Pampanga’s Best is perhaps the most popular brand of processed meat products in the country today. Their best-selling tocino, a salty and sweet cured meat, is a long-time Pinoy breakfast favorite together with their other savory delights.
For more than five decades already, the Pampanga’s Best business ran smoothly, where it transacted with various dealers in cities and provinces all over the Philippines, with nearly all of these transactions done face-to-face, and payments made in cash. Their customers would also go to supermarkets to buy their favorite tocino.
Denise Alelis helps run this half-a-century old family business. But then the pandemic came, which made running and sustaining a business become quite difficult. With all the community quarantines and other restrictions, times were especially challenging for mom-entrepreneurs like her.
Months of living in the so-called new normal, she said, have been stressful because of multiple challenges and concerns that she has to face daily such as the continuing community quarantines. The lockdowns and quarantines made it very difficult for their sales agents to travel to dealers. Even customers were unable to go to the supermarket to buy Pampanga’s Best products. Dealers had difficulty making payments in cash because of travel restrictions.
Shifting as many transactions as possible via online was deemed the obvious solution, but it was not easy as she initially thought. “There were dealers who did not welcome this shift right away, like our dealers in the palengke. They were saying that they didn’t have any mobile banking or that they didn’t know how to use it. We were able to solve that by giving them training. There was a learning curve that we had to hurdle.”
By doing online selling, it meant that payments should be made online as well so shifting these transactions to mobile banking was the right path to take. That decision, however, proved easier said than done.
“We had an incident during the start of the ECQ where one of our sales agents was unable to trace a cash payment made by one of our dealers. Hindi namin mahanap yung deposit slip ng payment (we can’t find the deposit slip for the payment). So, after that we decided to shift all payments online through mobile banking because they can be monitored and tracked more easily,” she said.
Shifting transactions online began as a response to pandemic restrictions but it turned into an opportunity, eventually.
“It was actually during ECQ that we posted our highest sales. By going through these online channels and transactions, we were able to sell more products,” she said.
According to Denise, she and her team have become more dependent on the mobile banking services by BDO. For their employees, they now get their salaries through cash debit cards.
“Before the pandemic, I had to go to the office to release our employees’ salaries. Now everything is released through their cash debit cards. Going cashless limits face-to-face contact so that helps prevent transmission of disease: we’re not holding on to cash that could be contaminated and we’re preventing close-in physical contact as well.”
Denise has been with her branch for years. She opened her first savings account when she worked at her first job (before she joined the family business). She appreciates how her bank is helping her cope with the challenges of the pandemic because it spares her from a lot of stress and anxiety.
“Even though we’re in the middle of a public health crisis, my bank has always been there for me; very reliable and dependable during these challenging times,” she said.
BDO continues to provide products and services that help mom-preneurs like Denise get the relief, ease, and convenience they deserve so that they more easily attain work-life balance. For more information on how BDO can help keep your business running in good or bad times, visit www.bdo.com.ph/keepbusinessmoving.