RODOLFO U. ARELLANO Country Manager
NCH PHILIPPINES
Rodolfo U. Arellano is the first Filipino to lead NCH Philippines, Inc., subsidiary of US-owned NCH Corp., a global manufacturer and provider of maintenance products and services.
Arellano has been with the local NCH since his work life began, and he worked his way up from a twoyear stint as national sales manager to 12 years as general sales manager before being promoted to top brass five years ago.
He’s particularly proud to be the first Filipino to head the global company in his own country. Under his watch, sales grew by 14 percent this year while operating income increased by 25.1 percent. This made the Philippine unit the “highest in percentage (in terms of) operating income in the world,” he said. NCH is present in over 50 countries.
Arellano’s job is not without challenge. At times, the company’s obstacles seem too many to count but at the end of the day, his team make the sales.
He takes to mind NCH founder, Milton P. Levy Sr.’s, philosophy and strategy in running the company way back in the early 1900s. Similar to Levy, Arellano is all about providing quality products and services, engaging like-minded philosophy to his people and translating that to a world-class business strategy.
Life as company head, its challenges and rewards
Arellano is no stranger to struggles. His background, growing up, ensured that he could handle any difficulties blocking his path to success.
“Being poor was one of my greatest obstacle,” he said. “But I refused to be poor for the rest of my life.”
So, he decided to set a goal, he said, and “worked on my goal… every day, I made sure that all my activities puts me closer to my goal.”
Arellano applied the same perseverance and solid tenacity to the way he lead his teams in NCH.
“In NCH, I started as a sales reps and after my training, I wrote a plan which was to make eight calls per day, six products demo per day and seeing four new persons per day,” he said. “I followed the plan every day (and eventually I) became ‘Sales Rep of the Year’ on my first year in the company, the highest award given by the company to its employees.”
All his planning and steadfast dedication to his goal he continued all throughout his career. It is a work attitude that have its incentives in terms of commissions and perks.
His NCH bosses recognized his brand of reliable and in no time, promoted Arellano to district manager, then area manager and regional manager for Northern Luzon. He was moved up to division manager in 1998, then national sales manager in 2000, general sales manager in 2002 and finally, the country manager 10 years later. Improving the brand
Arellano is behind the current success of NCH’s improved sales in the country.
According to him, they continue to face logistics issues but they also continue to come up with solutions to bring the brand to a larger clientsbase and market.
“With the increasing sales and demand of our products and services, our greatest challenge is the logistics, making all the products available anytime in all the region,” said Arellano.
On-time delivery remains a crucial challenge.
“(In the) Philippines our customers are practically all over the country, in all the islands. Shipments are delayed during rainy days due to flooding,” said Arellano. “The boats will not sail because of strong typhoons, especially the Visayas and Mindanao areas. (But) we are (also) now working to increase inventory in our provincial branches in Cebu and Davao to ease-up delivery.”
Since NCH is a sales-oriented global company, and markets industrial, commercial and institutional products and services through direct selling, its strength relies for the most part, on its people power. Its work force around the world currently numbers at more than 8,500.
Arellano said he knows people, he could deal with all kinds of people and have in fact dealt with all kinds of people since he began with NCH.
He would have been content and equally successful if he remained a sales manager and sales trainer – two things he could do with both eyes closed, apparently.
For Arellano, leading his sales team is the most challenging part of his work. It is also that part of his work that he enjoyed more, he said. “(It is what) I enjoyed best, leading the sales team to sell our products and services and seeing the great results month after month.”
As head of the company, he thinks it necessary to find the most-abled sales person, but it is also his responsibility to trim the employees’ base. It is the “handling of terminations” of employees that he finds unfortunate as chief. “I hate seeing people go.”
Arellano noted that so far, the strategy of single branding has aided them at improving the NCH identity in this part of the region. “(It has made it) more known in the market, as all our people carries one name (NCH) not like before that our people carry their division’s name.”
He added, “our sales reps are also grouped accordingly based on their specialization such as in food safety, wastewater, maintenance, lubricant and Chem-Aqua… with this there are more synergy among our sales reps and managers, thereby increasing sales and market penetration.”
This strategy worked since NCH customers are buying multiple products and increasing the number of accounts that the company could sell to a growing market.
Arellano expects strong growth to continue, going forward.
“I am looking at continued growth in sales and profit as we open more new accounts in different specializations,” he said. “We also plan to hire more sales reps to cover the unmanned territories and we also plan to improve the skills of our people by providing specialization training (as well as) enhance the cooperation among our sales force by coming up with an appropriate ‘Synergy Incentive Program’.” This program will be launched soon to expand customer population.
Arellano’s vision for the Philippine market is big, and he has the support of his global bosses.
“I foresee all the ‘5-Specializations’ will continue to grow in years to come,” he said with confidence. As for the lubricant and water-treatment, he sees these two increasing in sales by an average of 30 percent a year as they target new accounts.
With the company’s diversity in products and services, Arellano emphasizes their commitment to the environment, and to continue to produce “environment-friendly” or eco-friendly products.
“There is an increasing trend among our customers for the environment-friendly or eco-friendly products and services as the government is becoming more stricter in the compliance of laws, local regulations and policies not only in the Philippines but all over the world,” Arellano noted.
NCH’s corporate headquarters in the US have zeroed in on the protection of the planet in all its products, from the development stage up until the introduction and marketing of these products.
“(We are) focused in developing and introducing more products, programs and services that are ESH (environment, safety, and health) compliance. Our goal is to help by providing all our customers’ needs by becoming a ‘One-Stop Maintenance’ company,” said Arellano.
“We are going to be the best company in the world at cleaning water, conserving energy and maintaining equipment that is economically desirable to our customers and ESHresponsible,” he remarked, quoting the company’s global war-cry.
This was actually NCH global’s mission vision, to become the best in the maintenance business and committed to safe-guarding the environment. Based on company information, NCH Asia alone is locked on increasing investments on the development of what it called “unparalleled knowledge, technical competency, and competitive differentiation.”
“We believe in ‘people doing business with people’” – is the NCH mantra. This is developing “direct sales force network to nurture personal relationships, continuously enhance its customer understanding, and drive market penetration.”
“At NCH Asia, we help our customers understand our products and solutions and learn how to apply them in their business. We believe that our sales people, backed by an extensive network of qualified chemists, technical expertise, and research and development, are best placed to identify the requirements of our customers and recommend the correct solutions,” according to the company.
Simply ‘Rod’
Arellano is modest by nature, and ambitious to the core. The two traits are not in conflict with one another, both are character-building as far as he is concerned.
His father was his number one influence as a child, as a man, and as a human being.
“My father was the greatest model to me, being an honest public servant, hardworking farmer and a good leader in the community,” said Arellano.
When he was younger and not yet invested in his natural talent as a sales person, Arellano wanted to become a pilot. From Feati University, he graduated with degrees in aeronautical engineering/aeronautical and mechanical engineering, which he said brings the dream closer.
After college, he went on to enroll and eventually passed the Philippine Air Force Flying School. His dream of becoming a pilot wasn’t in his life’s journey, however, when he failed to pass one critical exam which was the night vision test.
This did not discourage him and he joined the Air Force anyway. “I still joined the Philippine Air Force as a ground officer but not as a pilot,” he said.
A pilot at heart, he takes opportunities to travel leisurely with his family. He doesn’t mind that someone else is piloting his airplane. His countries of choice to visit are the US, UK, Australia, Japan, among other locations.
When not travelling, this grandfather likes to garden and enjoy watching movies with the grandchildren and the rest of his brood. “I like and never missed to see Jackie Chan movies (his) stunts are accompanied with wholesome comedy.”
Arellano is a deeply religious person, attributing the lessons from the Christian Bible as “source for my strength and management decision.”
“Most of my management decision in my career as country manager of NCH is based on the Bible. I always consult ‘The Book’ if I needed help,” he said. He also regularly consults his senior pastor in his church whom he considers as a “godly leader who walks his life with Jesus Christ.”
It is no wonder Arellano is a man who can embrace compassion and easily let go of trespasses. “I am a forgiving person,” he said. All he wants is to see a peaceful world “by sharing the gospel of Christ to everybody.”
“Do onto others what you want others do onto you,” is his favorite quote from Jesus Christ. Wise words the Bible said He imparted in the Sermon on the Mount.