Who would think accompanying a classmate in Tondo to apply for a job would become the first step to becoming the General Manager of Procter & Gamble Philippines? No one, not even Johnip G. Cua, until he became the first Filipino to achieve this feat in 1995. Having spent almost 25 years in the company, he has poured out his talent and dedication to research, manufacturing, marketing and managing country offices of P&G.

Under his leadership, P&G Philippines increased its sales from US$393 million in 1995 to more than US$400-million today. In 1995, the company received the Asian Management Award for most outstanding company in General Management and in 1996, a Presidential Citation for serving as a meaningful and successful example of Philippine-American partnership in trade, industry, investments and technology transfer. In 2000, P&G Philippines emerged as one of the top ten taxpayers in the Philippines when its sales soared to US$464 million.

In an interview with Philippine Business, Johnip Go Cua confirms two things that many people already know – that P&G carries successful products and Filipinos contribute in making it happen worldwide.

You are the first Filipino CEO of Procter & Gamble Philippines. What Filipino attribute helped you earn the top position in a multinational company such as Procter & Gamble?
Filipinos are known to be creative and innovative and I think that’s the key factor that helped me become the first Filipino General Manager of Procter & Gamble here in the Philippines. From R&D, I went to Product Supply or Manufacturing. Then I went into Marketing and that creativeness and innovativeness came with me in whatever I did. The other thing is the Filipino’s ability to lead people – lead people in the sense of building people. So I think it’s that combination: the creativity and innovation that helped me grow the P&G business and build the organization and the people to become the future leaders of P&G.

Cua exemplifies Filipino creativity and innovativeness

You held positions in different country offices of P&G. Based on your experience, what makes Filipino consumers and employees distinct from their foreign counterparts?
I find Filipino consumers to be very value-conscious and, at the same time, to be performance-seekers. They want good value and great performance and that makes the Philippines a tough market. And because they really go for performance, we have to provide products that deliver great performance.

I think Filipino employees are one of the best employees of P&G. We believe that innovation is the lifeblood of the company, and Filipinos are innovative. We are innovative in developing new products, new concepts, new brands, new advertising campaigns, new marketing techniques. We start up something and then other countries follow us. One example was when we introduced Downy in the Philippines in 1996. We got hit by the 1997 crisis, and started thinking that maybe nobody would want to buy fabric softener in times of crisis. But we were able to make it successful. Today, the market size is P2 billion. This proposition was expanded to Vietnam and it became a huge success there. Now we’re trying to expand this to other countries as well using the Philippines’ model of Downy.

What products of P&G for export are manufactured in the Philippines?
We make Pampers diapers that we export to other countries. But most of the products we produce here are sold to the Philippine market because we tailor-fit our products to the taste of Filipino consumers. Different formulas, different needs.

Are more Filipinos employed in P&G offices abroad? Do you think this is an indication that we are globally competitive?
We’re well-known for hiring, training, developing leaders for P&G. In fact, today we have more than a hundred Filipinos stationed outside the Philippines in the P&G world. I think it’s a good indication that Filipinos are globally competitive. We’ve had many Filipinos who have become global vice-presidents of P&G.

The other good indication of the country’s global competitiveness is the decision of P&G to locate our Shared Services Center for Asia here in the Philippines. We do our accounting work for every country in Asia here. The Philippines was chosen, again because of the competitiveness of Filipinos to provide quality services.

How viable is the Philippine market for consumer products in terms of profitability?
The Philippines is one of the top countries in P&G. And we are the market leader in most of the categories that we compete in. We are number one in detergents, toilet soaps, disposable diapers, fabric softener, and dishwashing products, and number two in shampoos, conditioners, and sanitary napkins. Not very many companies around the world can achieve that position. P&G views the Philippines and the Filipinos with a lot of pride because of our achievements.

How has P&G maintained its superiority in the consumer market in spite of the economic crisis?
I think if I could pinpoint one approach that helped us, that approach is to think counter-intuitively. In a crisis, the intuitive thing to do is to stop hiring people, right? Well, in a crisis, it’s the opportunity to hire the best people. And so, during the crisis in 1997, 1998, and 1999, we went out of our way to hire the best students, the best graduates to come work for us.

In a crisis, the intuitive thing to do is to cut advertising spending. We did the reverse. We increased our advertising spending to build our brands.

The other thing we did was to really take care of our people. In the 1997 crisis, a lot of our people were hit with mortgages and housing loans that skyrocketed. We offered company loans to employees at subsidized interest rates so that they won’t suffer from the very high interest rates that they have to pay the banks.

By thinking counter-intuitively, we were able to recruit the best people, build our brands, and improve our employees’ loyalty to the company. And because we took care of our employees, they gave their very best to our company to build our business even faster.

How do you think P&G is able to perform in comparison with other competitors in the market?
We have tough competitors in the market. Very tough, very good. We basically try to out-innovate our competitors. We try to come up with better technologies, better product performance, better quality, better brand promises, better brand concepts, better marketing techniques. And that’s how we stay ahead of the game. Second is, we keep our prices reasonable. We make sure the products we sell are affordable to our consumers.

What is the best advice you could give to the junior executives of P&G?
If you work hard and do your very best, everything will happen – the business will improve, your careers will improve, you will be rewarded financially as well, and everything will fall in place. And that’s all I expect from our employees – for them to give their very best.

The other thing I want to talk about is our renewed vision of P&G Philippines. Typically in our vision we talk about growing our business. We want to be a billion-dollar company. And last year we started to ask ourselves, “Is that all that we do – build a billion-dollar company, grow our employees?” And we said, “No. We are a big business and a big business has a role to play in the country.” We asked ourselves what single thing can we do that can really help the communities, and we zeroed-in on job creation. As we grow our business, we want to make sure that we create more and more jobs directly and indirectly. Directly, by hiring people into P&G; indirectly, through our suppliers and service providers. We already have created 600 jobs that sell to about 50,000 sari-sari stores.

Another example of how we do it is through marketing. We felt that to generate higher levels of trial of our products, we should go directly to consumers. We got a marketing agency to hire 5,000 people to talk to millions of consumers about the benefits of using P&G products. That created 5,000 jobs.

The more business we develop for our company, the more jobs will be created. The new vision for P&G worldwide this year is “Touching Lives, Improving Life.” And we’re very proud that with these two programs that we’re doing, we’re benefiting consumers in the Philippines because they are able to get great value for using P&G products – products that really work, good value, reasonable prices. Then we are able to touch the lives of these people who got jobs because of our program. I believe that big business can help create a better world for us to live in. And I’m committed to make that happen in my job here in P&G. Isn’t it nice to manage a big business and turn it into a very big social work? That’s what we’re all about in P&G. Touching lives, improving life.