Success According to Beautéderm CEO Rhea Tan

 

It was a fine afternoon to head onto Angeles Pampanga to celebrate with Beautéderm to mark the 1st year of their headquarters. Aside from that, it was also the start of the Lunar Year and Sam Milby's renewal of contract with the beauty brand. It was hosted by Beautéderm CEO Ms. Rhea Tan, and she didn't just want it to be just a party, but a moment to get to know each other. This was amongst her celebrity endorsers, the traditional and online media.

After warmly welcoming us all at her 7 storey building, she let us take refuge at one of the rooms to talk more amongst ourselves and the folks at Beaute Beanery (their house coffee shop). They had a variety of food and drinks in the joint, and it was nice to have them at the first stop. This same place also has their other brands BlancPro, BeauteHaus and A-List Avenue. Then we went to the top floor where we got to meet several of their endorsers like Carlo Aquino, DJ Jhaiho, Ms. Sylvia Sanchez, Alma Concepcion, Sunshine Garcia-Castro, Darla Sauler, Kimson Tan, the very generous Patricia Tumulak, Gillian Vicencio and the good looking Sam Milby. 

 Instead of the usual interviews, they had us play a lot of games so we got to chat and react like we didn't have walls between us. It broke the ice, and got us laughing because things weren't so serious anymore. The mood was fun and festive, and I think that's exactly what Ms. Rei wanted to happen that day. 

Though of course, we were there for work. The fancy building, the posh corners of it had some of us wonder, how was she able to become a very successful entrepreneur after all these years? Ms. Rhea said "I've been asked that question a lot of times, but really, THERE IS NO SECRET. All these things, the things I have, are all because of hard work. This event is just something we just had to do, and the overwhelming love and support you've shown by going here from Manila, that's so sweet, and later I'll be seeing some of you who will be staying. Welcome to the Beautederm Headquarters in Angeles City, we will be celebrating Chinese New Year and the first anniversary of this building. This has been built with strength, courage and love. It's really nice to look back on how we were able to make this all come true. From planning, construction and interior design, this serves as an inspiration that WE CAN ALL DO IT. You should always go for it. But just a small flex, it's so good to feel that you have your own building. Let's celebrate this moment, and the people behind it. Because of them, our consumers, our media friends, our employees, our endorsers, my franchisees, you made it all happen and I hope you value that. The year of the Wood Dragon symbolizes strength, success, and social impact. Do the things you love with strength, and make an impact. This is how Beautéderm works, we boost consumer confidence, and we give back to the community. We will continue to do that! We are celebrating 15 Beautéful Years this 2024. My heart is so full, I love you all! May success be with us always!"

Aside from Beautéderm, they serve food, drinks and premium coffee with Beauté Beanery. If you want procedures done, BeautéHaus can take care of you. If you want authentic high end brands or products, they have the A-List Avenue for that on the third floor. You may visit them today at Angeles City, Pampanga. Beautéderm is also vying for the Beauty Cosmetic Brand of the Year in the 5th VP Awards. If you're up to it, you may vote for them starting this March 5th - April 5. All their products are available in Lazada, Shopee and TikTok, so go get them if you need  some self skin care.

I hope in some way, you feel inspired after hearing her story. She used to just watch TV's from her neighbor's house, and also operated her business from her home, just look at where she is now!

Simplify Computing: IBM PureSystems

Mr. Scott Firth, Director for Systems Software Marketing and IBM Virtualization shows the next era of IT through IBM PureSystems.

Last night while I was writing this article I was thinking of something complicated to press on the keyboard because this was a pretty technical discussion. I guess I was missing the point right from the beginning; because in a nutshell IBM is making things simpler. 

Running any IT infrastructure would require a lot of resources. Software, hardware components plus virtual storage through clouds and other media. This entails a lot of money and corporations; no matter how big or small they are, need all the help they can get. IBM knows this and they are rolling out a new, simpler era of computing via their new "expert integrated systems" which would make life easier for you and me. This would integrate all IT elements, both physical and virtual. This is a new enterprise computing model which would simplify and minimize resources needed to set up and maintain whilst running your businesses. 70 percent or more of budget allowances go to this particular function. Imagine how much that would cost in a larger scale. This is where IBM PureSystems come in.

Karl Wee Lead of Strategic Business IBM Asean Software Group, Scott Firth Director for Systems Software Marketing and IBM Virtualization and Sang Yoong Yi Country Manager for IBM Systems and Technology Group answering questions from the press.

IBM invested around $2 Billion for R&D and acquisitions over four years in order to achieve this feat. Imagine a world where key functions no longer need to be done over and over again. It is possible now by merely simplifying these processes with actual software that contains these things; in which some are free and some can be purchased much like an in house "conceptual app store" for IBM. You can literally make things work in minutes, often out of the box.

The new PureSystems family boasts of three advances in managing IT infrastructures.

“Scale-In” System Design: With PureSystems, IBM is introducing a new concept in system design that integrates the server, storage, and networking into a highly automated, simple-to-manage machine. Scale-in design provides for increased density – PureSystems can handle twice as many applications compared to some IBM systems, doubling the computing power per square foot of data center space.

Patterns of Expertise: For the first time, IBM is embedding technology and industry expertise through first-of-a-kind software that allows the systems to automatically handle basic, time-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements.

Cloud Ready integration: Out of the box, all PureSystems family members are built for the cloud, enabling corporations to quickly create private, self-service cloud offerings that can scale up and down automatically.

This has in effect changed a lot in the computing landscape. With its thrust also touching on cloud technology and using that platform to generally also simplify processes, this would be something that ordinary people can actually use to maintain resources. Later on, they could make data accessible to any place and have it with the right amount of security too. When asked about other vendors selling hardware/software components similar to PureSystems, Scott Firth and Karl Wee affirms IBM is different because they have a more wholistic package. It's a tougher cookie to bite these days but the selling point is indeed the convenience in setting it up and maintaining it with a single press of a button using the right software/applications. In the long run, this is pretty good investment and can save enterprise/corporations millions of dollars.

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IBM's Initiatives and the 2011 CIO Study

IBM in it's continued love for investing a lot in research and development added another feather in their hat last September 1, 2011 at the Press Briefing held at the Mandaluyong Ballroom, Shangrila Makati. I was excited since this was in the line of the programs I was running for my day job and true enough I had some great inputs from experts in the industry who had experience from the ASEAN, Philippines and US perspective. This study was conducted over a four month period from October 2010 to January 2011. I learned a couple of things specifically on the roles of CIO's (Chief Information Officers) and how it is essential in the structure of a corporation.

Mr. Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services talked about the importance of CIO's as resulted from the 2011 CIO Study. The ASEAN perspective was somewhat different from what the Global perspective is but there are quite a number of similarities. "With technology becoming both an enabler of competitive advantage and embedded in every facet of the enterprise, the role of the CIO has never been more essential." says Mr. Bruni.

CIO's play an important part in running companies. It shows on the technology and innovation that they bring to the table. CIO's must think business first just like the CEO's. In their centennial year IBM is bringing to the table a research that includes the best CIO's in the US and elsewhere in the world. They wanted to show the importance it plays in the structure and survival of the complex organization you are in. They initially gave importance to the CIO position in the 50's and 60's. Almost all these critical positions and its studies were started by IBM at that time. Today they take Business analytics and other significant studies to another level. They started interviewing real deal CIO's from different companies and started asking about three key takeaways.

- How the CIO's role become fundamental
- How CEO's and CIO's way of thinking should be very closely aligned
- How to be successful and how CIO's need to identify and communicate their mandate weather it would be to have leverage, expand, innovate, pioneer it or transform.

It was a pleasure to also meet Mr. Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, IBM Philippines gave a small talk about how this study reflects in the Philippine Market. He also gave a funny anecdote about so called government experts that were not quite experts at all. I beckon more studies on the regional perspective should be done so it would reflect the real comparison between local conditions and those which has been done by first world countries. We'd be able to see where they are succeeding and we are failing. I'd like to make that a point of comparison so to speak.

They sampled around 3018 CIO's around the world to get this data with the mandate that not one is better than the other. Rodney Regalado of the C-Suite Study Series campaign mentioned some basic facts on what this data actually means for the local Philippine market. The services business in the Philippines is where IBM eventually wants to play. They want to make and support infrastructure, give importance to basics and immerse people in situations that can add value on current businesses. It was really enlightening for people like me in the Programs Management field.

Mr. Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC giving us a few ideas what to ask in the press briefing. He asked a couple of hypothetical questions about the industry's insights and the impact of this study to various existing public and private corporations.

IDC a third party firm who works in analysis and market research said that they make stern conclusions on studies about how corporations would be able to use these fields to create products quickly and what similarities the CEO and CIO should have in order to achieve it. It's one of the ways that a corporation would be able to add value to "current services" and know the industry per ce so they in return can support more and over deliver. They advised me to try and show more value even if the client corporation doesn't need it even on a very limited project such as IT infrastructure projects.

Giuseppe Bruni, ASEAN Business Sales & Delivery Executive, IBM Strategy & Transformation, IBM Global Business Services; James Velasquez, President and Country General Manager, Rodney Regalado, Country Executive for Global Technology Services, both from IBM Philippines, and Cort Isernhagen, Vice President, IDC

They predicted that the Philippines is more focused on the basics right now but will veer away in the next few years specially in the banking and mobile communication industries. CIO's and CEO's should be aligned in this integral transition. IBM realizes that business intelligence and analytics will continue to stay as top priorities for businesses and industries. CIO's must stay pro active and IT must be presented as a "cool" thing again. This is still part of IBM's goal of a Smarter Planet!

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