Fresh Ideas

Archive for October, 2008

I’m listening this morning in Magic 89.9 FM and the topic was in regards the Service Charge of restaurants. I actually didn’t bother about this issue in reality, but when i heard the arguments on the “Goodtimes” morning program of the DJs namely Mo Twister, Mojo Jojo and Grace Lee and it dawned on me that this is one topic that everybody should be aware of.

Well, it’s funny that we encounter this topic regularly when we dined in restaurants and usually we simply ignore it and just pay the damn bill. It’s a simple case of “did you know that” that we can really ask or question why do we have to pay for it in the first place.

As the topic goes, I suddenly realized that we need to question this practice because I don’t know if this was really a law that all restaurants need to charge a certain percentage on the total bill for service charge. I think it is mandatory for restaurants to serve customers properly and there is no need to charge them extra just for the service because they are there to serve you actually and it is their business to serve customer the best way that they should.

Also, there are other charges on the bill aside from the service charge like VAT or Value Added Tax and local tax, so therefore, I don’t think it is really ethical to charge the customer extra just for the service that he or she should be getting in the first place. The taxes are in the law but the service charge I really doubt on that.

By the way, it is also customary for us to give tips to waiters, so why the heck do we need to pay up for the service charge if we will be giving tips anyway? This is one big question that is really bothering me long time ago before I heard this on the radio.

Could someone explain to me the logic in the service charge on restaurants and is it legal to charge customer extra for this crap? Because, sometimes, I do get good service and I didn’t bother to give additional tips aside from the additional service charge on the bill as long as the service was great, but there are times and I mean many times that the service was awful and I am still charged for that damn service charge and even if I called up the manager or supervisor, he or she can only tell me that it is a policy of the restaurant!

I like the comment of one of the DJs because he told that other people with different occupation should actually be tipped than the waiters like the nurse or some medical staffs because they really make out of their way to help people, but not like the waiters because it is in their job description already that they need to serve customers. Also, staffs from hotels should not be tipped as well, because like waiters, it is their duty to assist customers and clients on their needs so why should we give tips for the service we should be getting? It’s really weird huh?!

It really ticks me off when you know you dine in a very posh restaurant and the food was not that fantastic and the service is very bad and you will still be charged for a very ridiculously fee for the service charge. It’s bad service to start off, so why charge customers for the service that is not really excellent? Do you think it’s fair to pass the fee for paying the customers daily wage to the customers in their bills? It seems that restaurant owners are simply overcharging or escaping the responsibility in paying their staff right, correct?

Well, I think someone from the government should really take a look into this because at these times when all of the things are really pricey, it should help the people that needed to tighten their belt. But of course many of you will say, “then don’t eat at restaurants!” and I know you’re right on that, but this will not help in eliminating this bad practice in the restaurant industry.

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I received this email from our company’s email blast and I will simply paste the complete email in this post.

The Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) cleared Tuesday at least 41 more milk and milk-based products from the list of items possibly tainted with melamine.

In ads placed in the Manila Bulletin and Philippine Star newspapers, the BFAD said that as of Oct. 13, NO melamine was detected in the 41 products.

These include:

* Anchor Fresh Milk;
* Caidenly Biscuits (Milk Flavor);
* Candyman Kendi Mint Chocolate Filled Center;
* Candyman Vi-Va Caramel Sweets Chocolate Filled Center;
* Dairy Champ Evaporada;

* DongGuan Bairong Chocolate Cream Biscuits;
* DongGuan Wanjiang Wan Fu Papaya Cookie;
* DongGuan Bairong Apple Biscuits;
* DongGuan Golden Paddyfield Giadenjy Biscuits;
* DongGuan Golden Paddyfield Little Biscuits;

* DongGuan Mayong Guang Feng Food;
* Engtian Layer Biscuits;
* Eugnitan Layer Biscuits;
* F&N Blue Cow Condensada;
* F&N Daisy Condensada;

* Farmhouse Skimmed Milk Powder;
* Fat & Thin Milky Soya Drink;
* Fudielai Biscuits;
* Keko Candy;
* Kyoto Cookies;

* Liu Wei Bang Lollipop Candy;
* M&M’s Minis Chocolate Candies;
* Mai Wei Su Cookies;
* Milky Soya Milk Drink (Chocolate);
* Milky Soya Milk Drink (Green Apple);

* Milky Soya Milk Drink (Melon);
* Milky Soya Milk Drink (Sweet Corn);
* Pengtian Thin Cracker;
* Pokka Soy 4 U Soy Bean Drink;
* Prime Roast Calcium Enriched Nutritious Cereal;

* Prime Roast Oligosacharide Nutritious Cereal;
* Sally Sikaoqi Milk Candy;
* Sally Sikaoqi Coffee Candy;
* Sukacita Little Bear Biscuits (Chocolate flavor);
* Suntree Coffee Candy;

* Tiong Hwa Soya Milk (unsweetened);
* Vitasoy Calci Plus Healthy Soya Drink (Low Sugar Hi-Calcium Low Fat Cholesterol Free);
* Yeo’s Drink;
* Zhen Xin Sandwich Biscuits;
* Zhongshan Lewwa Food Jelly (Pudding); and
* Zhongshan Meihua Butter with Filling Cake

For more information, you may visit http://www.gmanews.tv/story/126860/41-more-milk-dairy-products-passed-govt-lab-test—BFAD

Moreover, Department of Health (DOH) BFAD also released an official list (last October 10, 2008) of milk and dairy products positive with Melamine contents. Please see attached file for your reference.

These include:

1. Greenwood Yili Fresh Milk (in Chinese characters)

2. Mengniu Drink (in Chinese character)

3. Sanlu (Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co.)

4. Panda Baby (Shanghai Panda Dairy Co. Ltd.)

5. Syrutra (Syrutra International Inc.)

6. Gucheng (Shanxi Gucheng Dairy Co. Ltd.)

7. Mengniu (Mengniu Dairy)

8. Hero (Jiangxi Bright & Hero Dairy C)

9. Huimin / HMDP (Baoji Huimin Milk Co. Ltd.)

10. Kocci (Duojiaduo Dairy Industry {Tianjin} Co. Ltd.)

11. Yashili (Guangdon Yashili Group Co. Ltd.)

12. Nanshan Beiyi (Hunan Peiyi Dairy Co.)

13. Heilongjiang (Qinin Dairy Co.)

14. Yashili  (Shanxi Yashili Dairy Co.)

15. Jinbishi (Shenzhen Jinbishi Milk Co. Ltd.)

16. Scient (Guangzhou Shien Dairy Co.)

17. Jinding (Guangzhou Jinding Dairy Co.)

18. Yili (Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co.)

19. Ausmeadow (Ausmeadow Nutriment Co. Ltd.)

20. Suncare (Aikeding Qingdao Suncare Nutritional Technology Co. Ltd.)

21. Yubao (Xian Baiyue Dairy Co. Ltd.)

22. Leilei (Yantai Leilei Dairy Products Co. Ltd.)

23. Baoanli (Shanghai Baoanli Dairy Co. Ltd.)

24. Hikid (Fuding Chenguan Dairy Co. Ltd.)

Beware of these products. Everyone is advised to avoid purchasing / consuming these products.

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This is one sensitive topic that I for myself will surely need to be aware of. I for one, is currently working in one of the top call centers here in the Philippines and one thing that came to my mind right away when I heard and read the news regarding the financial crunch in the United States is…will call centers in the Philippines be affected by the current financial crisis in the Philippines?

Actually if I’m not that kind of worried when time comes that I be forced out of job because of the current economic situation in the United States, because I know for myself that can easily adapt in this situation because I know that I didn’t put in all my eggs in one basket.

However, this problem will surely affect our country bigtime because we all know that call centers is one of the lifeline of our ailing country now. It provided jobs for our youth today. It does not only provide jobs but provided a really high-paying career. Many families depended on this industry and became the bread and butter for so many of us.

All of us definitely would not want another great depression to happen in this age. But when worst comes to worst, the United States, which would be hit hard might go into recession and lay-offs will surely follow. And it would not take a rocket scientist to expect that their working population will need every work they can get, and of course big companies in the United States that employs our fellow men in the call center industry here in our country will definitely need to pull off in their offshore sites like here in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world where they provide cheap pay in the workforce in order to provide the jobs in their home country.

We may not experience the problem now, but who knows, maybe next year might be a bleak year to some of us or to all of us! We do not want that. We don’t want that to happen. So, I hope and I think all of us will hope that everything will weather down any time soon. We all want to sleep soundly, right?

Just like what I post in the headline, G-7 financial leaders guarantee to take all necessary steps to unfreeze credit and money markets to prevent a global financial meltdown since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Germany and France endorsed the plan of the United States to buy equity stakes in a very broad variety of banks and financial institutions.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted within 1,000 points before closing last week. On Friday, investors’ loss came almost to $100 billion.

Panic is the cause of this turmoil, the Financial Times reported this last week. Many investors panicked and sell that prompted the crash in the stock market last week.

The unstable swing in the stock market this past two weeks reminded us a lot like what happen in October 1929 when the Dow Jones industrial average gyrate sharply on October 23, Wednesday, and then came to a free fall the next day and it became known as “Black Thursday”.

The next day, a banker tried to save the day by buying shares in steel, and everyone thinks that this will help start the rebuilding of the market; however, the following week, seems to be much nastier than before because there seems to be no one interested to buy anymore and everyone were selling.

The index crashed by 13 percent and after that, the market took a beating again for another 12 percent. By early November, 50 percent was lost in the stock market’s value and many Americans saw their wealth slowly disappeared.

And what will you expect for the normal employees to experience? Of course, layoffs, millions were laid offs. Jobless Americans roam the streets. They all expect a dole out from the government to weather those times. If not only for those brave and cunning businessmen and entrepreneurs that tried to succeed, it might last much longer than expected.

Let’s all hope that history will not repeat itself because we don’t want another great depression to be felt by everyone now, because it is really terrible and awful to be in this state of life again.

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Amidst the attempt of the United States to prevent a full scale crash in the financial stadium, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns of a possible meltdown in world finance.

IMF backed up the plan of the Group of Seven (G-7), the world’s industrialized nations, to try to help stabilize the stock market and take immediate action.

According to news, the government in the United Kingdom would launch its bank rescue on Monday on its four largest banks namely Lloyds, bank of Scotland, Barclays and HBOS with $60.5 billion of support.

In Australia, all deposits on banks, credit unions and building society will be guaranteed by the Australian government for three years.

In Germany, a rescue plan of $549 billion is being prepared including injection of equity capital.

France on its part promised to hold a meeting with European heads to help prevent the market in creating a mass panic and to create a better plan in countering the eminent financial crisis.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn warns of a possible meltdown, but then expressed hopes that governments’ actions can help persuade banks in resuming its lending services to stop the spreading problem.

However, financial ministers from the G-7, the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada and Italy could not agree on a concrete measure to help alleviate the problem and unfreeze the credit market and ensures the bank can really raise enough money.

The G-7 also held a meeting with the financial heads of G-20 or the group of emerging nations on Saturday October 11 to effectively communicate what will be the action plan of one country so it does not affect other countries in its region as a whole.

During their Fall Press Conference, the Japanese gaming company Nintendo will be releasing the new DS that has a digital camera where player can mix photos and create new faces. The Nintendo Dsi will officially launch in Japan on November 1, 2008 for $180 and will be available overseas next year.

Now, one in every six Japanese already owned a DS, but Nintendo’s goal now is to make this toy a must-have for every Japanese.

The newly improved Dsi is much thinner and has a bigger screen. It also came with an audio player and able to store sound in memory card.

Nintendo has already sold 77.5 million DS worldwide, and nearly 23 million in Japan alone outselling its rival Sony PlayStation Portable or PSP with 10 million in Japan and 41 million worldwide.

One of the major financial investment that you will ever had is planning and building your dream house. Your home should provide you with all the functionality that you want and of course, the price that you can afford. Nobody wants a good house that will only have you cash strapped because of poor planning and building and will eventually drain your savings and earnings.

Choosing a housing loan is critical also because of the mortgage payment that you will need to consider.

When you build your dream house, you have the options to build it from scratch or to choose a pre-built house then modify it.

You may hire an architect or professional builder to simplify the planning and building process.

When searching for the suitable plan, take into consideration your personality if it perfectly suits you. Reflect on the design thoroughly and check if everything is streamline.

Do also consider your current lifestyle and your choice in spending your free time. Your preference must work hand in hand with what you actually do on your spare time. Do you spend time in the bathroom? Do you like to cook? Do you wanted to have a home office or a private entertainment room?

The exterior of the house is one aspect that all of us are always considering in building or remodeling a house. Do you want to have a porch or patios and wide space for garden?

Any which ways you want it, you will definitely need to plan it really hard so no space will be missed. Choosing the right architectural style is really important in consideration to your overall plan. Again, taste and budget should be well-coordinated.

Of course many articles have been written already on this topic. But I cannot stress enough the relevance in advertising your business online through Search Engine Marketing or SEM.

SEM is a marketing tool that will work for your product or services if you wanted it to be viable for your target customers. The three major search engines today, namely Google, Yahoo and MSN comprises 90 percent of search engine-originating traffic.

The prospects of SEM as a marketing tool is very bright these days. It is much preferred by companies rather than sending unwanted emails or email spamming. SEM tends to reach your prospective clients and customers worldwide and converting readers or visitors into buyers is increasing than conventional marketing tools.

It is much better than traditional marketing tool according to experts such as advertising in TV, radio or print. In these conventional forms, you cannot determine whether your revenues are caused by your advertisements or rather caused by other factors. You cannot determine if you are getting conversions or should I say customers from just knowing your product or services to actually buying or using it. Also, according to some research, it is much, much cheaper to advertise in SEM.

The simple objective of SEM is simply have your website where your potential customers hit on a certain keywords to be searched and they should find your site in the top 20 search result list.

For your business to appear on search engines, you need to have of course an excellent web design and it should be search engine friendly. I will discuss this definition on my other article, so just stay hooked up!

Your site should be listed on organically or by natural search I say, and this can be done by Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Several individuals and companies provided this kind of services and I will also tackle this on my other article.

SEM is very effective if your target customers can easily search your website, and given a good optimization, these prospective clients or visitors can be converted into real buyers.

After all, this is what advertising, marketing and business is all about.

One of the biggest headline now in the Philippines is the sale of Philippine American Life and General Insurance Co. (Philamlife), which is considered as the biggest insurance company in the country in the past 60 years.

Philamlife President Jose Cuisia Jr. has assured clients that this will not affect its operation or its ability to pay claims or compromise clients’ investments.

Philamlife, is the locally incorporated wholly-owned subsidiary of insurance giant American International Group or AIG.

AIG, considered by Forbes 2008 as the 18^th largest company in the world was badly hit by the U.S. financial crunch and just recently received $85 billion rescue loan from the government.

AIG announced last Friday its decision to give up Philamlife in its plans in global streamlining.

JP Morgan and Blackstone Group, which were the two investment banks tapped by AIG to handle the sale will determine whether it will be sold as one group or will be broken down into several units.

Analysts says that this will attract local conglomerates such as San Miguel Corporation and Ayala group and other local and foreign companies in offering its bid on the company.

There were also reports that prospective buyers include taipan, Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco of Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation; tycoon George Ty of Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., as well as retail and mall magnate, Henry Sy of BDO Unibank Inc.

Also, global insurance rivals with local operations Sun Life of Canada, Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. (Manulife) and British financial giant Prudential plc. shows interests.

According to the Insurance Commission, Philamlife has P108 billion in assets and a net worth of P21.4 billion as of 2007.

Starting a business can be a grueling task both in mind and body, and such stress can make you choose wrong decision and fall into overspending in your interest for your business to succeed.

You might fall into one or all of these undesirable situations:

Credit Line Abuse – Because you thought that high credit line from your bank can boost your capital, you tend to acquire unnecessarily expense by investing heavily on capital expenditures. The debt that you created is not well researched. You will definitely experience cash flow problems because you used short-term financing for the long-term investment.

High Depreciation Cost – If you invest heavily on capital expenditures, you might be tempted to buy top on the line equipment that is not really essential at this point in time for your business. This will drain your capital investment and this will also result in high depreciation expense that you don’t want in the first place.

High Rental Cost – Because you opt for a bigger office space that you might not really need, you will be forced to pay high rental fee, which will add to your overhead expenditures and hurt you in the long run.

Overstocked Inventory – The temptation of purchasing bulk initial inventory just because of supplier’s volume discount might be a bad deal for you because the cost of excess inventory maintenance is not that advantageous than with the supplier’s discount that you are getting when you compute it.

Unnecessary Hiring of Employees – Because you want your business to run effectively, you tend to hire more employees than you really need. Your payroll will suffer because you hire more personnel when actually the one that you already have can perform the same set of functions or tasks of the additional employees.