NU12 #11, Professionalism – New Work, Methods, Practices - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #11, Professionalism – New Work, Methods, Practices - Alvin Bilolo

There's a lot of new practices out there that we can apply in our work, but only few entitles you to a value of professionalism. To give you an example, in taxation, believe it or not it has been a practice to lower the taxes being paid to the government by having bigger expense through obtaining a lot of receipts (not literally related to the operation of the business) as supporting documents. It is a practice but it doesn't adhere to the sworn value of professionalism. Our work, methods and practices should therefore be of worthy of the value of professionalism.

As an employee, I believe that I can enhance and be more efficient with my current role by performing these new work/methods/practices:

·        Giving it all to the fullest. While we are staying within our office premises, we should give our fullest to whatever process we are doing. For once, it will only be and 8-hour work. After our shift, NEVER think of your work! There's still tomorrow where you will give again your fullest!

·        Thinking outside the box. We must develop our minds to think beyond what we are doing. There's always a room for improvement. No matter how concrete the process is, there will always be a room where we can enhance it.

·        Positive perception at work. We should never complain of our work. If it causes us so much trouble, then we should quit and find another work of our interest. We must always remember that it is us who apply for our current job. If we are having trouble then and we do not like what we are doing, it is ourselves too who causes us to experience it. Be positive and be more productive!

·        Believe in yourself. Never underestimate what you can do! The only person who will trust your capabilities until the end is you – yourself!

·        Respect those who are in authority. There are always blessings in submission. When we submit ourselves to those who are in authority, to our superiors, we can find favor in their sights and we can easily be trusted.

NU12 #11, Professionalism – New Work, Methods, Practices - Alvin Bilolo

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

NU12 #11, Professionalism – New Work, Methods, Practices - Alvin Bilolo

There’s a lot of new practices out there that we can apply in our work, but only few entitles you to a value of professionalism. To give you an example, in taxation, believe it or not it has been a practice to lower the taxes being paid to the government by having bigger expense through obtaining a lot of receipts (not literally related to the operation of the business) as supporting documents. It is a practice but it doesn’t adhere to the sworn value of professionalism. Our work, methods and practices should therefore be of worthy of the value of professionalism.

As an employee, I believe that I can enhance and be more efficient with my current role by performing these new work/methods/practices:

·        Giving it all to the fullest. While we are staying within our office premises, we should give our fullest to whatever process we are doing. For once, it will only be and 8-hour work. After our shift, NEVER think of your work! There’s still tomorrow where you will give again your fullest!

·        Thinking outside the box. We must develop our minds to think beyond what we are doing. There’s always a room for improvement. No matter how concrete the process is, there will always be a room where we can enhance it.

·        Positive perception at work. We should never complain of our work. If it causes us so much trouble, then we should quit and find another work of our interest. We must always remember that it is us who apply for our current job. If we are having trouble then and we do not like what we are doing, it is ourselves too who causes us to experience it. Be positive and be more productive!

·        Believe in yourself. Never underestimate what you can do! The only person who will trust your capabilities until the end is you – yourself!

·        Respect those who are in authority. There are always blessings in submission. When we submit ourselves to those who are in authority, to our superiors, we can find favor in their sights and we can easily be trusted. 3

NU12 #12, Serendipity Walk: Ayala Avenue (Makati Central Business District) - Alvin Bilolo

Ateneo Innovation and Entrepreneurship "New ideas create more and better new products and services; create more wealth."

NU12 #12, Serendipity Walk: Ayala Avenue (Makati Central Business District) - Alvin Bilolo

I usually walk along Makati Central Business District since my office is situated in this area. This time, I walk to observe all business ideas that I can think of this place and here’s my thoughts:

• We can put vending machines of cigarettes, soft drinks and juice, coffee, light snacks along Ayala Avenue. This is to accommodate those employees who have a very short break and can’t take it to go to near convenience stores to choose snacks and buy cigarettes.
• We can put up reloading stations.
•  Mini outlets of fast food chains to accommodate those who are in a rush.
• Lotto outlets.
• Bayad Centers.
• Mini food stalls such as fishballs, queck-queck, and the likes.
• Video Arcades for stress relief.
• Chair Massage.
• Shoe Repair Shop (including key duplicate, and umbrella repair shop) (Mr. Quickie)
• Green Tea business.
• Charging Station for Cellular Phones and tablets.
• Games and Music Installations.
• Outlets that buy used papers;
• Mini bookstore.
• Photo and File Printer
• Photo booth 3

NU12 #6, New Business Idea: ‘Ihaw-Ihaw’ Inside the Mall - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #6, New Business Idea: 'Ihaw-Ihaw' Inside the Mall - Alvin Bilolo

A lot of us love eating grilled cuisines particularly those that we usually found in the streets such as 'isaw' (chicken and pork intestine), 'dugo' (processed blood of pig), 'adidas' (chicken feet), liver, and a whole lot more! Filipinos are used in eating these foods in sidewalks, house garage, and even in the marketplace. We are fond of eating 'ihaw-ihaw' anywhere since it somewhat fulfills our cravings for a different types of food.

I am thus proposing to have an 'Ihaw-Ihaw' stall inside the mall. This is a new business idea since we've already seen a lot of street foods being sold inside the mall such as fish balls, kikiam, French fries, and 'queck-queck' (quail eggs coated with orange batter) but we haven't seen any grilling stalls of those foods we usually see in sidewalks within the mall premises.

We have to start this business by acquiring a smoke-free grilling machine such as those used in 'Yakimix.' With the use of smoke-free grilling equipments, it will then be possible to grill our favorite ihaw-ihaw meals inside the mall. This will bring convenience to a lot of 'Ihaw-Ihaw' lovers since they can eat their favorite cuisines while enjoying a fresh environment within malls. 3.5

NU12 #7, What Pisses Me Off At the Mall?: Electronic Inventory System - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #7, What Pisses Me Off At the Mall?: Electronic Inventory System - Alvin Bilolo

A lot of us love shopping. We usually go to the mall to buy things that we need and even things that we just want. Many people love spending long time at malls but still there's a lot of people who just drop by to purchase what they need -- and they want their shopping experience be as fast as possible.

I usually go to department store for my garments need and most of the time (if not all the time) I really want to buy clothes and shoes fitted for me in a short span of time. The good thing is there's a lot of sales lady to guide me whenever I do the shopping. However, what pissed me off the department store is that whenever I have to look for my perfect size of clothes the sales ladies have to check it to their stock room first. The checking of the availability of the product fitted for me took some time. Sometimes, after long hours of waiting I have to find out that the size isn't available. I believe that most shoppers experience this.

I am thus proposing an electronic inventory system within malls. With the recent technology, the inventory system can be stored in an IPad/tablet. With this, whenever shoppers look for the availability of their products they can easily check their stocks and inform the shoppers appropriately. This can lessen the waiting time of shoppers and a lot of sales ladies will have more time accommodating more customers. A real-time update of available inventories will also be possible and will trigger the management of department stores to purchase additional stocks in case some inventories are unavailable. Thus, department stores will be more profitable and customers will have more time to look for other garments or products that they need. This project proposal is like 'hitting two birds with one stone.' This will help the customers with the service that they want and will then help the management improve their inventory system. 3

NU12 #10, New Processes at Work - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #10, New Processes at Work - Alvin Bilolo

We are very particular with process improvements in our company. This is part of our performance evaluation at the end of every year. We need to identify those processes that we can improve and as much as possible implement those that will bring greater benefit for all. For this year, as part of my process improvements, I will do my best to push the following new processes at work:

·        An electronic filing of employee clearance. I am one of the signatory for the clearance of a resigning employee. Our usual process would be to photocopy the clearance form of the employee after our sign off. We file the photocopied form in a specific folder and this will serve as our copy for future references. I noticed that whenever we have to retrieve employee's clearance, it is hard to look for the papers one-by-one. We are doing it manually. With my proposal of electronic filing of employee's clearance, all we have to do is to scan the clearance and save the PDF file in a specific folder in our systems database. The filename would be the name of the employee. In this case, whenever we have to look for the clearance form, all we need to do is to search for the name and we have it in an instant! 3

·        Automatic Enrollment in our Travel and Expense Accounting System. Our current process is to grant employee's access to this tool upon request of the employee. The thing is, almost all employee use this tool to reimburse business related expenses. I am now proposing to have an automatic enrollment of employees in our Travel and expense accounting system. Upon admission to the company, employee's supervisor will fill up a form and state whether the employee needs the tool. If they stated 'Yes' in the specific portion, our team will automatically grant the access to the new employee. This will prevent rush in providing access and will eliminate the possibility that employees will not get their business related reimbursements because the activation of this tool takes around 2-3 business days and we have a cut off for the processing of reimbursements every month. 4

·        Sending an automatic email notification. This process is not new for most of the employees in different company. But to make this unique for me, the automatic email notification will comprise of those frequently ask questions regarding our processes. There can be links in this notification where the customer can use in case they have questions that are frequently asked by other customers as well.

NU12 #8, What Pisses You Off In Your Office: Safety/Hygiene Equipments - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #8, What Pisses You Off In Your Office: Safety/Hygiene Equipments - Alvin Bilolo

I am working in a company that promotes SAFETY at work. We have this tenets of operation that was summarized as 'Do it safely or not at all... There's always time to do it right.' Process wise, we are very particular with the safety of all employees within the office or in the field. As a company that promotes safety all the time, it is necessary that our environment should depict safety for everyone. However, simple things such as hand sanitizers are not available in areas where a lot of people stay such as the lobby. I would then suggest that a hand sanitizer machine (like the one in Makati Med) be available in areas where most people passed by. With this, we can ensure that sanitizer is available to stop the spread of germs.

I also notice that we usually run out of paper towels in our pantry and there are even times that we do not have any in our comfort rooms. This may be due to lack of paper towel dispenser. Several employees tend to get the whole pack of paper towel when available. I would then suggest a paper towel dispenser in every pantry. With this, employees will not be able to get the whole pack of paper towel and this will somewhat minimize the chance of not having any paper towels available when needed.

Lastly, for hygiene purposes, I would suggest to install bidet to our toilets. This will help employees to clean their genital areas after excretion. Tissue paper is not enough after excretion and so we must have bidet to fully cleanse our body. 3

It is always beneficial to invest in things that will bring safety to all employees. As a company that is known for safety performance, we must promote safety even in little things possible.

NU12 # 9, What Pisses You Off at the school?: Electronic ID Detection System - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 # 9, What Pisses You Off at AGSB?: Electronic ID Detection System - Alvin Bilolo

It is our routine in AGSB to enter the school premises wearing our school ID. Just like any other universities, we have the rule of 'No ID, No entry.' If there are times that an employee left his ID, he needs to pay an amount of Php 200.00 for the passes. The fee will only be possible if the guards on duty will be able to detect that the student indeed left his ID. There are instances that if the student walks confidently while entering the school, the guards will not detect that he has no ID. And so no fee will be remitted. This is not a light problem since a lot of people can pretend to have an ID of AGSB and enter our school premises. I believe this is a threat for the security of some students since we are not sure if everyone is an authentic student. Believe it or not, this should piss all of us off!

As a solution, I would then propose an electronic ID detection system in every entrance gate of AGSB. This is a system that will automatically detect the presence of ID in the student and so the entrance door will open. If the student does not have an ID, he cannot enter the school premises unless he pays the fee and the guards allow him to enter. Here are the benefits of this proposal:

·        Only those students who have their IDs with them will enter the school easily;

·        Those students who left their IDs have to pay the fee of Php 200.00 first before they enter the school premises;

·        If there are new students, they only need to inform the guards on duty that they are new and show their registration form before entering AGSB;

·        We can minimize the threat that strangers will enter our school facilities;

·        Students will be more disciplined;

Our library is currently doing this similar routine but there's a lot more to be improved. There should be an automatic update of the students profile in AGSB's system to determine if the student is enrolled in the new term. With this, AGSB will be a more world class institution. 3

NU12 #5, What Pisses You Off At the Neighborhood? - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #5, What Pisses You Off At the Neighborhood? - Alvin Bilolo

I am living in an apartment in Makati area. Same as a typical type of apartment, we are in the same compound with 3 units per floor. I am fortunate enough that I am situated at the third floor. This is strategic since we can easily go down when emergency situations occur and we have the privilege of drying our clothes easily whenever we have our laundry. The thing is, I do not stay in this apartment all the time since I have my office work on weekdays and I went home to province every weekend.

I usually hang my clothes outside whenever I do the laundry so it will easily dry up. But there are instances (several instances per se) that I am leaving for the province on a weekend and I left my clothes outside. When the rain comes, my neighbours won't even dare to put my clothes inside so it will not get wet. This happens to me a lot of times and this really pissed me off.

As a solution, I am proposing the following ideas and facilities to our area:

·         Have a designated area with a roof where all of us can put our clothes hanger stand. With this, clothes can still be easily dry up and it will protect our clothes whenever we leave them and the rain pours out.

·         Construct an automatic hanger machine per floor that can easily detect rain. This will automatically moved in when it is raining. This will also have a feature of automatically moving out when it is sunny day so that clothes will dry up easily. All we have to do is to set the feature on this automatic hanger machine.

·         Construct an arranged hanger stand with water absorber per floor so that water from washed clothes will not drop from the higher floors to the ground floor. There is a tendency that people from ground floor get wet by water drops from the washed clothes. 3.5

NU12 #4, New Spending Habits/Routine: How to Control Your Self in a Grocery Store - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #4, New Spending Habits/Routine: How to Control Your Self in a Grocery Store - Alvin Bilolo

We usually go to the supermarket to buy groceries every week. Since we are doing it in a weekly basis, it is indeed expected of us to buy a lot of things that we usually need such as food, toiletries, detergents and similar stuffs. I noticed that whenever we do this, we usually run out of our budget. We spend more than what we should! Because of this, I thought of things that we might have been doing wrong and how we can resolve this recurring problem every week. I am proposing the following things to be done whenever we have our grocery and develop these as a habit:

• Never go to the grocery store if you are hungry. We have the tendency to buy more food when we are hungry. Believe it or not, we can easily be tempted to buy more since our system tells us that we need more. We cannot easily think of those things that we really need. We should already eat our meal before we go to the grocery store. This will give us a sound mind to stick to our budget and buy only those that are essentials.
• List everything that you need before going to supermarket. This will make allow us to do our grocery experience faster. We must buy only those things that are included in our list. This will require us an ample time to list everything beforehand.
• Never bring your credit card if it is not needed. The more we know that we have a spare credit card to buy things that are not included in our grocery list, the more we are tempted to spend more. Our goal must be to buy only those things that we need.
• Change our grocery schedule from weekly to bimonthly. We must limit our grocery experience to only twice a month. This will help us not to be tempted more often.
• Refrain from buying bulk stuffs. An example of this is that if we are going to buy 5 dozens of detergent powder, we'll have a piece of detergent bar free. This will induce us to buy things that we really do not need.

Our grocery experience should be great. And this will only be great as it is if we will always stick to our budget and save a lot of money and time. 3

NU12 #3, New Attitude/Paradigm: Wealthy Thinking - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #3, New Attitude/Paradigm: Wealthy Thinking - Alvin Bilolo

All of us wanted to be wealthy! This is one of the reasons why we dare to enrol an Entrepreneurship class. We want to build wealth that will last for several generations. We do not just want to be 'rich,' instead we want to be wealthy. According to an article that I've read, wealthy people know how to make money while rich people only have money. We want to make money in our own way. It takes a lot of time to be wealthy. I believe that as early as now we must start to be wealthy by developing and honing our minds to think 'wealthy' things.

As an accountant, I admit I usually do things within my budget. I am always thinking to move, spend, work, and even live within my budget. I tend to be a negative thinker sometimes (more often when I know that there's always a scarce of resources). Only then that I've discovered that for me to be wealthy, I must start thinking and believing in myself that I am thus a wealthy person! I must start developing a wealthy attitude! To accomplish this, I must do the following:

• Convince and believe in myself that I am a wealthy person! The more we think we are wealthy, the more we became wealthy!
• Always declare that I am wealthy! There's a power in our declarations. When we speak, something happens. The more we declare and tell others that we are wealthy, the more we became wealthy. (Of course we must be aware of those people who tend to abuse our wealthy attitude)
• Pay yourself! Whenever I receive my salary, I must pay myself first. I should treat myself in order for me to feel that I am a wealthy person. I am working not just to pay my bills and similar stuffs. I am working to be wealthier.
• Share your blessings. It's not enough that I have a wealthy thinking. Other people should also be thinking that you are a wealthy person. The more people think that you are wealthy, the wealthier you become and this will only be possible is we share our blessings to others.

Everything starts with our mind for it is our own battle ground. If we will start thinking wealthy thing today, sooner or later we will definitely be! 4 <great>

NU12 #2, What Pisses Me Off In the Hospital? - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #2, What Pisses Me Off In the Hospital?: Electronic Numbering System -  Alvin Bilolo

All of us go to the hospital at some point of time. For me, I usually go to the hospital for a check up and assessment of whether I remain healthy all the time. It's now my third week of frequent check up due to the discomfort that I've felt last time. Makati Med is known for its expertise and good doctors that can give people somewhat a good advice regarding different conditions. Whenever I have a check up, I have to wait for long hours just to be accommodated. Of course I am willing to wait since I believe they can give me better relief for my discomfort. But long hours of waiting is not funny if you still have a lot of things to do in your office. We can actually do a lot of things while waiting. Some patients are playing games with their gadgets, some are consciously thinking of their conditions, and some are sadly waiting for their names to be called out. The usual long waiting period for hospital check up should be shortened and every patient should find convenience having it.

As a solution, I would then propose an electronic numbering system for hospital's clinics. With this, all patients will just get a number from a terminal and they will immediately confirm their reservation for check up. Each clinic will be prompted whenever someone made a reservation from the number terminal. This is similar to the BEA system of BPI but this time we'll do it in the hospital. Patients also have an opportunity to do the reservations online. In this way, people who have work in their office will just go to the hospital at their designated time of reservation/confirmation for the check up. Busy people can maximize their time, yet still care for their health. With this system, the hospital will also prevent a large volume of patients scheduled for a preliminary or follow up check-up inside their premises. Pathways will have less people that will permit emergency situations to be attended more immediately. Businesses within Makati Med will be more profitable since patients will not worry that their names will be called out anytime, they will have time to roam and eat within the hospital premises. 4 <this is supposed to have been solved at Makati Med according to the MakatiMed CEO entrep talk?>

NU12 #1, Product Improvement: Air Conditioned Tricycle - Alvin Bilolo

NU12 #1, Product Improvement: Air Conditioned Tricycle - Alvin Bilolo

I usually ride a tricycle going to the office in the morning and on my way back home in the evening. A 15-minute tricycle ride is not good if it will expose you directly on the heat of the sun at around 8 o'clock in the morning or 12 o'clock noon if I go in a mid-shift.

I am now proposing to have an air conditioned tricycle. These air conditioned tricycle will cater the need of a lot of employees working in a central business district longing to arrive in their office as 'fresh' as they were when they left home. This will even promote comfort to a lot of employees since they need not wait for a taxi/cab in the middle of a sunny day just to escape the heat of the sun. This will bring savings to a lot of people since there will be no 'flag down' rate. Just like ordinary tricycle, there will be a flat rate that will be affordable for all people.

We will now have another choice of transportation that will cater those who need to travel for a short period of time like for 15-minutes only while having a comfort and savings. 4