Typical Agenda
Note: Actual visitations are often adjusted to suit attendees on each tour and often also change on the day depending on traffic conditions. For this reason, an exact Agenda is not possible. If you have been on Mike O’Hagan’s business learning tour before (repeats are common), please be advised that we change about 20% of the places we visit on each tour. This ensures we always stay on the leading edge.
You should arrive a couple of days before so you are settled; and YES, you will need TWO days afterwards to revisit and extend your contacts.
Tours start at 8 or 9AM SHARP each day. There is absolutely NO SPARE time until you get back to the hotel, which is around 10PM on most nights. It is a full-on learning tour. And for your convenience, our vehicle is provided with Wi-Fi for your e-mail needs.
Pre-Tour
Arrive a couple of days before the scheduled business learning tour; this lets you settle in.
We can assist you with a pre-tour transport and/or guides. For partners not attending the tour, we can coordinate them with a local guide to take them shopping and sightseeing.
At a minimum, you need to spend the night before the tour starts (typically a Sunday night) at the New World Makati Hotel. We start early the next day and proceed immediately with our itinerary.
Day 1
The dress code is STRICTLY business attire (NO jeans nor runners). The private club where we will be having dinner enforces a strict dress standard.
We start in the boardroom of a medium-sized BPO company with a good background in the offshoring industry. We then discuss about the opportunities, issues, and examples of successful business ventures. Along with these is an in-depth understanding of the culture challenges. There are a variety of presenters including Mike, a history presenter, and a representative from the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP).
Using our own van, we also get to visit a specialised service (Accounting).
Lunch is in a private club, hence, the dress standard.
The afternoon sees us visiting a government-owned BPO, as well as other services such as gaming/animation, drafting, and video editing. Often, we include more places in the Makati area, if time permits.
Dinner is in a private dining room, where various roundtable discussions take place.
We finish with drinks in Mike’s apartment at Rockwell.
Day 2
Dress standard for the day is business casual.
You can check out from your hotel; then we start the day with a drive to another part of Manila.
First is a visit to a digital marketing agency in Manila; afterwards, it’s on to a visit to a graphic design business agency in Eastwood City. The highlight of this day is the visit to a staff leasing business agency and to one of Mike’s own businesses, with 30 staff in its team environment.
After lunch, we visit a corporate BPO company, a specialised accounting business, and an IT service business.
Then, we are off to Clark where we can check into the next hotel (selected for the experience), and have dinner in a private dining room to continue our dynamic discussions.
Day 3
This is a very different day. To start with, we can dress casually. On this day, you can experience various forms of transport – from trikes to jeepneys. For the fainthearted, our van follows
We start by visiting a staff leasing business. This is followed by a presentation by a government agency who can present us with completely different solutions/opportunities. After, we are off to a resource supplier, a specialised Marketing BPO, and perhaps another accounting firm followed by lunch.
After this, we visit a staff leasing BPO then a variety of interesting Australian training and manufacturing businesses – ALL Australian-owned.
Dinner is in the private home of a fairly well-known Australian entrepreneur.
Your accommodation for the night is a short distance away – the structured part of the tour is over. You can then relax and think of all your wonderful experiences during the tour.
On this day you will need to decide where you want to explore for the next couple of days. We strongly recommend NOT deciding until the 3rd day. We will help with the arrangements.
For those who wish to go back to Manila, we can drive them back early on the 4th day.
This tour has two purposes:
The first is to show as much as we can about how to GlobalSource, highlighting the right and wrong, and knowing how to find, engage and manage services/people with the least bias possible. The second is to open this window of opportunity to the entrepreneur that exists in every one of us. I don’t believe I have ever had a Tour that has not had several new businesses emerge.
Note: Please advise us of you dietary requirements prior to arrival. The tour provides all meals and drinks. No money is usually required during the tour. Never, never try and prejudge the worth of a visit by the type of business. The good-looking ones tend to be the least engaging, while the less attractive ones nearly always surprise. From all of these, you learn something.
