From ‘takatak boy’ to pharmaceutical top man
New Marketlink Pharmaceutical Corporation Chief Operating Officer Cesar Cayas broke into a contented smile when TheSunday TimesMagazine visited the company’s headquarters in Pasig City to ask after his story of success.
Far from conceited, he said nonetheless that at 64 years old, he should really enjoy retirement by now with his wife and spend their time tending their property in Samar.
After all, his four children— Lyann, Chris Ryan, Richard Vincent and Shawn Margaret—are already college graduates, and save for the eldest who is helping him realize his dream of building a tourist at-
traction on his land, the Cayas brood are busy forging their own career paths.
Professionally, too, the COO has exceeded his goal of turning New Marketlink from a P350-million pharmaceutical company in 2011 to P1-billion sales revenue in 2014, and currently working to hit the P2-billion mark by year-end.
“Honestly, it’s not that I want to brag but I don’t need to work full-time anymore to enjoy the perks life has to offer,” Cayas disclosed, not one to go by false modesty. “Being consultant would be just fine"
However, his expertise in operations, sales and marketing, not to mention his brand of leadership never fail to inspire employees who wish to continue learning from him and working for him.
As such, he has been unable to leave his post, agreeing to work full-time and continue imparting his knowledge in the business in one condition—the full implementation of his plans to achieve the new set of goals he has set for New Marketlink.
“If one [of the plans] is not enforced, then better to enforce none at all,” has always been Cayas’ rule of thumb.
“There were apprehensions when I set a P1-billion goal when I first started as COO, but when we achieved it, I made sure that everyone in the company had their share of the blessings,” he explained.
“That’s why when I asked for cars for those in the field and those working to meet the targets it wasn’t hard to convince top management that the idea should not be considered a perk for our personnel, but a necessity for all of us to move up and achieve more.”
Cayas further related how the practice of showing the company’s appreciation for employees pushes them to do better and better, what with his policy to give up to 15th month pay to the staff, as well as 16th- to 17th-month bonus and all-expenses paid travel incentives to top performers.
According to the COO, he uses the “Potato Farmer Principle” in leading the 300-strong marketing company.
“There was a farmer who loaded his harvests on a truck, whose carriage has slits and spaces. As he drove, the smaller produce got thrown out along the way, especially at sloping distances. When he got to the market, only the best and big ones—the top potatoes—were left and sold to buyers who were willing to pay a higher price for quality,” he narrated.
“So you see, in a company setup, those who don’t perform while the rest work hard to meet their quotas end up removing themselves from the organization. Silanamismo ang umaalis ka sinakakahiyana manna lahat
nakaka- meet ng target pero they can’t meet theirs,” he explained.
Power of lagundi
In 2002, Cayas and a small team started the manufacture of lagundi cough medicine at Altermed Corporation, a subsidiary of Pascual Laboratories. To market the herbal remedy, he also institutionalized the advertisement “Pambansang Gamot Sa Ubo,” which brought P300 million in sales from the initial P5 million the product sold.
But he had to leave the company and transferred to Multicare Pharmaceuticals, setting sales records anew in his new environment until his short stint with GNC Philippines as consultant, then finally at
New Marketlink.
Nationalistic even in his business practices, Cayas hit two birds with one stone at this time when he advocated countryside development by convincing New Marketlink’s mother company, Tao Corporation, to zero in the indigenous lagundi plant. Proven effective in fighting cough, with no side effects nor the
possibility of overdose based on their research, the result is Lagundex in tablet and syrup form.
“We source our raw materials from Palawan where their lagundi is also proven to have higher agnuside content than those from Nueva Ecija or Bataan. As we need more and more supply of lagundi, more and more farmers [in cooperatives] benefit
from the demand too, providing them with sustainable livelihood. Not only do we advance the use of local products, we also provide our countrymen with a source of income,” he noted.
Today, the efficacy of Lagundex is swiftly spreading around the world, and is already marketed commercially in Malaysia and the US.
“Hopefully we can penetrate Japan soon,” Cayas enthused. “In Korea and Australia as well, more and more people are becoming