would have taken a different turn.
To be more competitive as a country, To says it all boils down to overall country strategy, of stronger cooperation between the private sector and government.
“In other countries for example, we engineer the experience … the entire experience. From the moment you land, we know the experience you are going to have up to the moment you leave. In Manila, you can wait up to an hour or more just to leave,” he says.
Picking brains
Apart from exporting talent like what the Philippines is known for, To says the country must consider importing talent, the way Singapore and Malaysia did in their early years of growth.
“Their governments, they went out with the best brains in the world. And it’s not that they have to pay them so much. They gave them medals, and they gave them dinners, they gave them certificates—everything that didn’t cost money. And they pumped their egos. They all came and they gave world-class advice,” he says.
Bill Gates, for one, was recruited by Malaysia to be part of its national ICT (information and communication technology) initiative. In the late 1990s, the Microsoft founder backed Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative, which gained international attention at the time. That, he says, is how to take advantage of what is obviously not a small brain.
“That’s obviously a big brain kind of guy with global thinking and they didn’t have to pay him,” he says.
By picking the brains of people who can help the country, he says, the Philippines can accelerate the development process.
“You can gain real attraction, commercial attraction and economic development attraction. You have to access the best brains in the world and bring them here. Bring the best doctors and bring the best to teach, to coach, and to nurture, foster and inspire.”
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