Mixing profit and social good
It was Gordon Gekko, the financier and takeover “artist” portrayed in the movie “Wall Street” by Michael Douglas, who uttered the famous line “Greed is good.”
This became an enduring passage from the movie because everyone assumes that “greed is NOT good.” The shameless pursuit of profit, goes the popular mindset, does not, in the long run, benefit society or even the person pursuing it. The prevailing sentiment, it seems, is that a business should be pursued because it offers a social good or a sought-after service. That sometimes the business also ends up making money for the owner is viewed as just a welcome windfall.
And yet profit by itself is not evil. It is not always equivalent to greed. Indeed, profit can be seen as a means to sustain an enterprise, provide employment, and even spur the daring and the bold. After all, there can be no more compelling motivation than attaining the means to reach one’s dreams, goals, ambitions.
Sometimes, though, it is possible to combine the two impulses: serving the public while making money. This, in a way, is an effort now being undertaken by one of the country’s oldest and biggest business houses, Ayala Corp., which is entering into fields not traditionally thought of as “profitable,” but certainly socially desirable. Or, as Yla Alcantara, who looks after the company’s public relations, puts it: “At Ayala, we have a unique way of looking at things. We market challenges as opportunities. We enter new spaces where it makes good business sense for us to invest, respond to market needs and demands, while changing the traditional way of delivering products and services. As we prove the business model to be right, we scale it and we continue to invest in it because we are committed to helping improve the lives of Filipinos in communities where we serve.”
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One of these “new spaces” is health. Through a subsidiary, Ayala Healthcare Holdings Inc., the group has embarked on two projects: investing in Generika Drugstore which makes available generic drugs (which are generally cheaper and more affordable than “branded” medicines) through a chain of retail pharmacies nationwide; and FamilyDOC, a new chain of community-based primary care clinics.
Michael Santos, medical director of AyalaHealth with a direct hand in managing FamilyDOC, says one of their aims is to “bring back the family doctor” to the lives of ordinary Filipinos. Catering mainly to families in the “broad C” socioeconomic stratum, the community-based clinics provide primary healthcare services through each clinic staffed by two family health practitioners, three nurses, and a pharmacist.
At present, FamilyDOC is operating two clinics and expecting to open four more by next month. By 2020, says Santos, they envision having a chain of 100 clinics in the National Capital Region, with staff who “go that extra mile” to serve patients. For a basic consultation fee of P350, every client has access to the doctors and staff and to diagnostic services and basic care, while more serious cases are referred to tertiary hospitals.
The Ayala Group also has invested in other partnerships for health. Ayala Land, for instance, has partnered with the Mercado General Hospital Group to manage Qualimed, a chain of multispecialty clinics, two ambulatory surgical centers, and three full-service hospitals. The same partnership has just opened Qualimed Hospital–San Jose del Monte, while envisioning to grow the business to 10 clinics and 10 hospitals by 2020.
In the “health information technology” field, Globe Telecom and a Mexican partner have developed “Konsulta-MD,” which allows members access to medical advice from licensed doctors through their mobile and landline phones. To date, Konsulta-MD counts some 80,000 members, and its subscriber base is still growing.
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The other “new” field that Ayala has ventured into is education, through Ayala Education Inc. (AEI) which in 2013 launched the Apec (for Affordable Private Education Centers) Schools and last year acquired a majority interest in the University of Nueva Caceres, a leading educational center in Bicol.
Beth Lui, CEO of the Apec Schools, says Ayala’s venture into the educational field came after studies showed that the critical “gap” in the Philippine education scene lay at the high school level. When elementary graduates finish the grades, says Lui, three out of four of them cannot afford or cannot find room in either private or public high schools. The lack of a high school education has a “significant impact” on a young person’s prospects in life, specifically in employability, she points out.
Thus, it was decided that Ayala would enter the field of high school education, years before the K-to-12 program was even formally launched. An Apec education, says Lui, is aimed at preparing its students to find jobs that offer them higher-than-average salaries and open the doors for further opportunities.
The AEI programs for both its high schools and colleges incorporate the same key features: mastery of English, technology immersion, “learning by doing,” positive values and work habits, and relating with its employer partner network.
Since its launch, the Apec Schools has opened 27 schools with a combined enrolment of 10,300 students. A total of 22 of these schools are found in the NCR, and five are found in Region IV-A, otherwise known as Calabarzon (for Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), which is where many factories and plants are found—the obvious market for a skilled and well-educated workforce.
