Micro Entrepreneurship

The reason why we are in business is we wanted to create wealth for ourselves and others.

In every business, there are partners who do business for you and with you. They can either be your supplier, tenant, distributor, franchisee etc. The survival of each unit is supposedly interdependent to each other. Thus, the extra ordinary relationship exist between the two (or even more). Unfortunately, instead of working together, a handful try to outwit each other, and some even cheat, just to get a bigger share of the pie.

One thing I learned when I worked with SM for almost 10 years is the synergy among the different business units. Though diversified, each business compliment each other. A typical SM Supermall will not be complete without the presence of the other units such as Banco De Oro, Department Store, Hypermarket/Supermarket, Cinema etc, the anchor affiliates. While there are some kinks in an intertwined operations such as theirs, the advantages outweighs the cons. SM will not be SM had not been for that business model. Aside from the sister companies, there are partners who grew with SM as it expands locally, and abroad. These were nobodies, then, when SM was still small.

There may be some friendly competition, but this should not in anyway result to animosity, all because of money.

This is a business model worth pursuing. If your main thrust is to add value to your customers, in the long run, these will  create more value to your business.

Add Value

The main reason why you are or you will be in business is to create wealth not only for yourself, but to other people  too– (would be) employees, suppliers and customers included.  To achieve this, you must add value to your product. When customers purchase your product or services, what else do they get?

Illustration: Every school year, we are securing the services of a school bus. The expected end result is to just bring our kids to school and back home. However, our school bus operator does more than that. He sometimes act as nanny in extreme situations, does errand jobs and generally takes care of the welfare of our kids. That’s value for money. So when he requests for increase in payment, we do not grumble and look for other other service provider.

Sustainability

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