Pioneer class, Manager’s Course, 1971
“The Filipino manager holds the key to the country’s economic progress. For a manager of industry, mediocre performance is inexcusable. He has to impose both on himself and those under him a level to be achieved as a yardstick of performance.”– Dr. Leon V. Chico, former UP ISSI Director
Graduates of the UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries’ (UP ISSI’s) Manager’s Course (MC) for Small-Scale Industries – from its pioneer run in 1971 to its current 100th batch – will gather on August 25 at the Virata Hall, UP Diliman, to celebrate the Grand MC Alumni Homecoming.
During the homecoming dinner, outstanding alumni will be recognized in the fields of industry, education and public service. There will also be prizes for the most-represented class and the Homecoming “King” and “Queen.”
Among alumni who have signified attendance is construction magnate and former MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando, who was with the pioneer batch of the course.
The MC for small business was conceptualized in the early seventies, a time when the young Philippine nation was still enamored with the think-big mentality in industrial development, forgetting that it is from the small that big things come.
At the closing of the first course in 1971, then President Ferdinand E. Marcos cited the MC’s contribution to the upgrading and expansion of the erstwhile neglected small enterprise sector. “Small-scale industries,” he said, “are particularly suitable for our people at this stage of development, (with) the great majority of our entrepreneurs not yet possessing adequate capital for bigger-scale enterprises.”
Then UP President Salvador P. Lopez affirmed the management of small enterprises in the country “requires a level of professionalism that can make them competitive and profitable, while enhancing the productive capacity of the nation through the utilization of local materials and labor. “
Since then, the MC has graduated 4,186 participants, majority of them entrepreneurs and managers, some business educators, the rest officers and staff of GOs and NGOs with small business promotion missions.
From graduates’ assessment, the course has changed managerial perspectives and led to innovations.
Alumni vignettes
For example:
After attending the MC, Graciella dela Cruz-Bassig, promptly introduced in her company what she calls the Project Tracking System or PTS. “With the PTS, we were able to control our operations better; we even improved our accounting practices.”
Arlene Inocencio, a professor-entrepreneur, said she took to heart the lessons on improving the flow of operation, resulting in higher operational efficiency in her own enterprise. From the business games, she learned to accept some level of risks in product marketing and business expansion.
“Attending the program increased my confidence to contribute initiatives as a member of a team for a pioneering project my company handled,” says Pedro Caballero. Currently, he is setting up another new venture, an agro-eco farm in Nueva Ecija.
James Enriquez was helped in changing his managerial mind set, that, is to become more of a leader than a boss. “We were able to improve business strategies by tweaking some old practices to suit the current market situation. “ The course also made an impact in his personal life: he met his future wife in the MC course.
Others relate the program with success in rehabilitating and saving a sinking company, being promoted on the job, being able to take on new challenges, shifting to a second career in self-employment and entrepreneurship, improving people management skills, and becoming more pro-active than reactive.
Staying relevant
Arlene Liberal, former chair of the Training Department, shares her thoughts on why the MC has endured.
“The MC is short enough and comprehensive enough. It is basically a generic management course – all the basics are there plus specialized topics on what is current and innovative. If you take an MBA, it will take you one and a half years, minimum, to finish it, and only if you study full time. The MC course can be completed in 20 Saturdays.”
This is probably the reason the MC has sometimes been dubbed as a “Mini MBA.”
But most importantly, the Manager’s Course has remained relevant by constantly keeping up with the changing times.
The MC curriculum evolves, says present Training Chair Leoncio Cubillas, “constantly responding to the dictates of the changing business environment and keeping up with modern management thinking and technology.”
The IT and digital revolution, the threats to the ecology that made green production imperative, the need to harness women power, the globalization trends that removed barriers in trading, the increased emphasis on the social responsibility of business. All these were responded to in terms of new modules or topics or new inputs or slants.
The production module, for example, has been enriched with inputs on new and agile productivity systems like Just in Time, Total Quality Management, and Kanban.
The years have witnessed the Manager’s Course growing in action learning methodologies and approaches.
Today every module or learning chunk ends with an application exercise. Thus business planning, marketing, production, organizational, and financial management workshops yield business plans/feasibility studies, marketing plans, production plans, and financial plans. Coaches are at participants’ beck and call for special mentoring.
New teaching cases are developed by the Institute’s Research Department.
Outlook
On the drawing board, according to UP ISSI Director Nestor Raneses, is an advanced version of the MC which will target forward-looking managers and entrepreneurs, particularly those who have taken the basic MC.
“The Advanced MC will pick it up where the basic MC left off,” Raneses explains. “It will cover advanced but proven management systems. For operations management, we will introduce lean management systems, the Sixth Sigma, and the like. For marketing, it will probably be the Blue Ocean approach. For HR, we will help companies acquire internal capability in training needs analysis.”
With the UP ISSI culture of continuing improvement and commitment to small enterprise development, the Manager’s Course is bound to change managerial perspectives and give rise to operational improvements for many more years to come.
Then as now the Manager’s Course has been conducted jointly with the UP ISSI’s private sector partner, the Small Enterprises Research and Development Foundation (SERDEF).
(MC graduates are advised to call Ludy Cubillas at tel. 9206923 or 9287076 to 79, email [email protected] or register online at www.entrepreneurship.org.ph/eregform/alumni_registration.php.)