ASEAN Business Awards
The ASEAN Business Awards Philippines, the local counterpart of the ASEAN Business Awards established by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ABAC), celebrates local enterprises that have created a positive impact on the growth of the Philippine economy and helped elevate the country’s image in the ASEAN. From the 60 national winners from the Philippines and other ASEAN countries, six ASEAN winners representing each category will be chosen and announced on November 20, 2015 in Kuala Lumpur.
The ASEAN SME Excellence Award for Innovation and the ASEAN Young Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines are Bel Mondo Italia Corporation and its COO, Christopher Sebastian T. Quimbo.
Bel Mondo Italia Corporation is a local family company founded in 1999 by Vicente “Nonoy” Quimbo. It produces Novellino wines, a brand well known in the Philippines, using the finest equipment and ingredients the world has to offer.
Their brand happens to make for an interesting case study, as there is no single wine brand that owns over 1% of the global market. In almost all countries, there is no “Coca-Cola” or “Pepsi” of wine, except here in the Philippines. Within the first two years of its launch in 1999, Novellino became domestic market leader and has maintained market leadership ever since.
In 2012, in order to keep up with the growing demand for their products, they built a state-of-the-art winery in Carmelray Industrial Park. This added capacity was needed as the company envisioned continued growth not only here in the Philippines, but also worldwide.
Many people thought the Quimbos were crazy for building a winery in the Philippines, but then again they heard the same thing when they launched their business. Crazy or not, their goal is to become the biggest wine company in the world. Not because they want or need more, but because their motive for running the company is to fulfil the unfulfilled aspirations of the Filipino consumer.
In Southeast Asia, people want to drink wine. When they think of wine, they regard it with high aspiration – they associate it with things like romance, culture, travel, sophistication, even music. However, wine consumption per capita is very low – about 1/100th of the more developed countries. The fact of the matter is they are intimidated, they perceive it to be too expensive, or they don’t like the taste of traditional dry wine. When talking about the wine market in Asia, Mr. Vicente Quimbo always uses the analogy of a gorgeous woman walking into a bar alone. She’s sophisticated, smart, and, of course beautiful. However, for some reason, people do not approach her. Well, the company wants to introduce her to their consumer and when they meet her they’ll find she’s not nearly as intimidating or high maintenance as they thought. In fact, she’s sweet, down to earth and has great values.
This is the vision of the company. Their recipe for success here in the Philippines can exist elsewhere in the world, but it starts with the ASEAN member countries. Bel Mondo Italia Corporation will certainly be a worthy entry for the Philippines in the ASEAN Business Awards.
The company and other past winners represent the best of Philippine companies. They inspire other Filipinos to start up and find a niche initially in the domestic market and later on in the regional and global markets. They are the answer to the Philippines widening gap between the rich and the poor by not only by providing jobs and income to the Filipino worker but also offering them the experience of drinking wine, which is common in developed countries. They make the Filipino at par with the rest of the world.
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